ISIS closing in on Al Asad air base w/ 300 marines confined.......

[fskimospy]

That's what I thought. Partisans are giving credit and blame where none is due.

Agree. Bush made a catastrophic mistake when he chose to invade Iraq. It was horrific.

His decision making after that initial mistake I actually think was pretty good, and better than I gave him credit for at the time. Even though Iraq is still a shit show it seems that it is less of a shit show than it would be without the surge, which is something I thought would fail when it happened.

When it came to be time to leave neither Bush nor Obama made some mistake, it was just how things go. Iraq wanted to impose conditions we wouldn't meet, so you either shitcan the new Iraqi government or you let them prosecute American soldiers in their courts. The choice was clear.

 

[brycejones]

Agree. Bush made a catastrophic mistake when he chose to invade Iraq. It was horrific.

His decision making after that initial mistake I actually think was pretty good, and better than I gave him credit for at the time. Even though Iraq is still a shit show it seems that it is less of a shit show than it would be without the surge, which is something I thought would fail when it happened.

When it came to be time to leave neither Bush nor Obama made some mistake, it was just how things go. Iraq wanted to impose conditions we wouldn't meet, so you either shitcan the new Iraqi government or you let them prosecute American soldiers in their courts. The choice was clear.

I am going to disagree with you. Iraq become a shit show when we thought we could destroy the existing government and then move in with a small number of troops to secure the entire country. When told an occupation force of 500,000 troops was needed the administration shot the messenger. The shit show followed from there.

 

[chucky2]

Actually, the shit show started when any resources and attention were taken away from Afghanistan (/Pakistan) to go do Iraq. That was screw up #1, and never needed to happen.

Screw up #2 wasn't going into Iraq, that itself was great timing and properly implemented was a good idea. F up #2 was not going into Iraq properly as you point out, followed by another large F up, #3, which was, not having a massive infrastructure (and thus jobs), read: carrot, for the Iraqi people to meld behind.

What Bush, who was a terrible manager of managers, did instead was allow resources and attention to be diverted from Afghanistan, not expending the political capital necessary to go into Iraq with the requisite amount of troops (he was of course Politician, so it's obvious why he did so), and then not having done enough pre-liberation build up of carrot type planning/materials to not have Iraqi lives turn into shit.

One could probably throw a large F up # 2.5 in there (which applies to Afghanistan) in that these countries really can't be given control so quickly, as they suck at governing themselves. Large lessons learned hopefully for anyone coming after Bush II...

Chuck

 

[BurnItDwn]

I blame Bush.

I dont blame Bush necessarily. But I do think Bush could be an example of somebody who looks like he acted on impulse instead of thinking things through.

Also, his brother certainly is of the "act first, thing later" attitude (releasing all the docs, sounds great and stuff, hooray freedom, ohh but it had lots of personal shit that really he shouldnt have shared, ehhh maybe he should have sent it through some kinda filter or something .... )

 

[Sonikku]

What Bush, who was a terrible manager of managers

How were we supposed to know a man like Bush when handed power and resources to manage would run it all into the ground? We didn't know.

We didn't know...

 

[Matt1970]

Agree. Bush made a catastrophic mistake when he chose to invade Iraq. It was horrific.

His decision making after that initial mistake I actually think was pretty good, and better than I gave him credit for at the time. Even though Iraq is still a shit show it seems that it is less of a shit show than it would be without the surge, which is something I thought would fail when it happened.

When it came to be time to leave neither Bush nor Obama made some mistake, it was just how things go. Iraq wanted to impose conditions we wouldn't meet, so you either shitcan the new Iraqi government or you let them prosecute American soldiers in their courts. The choice was clear.

Yep. I knew it was going to be a shithole because not much had changed since the 1st Iraq war and why Bush Sr. didn't topple Saddam when he had the chance. I remember them talking back then about how people would come out of the woodwork and we would be in a house to house street fight for many years.