[Rhodes22-list] Political:Off to Iraq

[3drecon at comcast.net]

I was not a fan of invading Iraq.  I did not join to go to Iraq, but I gave my pledge to the US, collected the pay and took the training opportunities so when I was called, I did what my country demanded.  Dave, I have a couple of answeres below

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: DCLewis1 at aol.com 

> 
> Brad, 
> 
> To respond to your response: I have to plead ignorance regarding Murtha’s 
> ideas for redeploying. I’ve been largely out of touch for the past 2+ weeks 
> and I likely missed your post (and Murtha’s notion). I apologize. My 
> initial 
> thought is that it’s a long way from Okinawa to the Middle East and I don’t 
> get the connection - except that it gets us out of Iraq. 

The Democrat solution to give a time table and/or pack up and leave is not an option now.  We cannot leave until there are forces in place capable of defending Iraq.  We are moving to that end and it will take time.  The major mistake we made was not anticipating (Bush admitted this in a recent news conference) the rapid melting away of Iraqi military and police forces.  They left an infrastructure vacuum
> Regarding the Clinton letter: I again say what you are trying is a huge 
> stretch not likely to be accepted by anyone on this board, or the electorate in 
> general. I recall, recognize and accept all the frustration Clinton and Bush 
> had with Saddam Hussein; but it’s one thing for Clinton to authorize an air 
> strike on Iraq and have an adversarial policy towards it, it’s quite another 
> thing for Bush to “pull the trigger”, to use your phrase in your post, and 
> authorize more than 3,000 air strikes and a ground invasion. The 2 different 
> responses are quantitatively and qualitatively hugely different. Trying to 
> tie the current Iraq morass back to Clinton is a losing gambit. 

I think the Clinton Administration recognized the threat but overestimated the effect of their response.  In the post 9/11 world, Bush, for his reasons, decided to invade Iraq.  Frankly, we could have used UN resolution defiance to invade Israel if we were so inclined.  Iraq just happened to be the guy who pissed us off the most, I guess.

> 
> What were some pre-invasion alternatives? 
> Alternative 1: Skip it. It has always seemed patently obvious to me that if 
> the nations most affected by a rogue Iraq really didn’t give a damn that 
> there was no reason to pursue the matter. I think Mr Bush should have 
> identified this option in a nanosecond. Not going to war should always be 
> Option A. 
> OR if he really thought there was reason for a pre-emptive war, he should 
> have directed every component of the Intelligence Community to sit down with 
> their foreign counterpart and cooperatively sort out the issues - note: I did 
> not say sell them on the US position, I said sort out the intelligence data 
> and input and reach a joint supportable conclusion with the real possibility 
> that his going in assessment was wrong. This is not Mon morning 
> quarterbacking, to me this is common sense. You want to count on and use your 
> allies - so 
> use your allies intelligence services. Somewhere I’ve read we had 3 
> intelligence agents in Iraq prior to the invasion - clearly a limited capability 
> - 
> the validity of our intelligence estimate prior to the invasion would seem to 
> support that limited capability. I’d bet Turkey had hundreds of agents 
> (given their Kurd problem). Turkey is a good ally, ask Turkey for their best 
> estimate and data. Get Turkey’s cooperation, or even better, cooperate with 
> Turkey (i.e. Turkish troops in the line of fire, not ours). Seems to me that 
> if 
> the most affected nations, the nations at greatest risk, will not support 
> our operations, and worse publically and privately oppose it, a reasonable 
> approach would be to skip the whole thing - that’s Alternative 1. 
First, we didn't use Turkish troops because of the Turkish history with the Kurds.  We have had strained relations with Turkey over their treatment of the Kurds.  It seems Turkey, Iraq and Iran have all had problems with them.
We had too few intelligence officers because during the drawdown of the 1990s the Army drew down 10% and Army Intelligence drew down 20% (we were already a shortage branch).  I think the "culture" of the previous administration was to distrust national intelligence agencies (the same people who are carping about wireless intercepts of terrorist phonecalls by NSA).  Many of Clinton's advisors were from the Carter Administration which followed the Church Commission which evicerated our the intelligence capabilities.  We did talk to the British, French and others who gave us the same conclusions about WMD (which should be defined as Nuclear, Biological and/or Chemical Weapons).  The French, you might remember, was taking bribes from Saddam in the Oil for Food scandal.  I think a Brit went down for that too, which doesn't even take into consideration Kofi Annon's son.

> 
> Alternative 2: Get your allies on board up front. Going back to the intell 
> meetings I recommended above, it’s possible that allies might come on board. 
> But do that up front, before the invasion. Don’t have a Division of troops 
> afloat in the Med with nowhere to go when the invasion starts, your Generals 
> need to understand what assets they have and where they are. You need to 
> know who’s with you and who’s against you. Sort it out up front - that’s 
> Alternative 2. 
France, Russia and China were the only major countries to object to the invasion.  Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech, Spain, Japan, even, to a lesser extent, Germany supported the invasion (this is not an all inclusive list).  Spain pulled out when the Islamic Terrorists blew up the train.  Germany, providing non-combat aid, withdrew support after a while due to public pressure and the SPD (Social Democrats) party was never too keen on war.  They do support Afghanistan though.
> 
> Alternative 3: It has always seemed to me that if the most distinguished and 
> most competent military presence in the Cabinet, Collin Powell, said “Mr 
> President you really ought to think about this” the President should 
> reasonably 
> and immediately bring the entire process to Full Stop until it was sorted 
> out and Secy Powell was completely satisfied. I understand that Secy Powell 
> ran the State Dept and that Secy Rumsfeld ran the Defense Dept, but Secy Powell 
> is also Gen Powell and he knows a helluva lot more about running a war, a 
> campaign, the uniformed DoD, etc, than Mr Rumsfeld. What happened is just 
> inexcusable. I think Secy Powell understood the lack of post invasion 
> planning. I also think Rumsfeld, in the best MBA tradition, nickle & dimed 
> the 
> uniformed military at every turn so that the result was the minimum force 
> needed 
> to effect the invasion, as opposed to the maximum force needed to win the war 
> (this includes post-invasion). Alternative 3 was to stop the process until 
> competent authority (Collin Powell) felt we had it right based on his unique 
> knowledge and experience in the Cabinet. 
Mr. Rumsfeld attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC scholarships (A.B., 1954) and served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as an aviator and flight instructor. In 1957, he transferred to the Ready Reserve and continued his Naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist until 1975. He transferred to the Standby Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and to the Retired Reserve with the rank of Captain in 1989.  cited www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html
Colin Powell is an intelligent and honorable man and he has his opinion.  So do people who don't agree with him.  I have heard (personally) GEN Abizaid say we do not need more troops in theatre.  We have always had all the equipment we need, and it has improved as we went along.  As the Sec of Def pointed out, ". . .you go to war with what you have."  You can't go with future weapons.  I've been doing this a long time and I didn't anticipate needing armored jeeps (HUMVEEs).  Actually if you want to talk about anticipating armored jeeps, why didn't the previous administration upgrade all these vehicles after the Somalia debacle.  I don't blame them, I didn't think of it either until the IEDs started going off.  HUMVEEs don't grow armor.  They have to be retrofitted and it takes time and money.
 
> Personally, I have always felt the case for pre-emptive war with Iraq was 
> weak. We all know that in retrospect, many of us knew that prospectively. The 
> basis for my conclusion is that Iraq was never presumed to have delivery 
> systems (MRBMs, ICBMs) with the accuracy to be a threat to anyone but Israel - 
> and I’m positive Israel can, and will, take care of itself. You can hide WMD 
> development so that it’s tough to track (ask Philip), but you can’t hide the 
> development of delivery systems - the systems have to be tested on ranges, and 
> we can track those tests. No one has ever claimed Iraq had adequate 
> delivery systems to put the US at risk. My point here is not to claim 
> self-righteous brilliance, my point only claims common sense. 
>
I agree partially here.  You can more easily track delivery systems than the actual weapons, but it is not impossible to track the weapons.  I also agree the case to invade was weak.  I think we should have negotiated with Saddam, propped him up, paid him, trained his army, sold them equipment and made him a reliable ally in return for his help in rooting out the terrorists.  We could have given his army a mission against the Talaban.  That's my solution in an alternate universe.  Now, we should separate the country along the same model as Switzerland, each region Iraqi, semi autonomous but with a binding federal type government.  Each autonomous region could have their own religion (Sunni, Shia etc) and answer to the federal for federal issues.

> >From a political perspective many of us were opposed to the Iraq war from 
> the start, but I think the majority of the electorate decided to trust the 
> President’s judgement - and now, not surprisingly, they feel let down. The 
> electorates disenchantment with Bush’s judgement is the political heat you see 
> in 
> the newspaper everyday. The 3 alternatives above were clearly available to 
> the President and he chose not to use them. He rushed to judgement when he 
> should have been a lot more skeptical, and a lot better prepared. 
> 
> Again, I don’t think what I’ve outlined above is Mon morning 
> quarterbacking, I think the alternatives outlined above are just common sense, 
> they amount 
> to due diligence. 
> 
> Just my opinion. 
> 
> Dave 
> 
> 
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