NationStates Jolt Archive

Here in the United States, there is a lot of debatge going on as to whether or not an investigation should be held into the intelligence failures that led to the war in Iraq. One of the big arguments that I keep hearing from the administration against the administration is the response that they did not fabricate any false intelligence, and therefore no investigation is needed. I see a big flaw in this argument, and I am going to illustrate it here (I support an investigation):

First off, for the sake of argument, lets assume that no one in the administration, or the military, or the intelligence organizations did anything dishonest. Lets assume there was no fabrication of intelligence, no intentional lying to the American congress and public, and no pressure from the white house to the intelligence community to come out with the intelligence the administration wanted.

The fact is, even if all of that is true, there were a lot of errors and flat out incorrect intelligence:

1). WMDs: Iraq was supposed to not only have a WMD arsenal, but also an infustructure in place to develop and build more. We have found no evidence of weapons, which could have been hidden, and no evidence of the infustrure, which would be fairly hard to have kept hidden after 2 1/2 years of of our forces scouring the country. That means the intelligence was probably wrong.

2). It is generally accepted that Iraq was not trying to get yellow cake from Niger, therefore that intelligence was wrong.

3). Intelligence believed that when the invasion began, we would be able to count on the support of the Shi'ite population in the south, that many of them would rise up against the Saddam regime, and that those that didn't would be on the streets cheering us on as we drove through their cities and villages. This uprising force was believed to be able to help in maintaining security following the collapse of the Saddam regime. It was partly this intelligence that led to the decision to move in with a smaller force than many generals were asking for. The intelligence was wrong. There was no large uprising by the Shi'ites, there was no Shi'ite group to help with security. While the Shi'ites were no unhappy at the Americans coming through, on the whole they were not in the streets cheering us on, but were watching from their homes nervously (there are some exceptions to this, some villages did have people cheering, but they were a minority).

4). The insurgency. This was, in my opinion, the biggest failure of the intelligence. They completely missed the fact that an insurgency would form, and that it would include foreign fighters as well as native Iraqis. They completely missed that Saddam and his commanders had a plan in place for getting an insurgency started, a plan which had existed for years. I, myself, knowing the history of the people we were dealing with, predicted in late 2002/early 2003, before the invasion, that there would be some sort of insurgency, including mujhahadin (I am sure I spelled it wrong) from neighboring countries. Thats how these people work when they feel they are being occupied by foreign "infedals." When the Republican Guard just faded away rather than face us, I predicted that they were following a pre-set plan of guarrilla warfare, since their commanders had to know they could not hope to beat us in open battle. My point here is that the people in the intelligence community are smarter than me, and there are a lot of them, yet they apparently missed all of this.

5). Numerious intelligence failures have led to the failure to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.

6). Intelligence believed that there was a strong link between Al Qaeda and the Saddam regime. Since the invasion, this has been found to be false. In fact, while there was an Al Qaeda presence in Iraq, its mission was to bring down the Saddam regime, as it representeda seculier government in the heart of the arab world. They wanted to get rid of Saddam and replace him with an Islamic state.

My point, there have been a lot of intelligence failures, and I feel that many of the US casualties could have been avoided, even if we still had chosen to invade Iraq.

Fabrications and lies are not the only possible cause for these failures. We need an investigation to find out what went wrong. It could be that we rely too much or too little on electronic intelligence over human intel. It could be that we have a bad system for handling incoming reports. It could be that we do not have enough translators for arabic to go through intercepted messeages fast enough. The list of possibilities goes on.

We need an investigation so that we can fix the problem. It does not need to be a game of deciding who to blame for all that happened. We need to find out what went wrong and fix it so that the intelligence is correct (or at least a lot better) in the future. I we decide we need to attack somewhere else in the globe, we need to have it based on sound intelligence, and have a battle plan that works because it is based on sound intelligence, otherwise we see a repeat of the situation we are in now.

Investigate and then give Iraq back to that pleasant chap Saddam.

Investigate and then give Iraq back to that pleasant chap Saddam.
I am going to make the assumption that you think that I don't believe Iraq is better off without Saddam. You are very wrong. Saddam was a horrible dictator, and we never should have been arming him in the 1980s. In fact, we should have gotten rid of his regime back in 1991. That is why I made the point in my post that if we still had chosen to invade Iraq when we had accurate intelligence, we would have had far fewer casualties. If intelligence had not missed all of the obvious signs that there would be an insurgency then the military would have been ready to stop it before it even started, and we would not be talking today about trying to maintain security, or arguing over whether or not to decide to pull out in six months. We would be talking about increasing economic ties with the newly freed nation of Iraq, a nation which we had been able to pull most of our troops out of in 2004, the remainder being there to help in construction, with the Iraqis able to handle what little security was still necessery.

If I am wrong about my asumption on what your comment means, then I apologize.

I am going to make the assumption that you think that I don't believe Iraq is better off without Saddam. You are very wrong. Saddam was a horrible dictator, and we never should have been arming him in the 1980s. In fact, we should have gotten rid of his regime back in 1991. That is why I made the point in my post that if we still had chosen to invade Iraq when we had accurate intelligence, we would have had far fewer casualties. If intelligence had not missed all of the obvious signs that there would be an insurgency then the military would have been ready to stop it before it even started, and we would not be talking today about trying to maintain security, or arguing over whether or not to decide to pull out in six months. We would be talking about increasing economic ties with the newly freed nation of Iraq, a nation which we had been able to pull most of our troops out of in 2004, the remainder being there to help in construction, with the Iraqis able to handle what little security was still necessery.

If I am wrong about my asumption on what your comment means, then I apologize.
You assume that i assumed thats what you thought oh no that is how i feel about it.

We should give Iraq back to Saddam, as conquer all surrounding countries and give them to him too, as well as all of the midwestern US.

We should give Iraq back to Saddam, as conquer all surrounding countries and give them to him too, as well as all of the midwestern US.
You see, that is just a stupid comment, which is just a waste of everyones time, especially the time you spent typing it. I started this thread because I wanted to see some genuine opinions on the subject.

Even Harlesburg's post was more productive then yours (no offense Harlesburg, I see from another thread that you are very tired right now, so I forgive you;) )

Investigate and then give Iraq back to that pleasant chap Saddam.
heh, yeah thad'd be the perfect punishment for his crimes :D

Investigate and then give Iraq back to that pleasant chap Saddam.
heh, yeah that'd be the perfect punishment for his crimes :D

Here in the United States, there is a lot of debatge going on as to whether or not an investigation should be held into the intelligence failures that led to the war in Iraq. One of the big arguments that I keep hearing from the administration against the administration is the response that they did not fabricate any false intelligence, and therefore no investigation is needed. I see a big flaw in this argument, and I am going to illustrate it here (I support an investigation):I also see a big flaw in this argument. Somebody forged the Niger uranium documents. On top of that, the administration, including the President, lied about this fabricated evidence.

I also see a big flaw in this argument. Somebody forged the Niger uranium documents. On top of that, the administration, including the President, lied about this fabricated evidence.
I happen to personnally believe this as well, but if that is used as the argument for an investigation, then we will just get the administration and the republicans calling us unpatriotic flip-flopping cowards who don't support our troops. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially if my argument for an investigation was used.

Those forged document actually were taken by the British intelligence, so it could be argued that Bush did not know they were forged, and therefore did not lie. The failure here would be that of our intelligence services not to determine whether or not these documents were genuine. I am not saying that this is what went wrong, I am saying that we need an investigation to determine that.

Let me make clear, when I say "for the sake of argument, let's assume everyone was honest and no one lied," I am only using that to set up an argument for why we would still need an investigation.

Also, I have thought of another intelligence failure/error, and have added it as number 6 to my first post.

You see, that is just a stupid comment, which is just a waste of everyones time, especially the time you spent typing it. I started this thread because I wanted to see some genuine opinions on the subject.

Even Harlesburg's post was more productive then yours (no offense Harlesburg, I see from another thread that you are very tired right now, so I forgive you;) )
No Figjam he gets a Get out of Jail free card because some arse wipe couldnt conquer a country for the right reasons.
Then couldnt hold it properly.
Saddam had order now what does it have oh yeah Freedom

Yeah Freedom to get blown up for nothing.
Instead of trumped up charges great!

What I can't understand is the nation of freedom and liberty invaded another country and changed the leader before they even had chance to investigate peoperly. He probably did have WMDs, but also the sense to send them out on a ship into the Indian Ocean days before UN officials arrived in Iraq.

What I can't understand is the nation of freedom and liberty invaded another country and changed the leader before they even had chance to investigate peoperly. He probably did have WMDs, but also the sense to send them out on a ship into the Indian Ocean days before UN officials arrived in Iraq.
Where in the Indian ocean would he have put it, and how? He couldn't jut dump it in the water, cause then he could never use it again (remember, he did not have any submarines to go down and pick it up). He basically had no navy to speak of, we took care of it pretty nicely in Dessert Storm, and he could never have gotten one of his remaining naval vessels out and into the Gulf, let alone the Indian Ocean. We had been running a blockade and search of ships there since 1991, and it is still operating today.

My point is we shouldn't have had to investigate the intelligence properly before the invasion, we should be able to trust that our intelligence groups have already determined it to be accurate, and have gotten it right. Somewhere, that failed.

Just curious, what UN officials are you talking about, the ones who would have arrived right after he hid the weapons. He had expelled them, and they did not come back until after we invaded.

OK, I am going to bed, and will check back in on this creation of mine later (I really need to learn to stop making threads right before I go to bed).

Yes cause it is so easy to tear them apart.

I happen to personnally believe this as well, but if that is used as the argument for an investigation, then we will just get the administration and the republicans calling us unpatriotic flip-flopping cowards who don't support our troops. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially if my argument for an investigation was used.

Those forged document actually were taken by the British intelligence, so it could be argued that Bush did not know they were forged, and therefore did not lie. The failure here would be that of our intelligence services not to determine whether or not these documents were genuine. I am not saying that this is what went wrong, I am saying that we need an investigation to determine that.Prior to GWB's allegation that "British intelligence has learned...", US intelligence had the same evidence, and the CIA had already told the administration that it was horseshit.


Let me make clear, when I say "for the sake of argument, let's assume everyone was honest and no one lied," I am only using that to set up an argument for why we would still need an investigation.

Also, I have thought of another intelligence failure/error, and have added it as number 6 to my first post.The Saddam - Al-Qaeda connection was a total fabrication. There is no possible way anyone with any sense bought into this crap. There was never any actual intelligence that suggested this. It was never anything more than a baesless accusation. In fact, it was more often insinuated than outright claimed.

Just curious, what UN officials are you talking about, the ones who would have arrived right after he hid the weapons. He had expelled them, and they did not come back until after we invaded.Does the name Hans Blix ring a bell?

Here in Britian we've already had various inquiries, the one into the intellegence being the Butler inquiry

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3878025.stm

http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Report#Conclusions_of_the_Review

Where in the Indian ocean would he have put it, and how? He couldn't jut dump it in the water, cause then he could never use it again (remember, he did not have any submarines to go down and pick it up). He basically had no navy to speak of, we took care of it pretty nicely in Dessert Storm, and he could never have gotten one of his remaining naval vessels out and into the Gulf, let alone the Indian Ocean. We had been running a blockade and search of ships there since 1991, and it is still operating today.

My point is we shouldn't have had to investigate the intelligence properly before the invasion, we should be able to trust that our intelligence groups have already determined it to be accurate, and have gotten it right. Somewhere, that failed.

Just curious, what UN officials are you talking about, the ones who would have arrived right after he hid the weapons. He had expelled them, and they did not come back until after we invaded.

- He doesn't have any submarines that we know about, you never know what people have hidden up there sleeves that they
- It was on a freighter that's been sailing around islands in the Indian ocean for over a year now.
- Anyone close by can "look after them for him" until the storm passes (unfortunatley we all invaded first)

The Germans said in the 1930s that they wern't building up the Whermacht, and then they invaded half of Europe. It could be the same heer. Sorry, here. (is that to obscure a pun?)

- He doesn't have any submarines that we know about, you never know what people have hidden up there sleeves that they

Yes. He might have a Saturn V somewhere in his sleeve too. And a space launch facility on par with Houston. Please, a little common sense? A submarine would mean he had to have it bought and shipped it in. Hard to do that with the blockade in place.


- It was on a freighter that's been sailing around islands in the Indian ocean for over a year now.

How did he teleport it to a freighter just last year when the blockade and inspections were going on ever since 1991?

iraq had oil...was the only Intel the yanks and co needed

Yes. He might have a Saturn V somewhere in his sleeve too. And a space launch facility on par with Houston. Please, a little common sense? A submarine would mean he had to have it bought and shipped it in. Hard to do that with the blockade in place.

How did he teleport it to a freighter just last year when the blockade and inspections were going on ever since 1991?

It's easy to build a submarine yourself with the plans. To raise a fleet, yes, would be impossible but a secret single sub is about as difficult as putting on a hat. (The Reds managed a few thosuand before anyone noticed) And Iraq is a big place. A space facility, I agree, is out of the question, but if Saddam did build something like that he would have gone to rediculous lengths to hide it. There are thousands of V1 rocket sites all over France from WWII, and we only found them in to '60s. They were only hidden by a few twigs and a Betreten Verboten sign (German speakers, forgive the poor spelling)

Anyway, that's drifting from the point, he couldn't/wouldn't dump them underwater because he has no equipment to efficiently retrieve it. The ship can easily sneak out of Iraq. (Obviously we were all previously assuming the impregnability of radar: a small boat can easily slip through it) and why couldn't he have driven them out of Iraq, to Iran and then sailed from there. Perhaps freighter is too strong a word: just stick to "boat" from now on. A boat could easily either evade detection or bluff its way through. The trade and travel papers for the boat were investigated, and found to be perfect. That makes it even more suspicious. (In real life, there are always some loopholes and irregularities in peoper. The total absence of any is concerning)

I am going to make the assumption that you think that I don't believe Iraq is better off without Saddam. You are very wrong. Saddam was a horrible dictator, and we never should have been arming him in the 1980s. In fact, we should have gotten rid of his regime back in 1991. That is why I made the point in my post that if we still had chosen to invade Iraq when we had accurate intelligence, we would have had far fewer casualties. If intelligence had not missed all of the obvious signs that there would be an insurgency then the military would have been ready to stop it before it even started, and we would not be talking today about trying to maintain security, or arguing over whether or not to decide to pull out in six months. We would be talking about increasing economic ties with the newly freed nation of Iraq, a nation which we had been able to pull most of our troops out of in 2004, the remainder being there to help in construction, with the Iraqis able to handle what little security was still necessery.

If I am wrong about my asumption on what your comment means, then I apologize.

The final excuse is Saddam was a bad man. OK, we all agree with that. BUT if the reason to go to war wa to take out the worst dictator in the world--we failed. There are far worse dictators in Africa. Why didn't we take them out if we were so warmed by evil that we needed to go to war? The answer is---Saddam being a bad man wasn't the reason any more than the African dictators aren't worth taking out.

We didn't see the guerilla war coming? This shows how ignorant the US people are to history and world culture How could any intelligent person NOT see this coming? Whenever a weak force fights a powerful force, how do they have any chance of winning? How did the US win the revolutionary war? Look at the culture of the area. How did Israel come to be? How do the Palistinians fight Israel? How did the Northern Alliance fight the Taliban? The US "intelligence" (I use that word loosely to describe the CIA, the administration, and any Americans that believed this would be a quick war) believed a quick war was possible after looking at history and culture? What school did these people go to? If they don't teach students better than that we should burn it down.

How the US survives in their self imposed cocoon is amazing. A world leader should at least understand that there is a world beyond their borders.

The fact is, even if all of that is true, there were a lot of errors and flat out incorrect intelligence.

The history of the CIA, and in fact, the unwritten history of most intelligence services, is one of continuous failure.

Satellite and recon photos can be misinterpreted (you can see or not see what you needed to see).

Radio intercepts can be mistranslated or garbled.

Human agents and informants are often wrong.

And when you try to tie all the pieces together at the junior analyst's desk, things get missed or misinterpreted.

The nice thing is that the Agency and the analysts never get the blame (or rarely). The press will blame the President, or worst case, the Director of Central Intelligence - and the system that made the mistake in the first place will receive more funding on the promise that they'll do more of the same in the future.

If you figure that the CIA couldn't predict the fall of the Soviet Union, and missed 9-11, what chance do you think they have of getting anything right?

The history of the CIA, and in fact, the unwritten history of most intelligence services, is one of continuous failure.


To be fair the failure is all you are aware off. The sucsesses are kept secret because if they became public it would compromise their agents in many cases

To be fair the failure is all you are aware off. The sucsesses are kept secret because if they became public it would compromise their agents in many cases

It's rather odd that they missed the fall of the Soviet Union. And 9-11. And the WMD in Iraq...

It doesn't sound like we're getting our money's worth. Instead of giving them more money to screw up some more, maybe we should take a look at the way they do their work, and give it a radical overhaul. Can't be any worse than what they're doing now.

Investigate and then give Iraq back to that pleasant chap Saddam.

I personally agree with the invasion of Iraq to remove a murdering dictator from power. I just do not think that *one* country should be allowed to decide who else is "naughty" or "nice".

I personally agree with the invasion of Iraq to get the oilfields out of Saddams control. I frankly do not understand why the opposition likes to yell "they just went for the oil" - as if that would be a "bad thing".

I personally disagree with the invasion of Iraq to get rid of non existing WoMD and enforce a UN sanction without the UNs approval.

Sadly, motive number 3 is what the administration told the general public. If they had used motive 1 or 2 I would probably have supported the war.

It's rather odd that they missed the fall of the Soviet Union. And 9-11. And the WMD in Iraq...

In all fairness though - who knows what they did not miss but just didn't tell the general public ? Maybe those 3 cases are only 3 misses out of a 100.. and a 97% succesrate is quite good.

It's easy to build a submarine yourself with the plans. To raise a fleet, yes, would be impossible but a secret single sub is about as difficult as putting on a hat. (The Reds managed a few thosuand before anyone noticed) And Iraq is a big place. A space facility, I agree, is out of the question, but if Saddam did build something like that he would have gone to rediculous lengths to hide it. There are thousands of V1 rocket sites all over France from WWII, and we only found them in to '60s. They were only hidden by a few twigs and a Betreten Verboten sign (German speakers, forgive the poor spelling)
All of these examples don't work today, for one big reason: spy satellites. The soviets could build a few thousand submarines because we had no spy satellites to observe their shipyards with. Sure, we had the spy planes, but by the time they were flying, the Soviets were already well on the way to having a large fleet. Spy planes can only look at narrow swaths, and the Soviets had a HUGE coast to cover. Satellites allowed us to see whenever they were building any new major ship after that.
The Iraqis could not have built a submarine without us noticing. They would first have to build a construction facility, something sure to be noticed by our advanced satellites we had by the 1990s (technologicallyy, the KH-11s we have had since then are basically Hubble telescopes pointed down, they can see the expression on someones face from orbit).
The same problem exists with the V-1 sites, they were built and disguised before satellites existed. The Iraqis don't have that luxury.

Does the name Hans Blix ring a bell?
Yes, it does. He was the guy the Iraqis through out, and would not let back in, which the Bush administration also used to justify the invasion, even though Hans Blix said publicly that Iraq didn't have WMDs.
If I remember correctly, I think his words were, "If the Americans think there are WMDs that we believe don't exist, then good luck to them finding them. They won't."

Yes, it does. He was the guy the Iraqis through out, and would not let back in, which the Bush administration also used to justify the invasion, even though Hans Blix said publicly that Iraq didn't have WMDs.
If I remember correctly, I think his words were, "If the Americans think there are WMDs that we believe don't exist, then good luck to them finding them. They won't."I don't remember hearing about Blix being thrown out. Did this happen in 2002 or 2003? Anyway, my point was that Hussein allowed weapons inspectors to return to Iraq in 2002. They looked all over and found nothing. Then a war was launched.

I don't remember hearing about Blix being thrown out. Did this happen in 2002 or 2003? Anyway, my point was that Hussein allowed weapons inspectors to return to Iraq in 2002. They looked all over and found nothing. Then a war was launched.
I don't remember specifically when he was thrown out, I think it was 2002, but I am too lazy right now to check:cool: . As for them finding nothing, and then we attacked, that is true, and one of the problems, in my mind. Its OK for us to attack based on WMDs even if the UN didn't find them, but only if we had damn good and accurate intelligence that they existed, and any intelligence we had was wrong, which is why there needs to be the investigation.

I don't remember specifically when he was thrown out, I think it was 2002, but I am too lazy right now to check:cool: . As for them finding nothing, and then we attacked, that is true, and one of the problems, in my mind. Its OK for us to attack based on WMDs even if the UN didn't find them, but only if we had damn good and accurate intelligence that they existed, and any intelligence we had was wrong, which is why there needs to be the investigation.

He wasn't thrown out by Saddam. That would have been an admission of guilt and the world would have agreed to war.

Bush pulled him out before he could finish his work. He begged to be allowed to stay. He said that even if he didn't find anything the US would know where the WMD's weren't so there would be no need to attack those areas. The UN and most of the allies agreed. They said they would join the war if the inspectors were allowed to finish the job or if Saddam threw them out.

But Bush wanted war NOW not later. And he sure didn't want a report that said there were no WMD's. Such a report would doom any chance of war. There was pressure to get the war over before the heat of summer and to clean up before the congressional elections. That's what "mission accomplished" was all about. The Reps went into the congressional elections as war victors.

He wasn't thrown out by Saddam. That would have been an admission of guilt and the world would have agreed to war.

Bush pulled him out before he could finish his work. He begged to be allowed to stay. He said that even if he didn't find anything the US would know where the WMD's weren't so there would be no need to attack those areas. The UN and most of the allies agreed. They said they would join the war if the inspectors were allowed to finish the job or if Saddam threw them out.

But Bush wanted war NOW not later. And he sure didn't want a report that said there were no WMD's. Such a report would doom any chance of war. There was pressure to get the war over before the heat of summer and to clean up before the congressional elections. That's what "mission accomplished" was all about. The Reps went into the congressional elections as war victors.
You are only partly right. Yes, Bush did push for Blix to leave Iraq. No, the world would not have supported war if Saddam had expelled Blix. It would not have been an admission of guilt. Remember, Saddam had expelled UN weapons inspectors several times between 1991 and 2003, claiming that they were infringing upon Iraqi sovereignty. These are not admissions of guilt, just acts that annoyed the international community. Most of them had accepted that Saddam had no WMDs by 2003.

I personally agree with the invasion of Iraq to remove a murdering dictator from power. I just do not think that *one* country should be allowed to decide who else is "naughty" or "nice".

I personally agree with the invasion of Iraq to get the oilfields out of Saddams control. I frankly do not understand why the opposition likes to yell "they just went for the oil" - as if that would be a "bad thing".

I personally disagree with the invasion of Iraq to get rid of non existing WoMD and enforce a UN sanction without the UNs approval.

Sadly, motive number 3 is what the administration told the general public. If they had used motive 1 or 2 I would probably have supported the war.



In all fairness though - who knows what they did not miss but just didn't tell the general public ? Maybe those 3 cases are only 3 misses out of a 100.. and a 97% succesrate is quite good.
I agree with that to some extent.

All of these examples don't work today, for one big reason: spy satellites. The soviets could build a few thousand submarines because we had no spy satellites to observe their shipyards with. Sure, we had the spy planes, but by the time they were flying, the Soviets were already well on the way to having a large fleet. Spy planes can only look at narrow swaths, and the Soviets had a HUGE coast to cover. Satellites allowed us to see whenever they were building any new major ship after that.
The Iraqis could not have built a submarine without us noticing. They would first have to build a construction facility, something sure to be noticed by our advanced satellites we had by the 1990s (technologicallyy, the KH-11s we have had since then are basically Hubble telescopes pointed down, they can see the expression on someones face from orbit).
The same problem exists with the V-1 sites, they were built and disguised before satellites existed. The Iraqis don't have that luxury.

Yes, I agree with you. My point is, if Saddam did build a space rocket thing or a sub base (both of which are, in my opinion, untrue) then he would know about spy satelites. They might cost billions of dollars, but they couldn't spot an underground facility. (Yes, thermal stuff, I know, but that only sees about thirty to fourty metres underground) Satelites are expensive to build, and to run. To keep a 24-7 watch for the last twenty years on every square inch of Iraqi or Iraqi-allied lands would be impossible.

Besides, they can move stuff about and underground when they want... what about cloud cover?

Satalites are flawed, and always will be, for one reason, summed up in a quote from The Simpsons, when the FBI are searching for a trillion dollar bill:

"All we've managed to acertain from satelite imagery is that it's not on the roof"

I personally agree with the invasion of Iraq to get the oilfields out of Saddams control. I frankly do not understand why the opposition likes to yell "they just went for the oil" - as if that would be a "bad thing".


Obviously, the occupation of Tibet, invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the Chechen occupation and the Japanese occupation of China in WWII weren't bad things either. Because they went in for resources and territory so its obviously not a bad thing following this reasoning.

In fact, the German occupation of Europe in the 1940s couldn't have been a bad thing either.

Or Genghis Khans rampage through Asia and Europe.

Or Genghis Khans rampage through Asia and Europe.

The Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1254 and the sack of the city, the hunting down of the Assassins and the fall of the Caliphate is probably the worst moment in Islamic history (even Osama remembers it).

I would point out, however, that riches and land were not the goals of the Mongol invasion. The Mongols were actually threatened by the ruler of Samarkand (who had a larger army and swore to use it, and he killed Mongol ambassadors), so they invaded and took his country using a much smaller force.

The threats were repeated by the Caliph of Baghdad, who also killed Mongol ambassadors.

So they repeated it - in each case, the Mongols had asked for a peace and trade treaty, and were rebuffed by having the ambassadors killed and chopped up.

Heh, I read a book that said the Mongols started globalization. Columbus really got it going though. :p

*yes, this is totally random. yes, I have no opinion*

Obviously, the occupation of Tibet, invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the Chechen occupation and the Japanese occupation of China in WWII weren't bad things either. Because they went in for resources and territory so its obviously not a bad thing following this reasoning.

No, now you are following HALF the reasoning, and carefully ignoring the "remove from Saddam" part.
My point is that it is silly to forbid countries run by powerhungry dictators to own weapons of mass destruction which could by used to hurt other countries - while at the same time allowing them to control a huge part of the worlds supply of an essential resource which other countries need to survive.
To rephrase: one can argue that control of oil supplies is equivalent to owning weapons of mass destruction. Both can be used to wreak havoc on the rest of the world, and as such are the worlds concern.

Yes, I agree with you. My point is, if Saddam did build a space rocket thing or a sub base (both of which are, in my opinion, untrue) then he would know about spy satelites. They might cost billions of dollars, but they couldn't spot an underground facility. (Yes, thermal stuff, I know, but that only sees about thirty to fourty metres underground) Satelites are expensive to build, and to run. To keep a 24-7 watch for the last twenty years on every square inch of Iraqi or Iraqi-allied lands would be impossible.

Besides, they can move stuff about and underground when they want... what about cloud cover?

Satalites are flawed, and always will be, for one reason, summed up in a quote from The Simpsons, when the FBI are searching for a trillion dollar bill:

"All we've managed to acertain from satelite imagery is that it's not on the roof"
Actually, underground doesn't help you all that much. Remember, North Korea's nuclear facility is entirely underground, we still found it with satellites. There are many techniques, like ground penetrating radar. As for the cost of spy satellites, ever looked at our intelligence budget? ITS HUGE. And that is just the part they release to the public. Also, the Simpsons quote about the roof thing, while funny, has no place in a real world discussion like this. The Simpsons is a comedy cartoon. If you are going to use them as a source, then you would have to believe that Dracula is in the Republican Party. I saw that on the Simpsons too.

We are all getting away from why I started this thread. Should their be an investigation into the intelligence mistakes, or do we want to repeat them in the future?

No, now you are following HALF the reasoning, and carefully ignoring the "remove from Saddam" part.
My point is that it is silly to forbid countries run by powerhungry dictators to own weapons of mass destruction which could by used to hurt other countries - while at the same time allowing them to control a huge part of the worlds supply of an essential resource which other countries need to survive.
To rephrase: one can argue that control of oil supplies is equivalent to owning weapons of mass destruction. Both can be used to wreak havoc on the rest of the world, and as such are the worlds concern.

So essentially what you're saying is that since your neighbor jimmy, who has a violent streak, is the only guy with fuel around for the next 20km, you'd rather make sure he can't have any guns while you bludgeon his head with a tire iron to steal it than pay for it? Saddam wasn't going to close down his oil fields anytime soon. Switch to the Euro maybe, which would have been bad for America's economy, but the supply would be still there.

Ultimately, that's still assault and theft. But on the international scale, they call it liberating people. Same result, different words.

That's what you're still saying. Because somebody has vital resources, its alright to steal them if that somebody wasn't in your nice book.

How about we invade Australia next? They've got plenty of yellowcake. That's a vital resource too. Or maybe Venelueza? I'm sure you can dig up a few people to call Chavez a "powerhungry dictator" on the pretext of invading the place.

What are you going to argue next? That he could have hurt American economy by following economics is sufficient cause to go to war? Damnit, if that's the case, there's enough reason for the rest of the world to bury America and Europe for the next 500 years.

I was hoping this would not turn into a "were we right to invade Iraq." I was hoping to get people's opinions on whether we should investigate the intelligence failures. No one seems to want to talk about that. No one seems to want to figure out how to fix problems, just whine and bitch about them. I should have known better.

Here in the United States, there is a lot of debatge going on as to whether or not an investigation should be held into the intelligence failures that led to the war in Iraq. One of the big arguments that I keep hearing from the administration against the administration is the response that they did not fabricate any false intelligence, and therefore no investigation is needed. I see a big flaw in this argument, and I am going to illustrate it here (I support an investigation):
...
We need an investigation so that we can fix the problem. It does not need to be a game of deciding who to blame for all that happened. We need to find out what went wrong and fix it so that the intelligence is correct (or at least a lot better) in the future. I we decide we need to attack somewhere else in the globe, we need to have it based on sound intelligence, and have a battle plan that works because it is based on sound intelligence, otherwise we see a repeat of the situation we are in now.

The intelligence failure was a failure to realize that there was inadequate information to make such decisions. To borrow a Rumsfeldism, the "known unknowns" were left as being unknown when they were necessary to make a decision.

Maybe I should put up a poll...

edit: well, Iwould, except the stupid thread tools drop down WON'T WORK!!!

For those with a short memory, here is a very basic summary of what led to the Iraq war.

1. Bush calls Iraq part of an "Axis of Evil".
2. Bush demands that Saddam Hussein allow inspectors back into Iraq or they may face an attack.
3. Saddam Hussein complies.
4. Bush demands that Saddam Hussein publish a monolithic report on its weapons programs or face attack.
5. Saddam Hussein complies.
6. Bush says the 12,000 page report wasnt enough.
7. Saddam Hussein publishes an addendum to the report and invites the US to send CIA agents to Iraq to track down the alleged WMDs.
8. Bush sasys that if Saddam Hussein doesnt step down from power, they will attack.
9. Saddam Hussein doesnt step down.
10. The US attacks.

In even simpler terms it amounted to this:
Bush: Let inspectors in and we wont attack you
Saddam: OK, come on in
Bush: Just kidding. But for real now, give us this report and we wont attack you.
Saddam: OK, here you go
Bush: Gotcha again! For real now, this time Im serious, I swear. Step down from power and we wont attack you.
Saddam: Yeah, like Im gonna fall for that again.
Bush: ATTACK!!!!

I was hoping this would not turn into a "were we right to invade Iraq." I was hoping to get people's opinions on whether we should investigate the intelligence failures. No one seems to want to talk about that. No one seems to want to figure out how to fix problems, just whine and bitch about them. I should have known better.We already had an investigation. It didn't amount to much. I don't see much reason to have another one as I wouldn't really expect anything different. We know from a multitude of sources that the plan to invade Iraq precedes any "evidence" of Iraq having WMD. It was never as if somebody at the CIA went "Holy Shit! Look at this! Looks like a nuclear weapons program!" No, all there was were forged documents and baseless allegations from guys like Chalabi. Then it went something like this:

http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/wfc/TMW11-02-05.jpg

We already had an investigation. It didn't amount to much. I don't see much reason to have another one as I wouldn't really expect anything different. We know from a multitude of sources that the plan to invade Iraq precedes any "evidence" of Iraq having WMD. It was never as if somebody at the CIA went "Holy Shit! Look at this! Looks like a nuclear weapons program!" No, all there was were forged documents and baseless allegations from guys like Chalabi. Then it went something like this:

http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/wfc/TMW11-02-05.jpg
Can you please post a source on this investigation? There was an investigation into 9/11, is that what you are thinking of? If so, it amounted to A LOT, just the administration has not implemented most of its reccomendations. I am talking about an investigation into th intelligence about Iraq. Yes, some of that was covered in the 9/11 investigation, but very little.