now this IS proper news!

The overthrow of Saddam has played more into the hands of Iran than Israel. They are now the "local" or incumbent power of the Middle East. And as long as Israel continue to kill innocent people and have it broadcast all over the west, they will lose more and more supporters outside of the area too.

Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that Rumsfeld was a part of the "executive" team that planned the assult on Iraq, but he was far from being alone, and no one man should take the blame. Personally I felt that we should have gone straight into Iraq and sorted out Saddam after the first Gulf war, we had good reason to, and the support of the UN. We missed the opportunity to sort the problem out and are paying for it now.

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Originally Posted by Jelster

The overthrow of Saddam has played more into the hands of Iran than Israel. They are now the "local" or incumbent power of the Middle East. And as long as Israel continue to kill innocent people and have it broadcast all over the west, they will lose more and more supporters outside of the area too.

Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that Rumsfeld was a part of the "executive" team that planned the assult on Iraq, but he was far from being alone, and no one man should take the blame. Personally I felt that we should have gone straight into Iraq and sorted out Saddam after the first Gulf war, we had good reason to, and the support of the UN. We missed the opportunity to sort the problem out and are paying for it now.

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Yes...
and yes.
Totally agree with second point.
First point... I also agree with... I just... hmm, I am not sure if I agree that Iran is the local power of the ME. Israel has far superior weaponry... and training. Iran are no joke. But, I dont know. It might be because I spent a lot of time in the Andes with a fair few ex Israeli military and have met exactly one Mujahadeen, but, those Israeli boys and girls can get up to some seriously scary high jinks when the need arises.

Originally Posted by Jelster

I felt that we should have gone straight into Iraq and sorted out Saddam after the first Gulf war, we had good reason to, and the support of the UN.

Gotta disagree with that, Bush snr had a resolution from the UN to 'Use all force necessary' to implement the previous res 660 (dontcha just love the net ) which said Saddam should leave Kuwait.

Interestingly here's what he had to say when asked why he just didn't go ahead anyway

""Had we gone into Baghdad -- we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours -- and then what?

Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power — America in an Arab land — with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous"

I'm not sure but I think I read somewhere about some about a ballsed up invasion somewhere that sounded a bit like that

Nah. They should have gone in and finished the job.
They told the Iraqies to rise up against Saddam, they told them they would be right in there behind them. And they completely didnt. They were already there, the had nothing more to do than get the place up and running, and you would have a very different middle east today.

Instead they just minced off back home. Big mistake IMO.

Originally Posted by philipMac

Nah. They should have gone in and finished the job.
They told the Iraqies to rise up against Saddam, they told them they would be right in there behind them. And they completely didnt. They were already there, the had nothing more to do than get the place up and running, and you would have a very different middle east today.

Instead they just minced off back home. Big mistake IMO.

I remember it vividly, all the anti-war protesters who reluctantly, very reluctantly, accepted that an independent Kuwait did have a right to exist and who were equally vocal that the US should drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait and not go an inch over the border. Why the reluctance? I think because these self-serving people (generally the same who tie bits of coloured wool around security fences) despised the Emir, simply because he is very rich. So it was quite all right for a despotic and ruthless dictator to invade someone else's country to **** up their infrastructure and to hog their oil revenues, with grudging reluctance in accepting the restoration of normality.

Of course, like everyone else I speak with the benefit of hindsight, but yes of course it would have been better to sort the matter there and then. I don't really understand where you're coming from, Philip. You criticise the current war - oil is one of the reasons offered - but then say it should have been done in 1991/2.

You can't have it both ways.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Jelster

So, his statement is pretty realistic in real life....

True, but he said it in a response to a mdeia question about weapons of mass destruction, and never actually answered the question

Originally Posted by northwind

True, but he said it in a response to a mdeia question about weapons of mass destruction, and never actually answered the question

Well he's apolitician, what do you expect

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Originally Posted by Ed

I don't really understand where you're coming from, Philip. You criticise the current war - oil is one of the reasons offered - but then say it should have been done in 1991/2.

You can't have it both ways.

Yup. I criticise the current war. I think the gains are small, when compared to the cost.
I think that the war is being fought for money and oil. I think the last war was fought for money and oil. However, they gave the excuse that it was about Hussein's penchant for genocide, but I dont buy it. If there was no oil, Hussein's activities would possibly be scolded by the UN, and little would happen.

Now, I am not saying that the first Gulf war should not have happened. I think it was potentially at least, for the best. Genocide is not acceptable, and Hussein should not have been let away with it.

But, as if proof was needed, they didn't care in the slightest about the actual genocide, they cared about getting the oil back under control. It would have been easy, relative to the efforts that it is taking now, to push on to Baghdad. They promised the people if they rose up against Saddam, they would assist.
They didnt, they got the oil back running, they got Iraq out of Kuwait, they got their amigos in Kuwait happy again, and they left.

This war is different. Is what Hussein was doing over the last few years reason to kill 47 odd thousand civvies and 3K US troops and misc others? In reality he was losing control of the country slowly. There was no massive arms program, the spurious intel that Mossad and the US produced to quieten people down was at best simply wrong, parts of it were barefaced lies. He had nothing at all to do with the Sept 11th attacks.
And this war was always going to be a sh!tstorm. This was clear.

The US contracts some of the fighting out to external companies who are pro soldiers. To give you an idea of how clear that this was going to be brutal, I have been told that 70% of these pro soldiers just point blank turned the job down. These are the same guys that fought in Sierra Leone etc. They wouldnt touch Iraq. And there are huge numbers of them who accepted contracts are simply leaving.

Having Hussein out of the picture now is a good thing. But, its not worth that number of corpses. Had they pushed on the first time, even tried, more people would have died, fair enough. But, if it all went badly wrong on them, they can just leave. Like they were going to do anyway.
Instead they just almost won the war, left, and starved the place for years, leaving Hussein there to tell everyone how bad the west is.