4years back what did Chirac and Schroeder see that Bush & Blair did not?Chirac turned out painfully correct.?

Question

The carnage in Iraq was umimaginable 4years ago. Saddamania was the rage and it seems being anything else was out of step. Its obvious the invasion did not liberate Iraq but immersed it in more misery.With benefit of hindsight shouldn't the US have considered other optionsto kick Saddam out? Was dissolving state institutions like the army and de Baathifying public service not turned out to be an albatross? Did the invaders actually bring social justice to replace Saddam's brutal repression? Can the world truly say the Iraqis are better off today security wise than they were under Saddam? May be the French and the Germans understood the internal dynamics of Iraq and the wider regional implications than US and the coalition of the willing. Iraq is a mess and likely to remain so for a long time if eventually ther ll be anything left of it.

Answer 1

You seem to be suffering from an unfortunate case of naievity. The war in Iraq was and remains an conflict to gain oil and distract public opinion from home problems. I'm an ex-British infantry officer (Afghanistan veteran) and I now work in the Oil industry so I'm fairly confident of my sources. The US (and incidentally us brits) went into Iraq in order to corner one of the largest oil reserves in the world and open it up for exploitation by their (and their political allies) coorporations and multinationals. If you look at the companies making billions out of the restructuring of the region and more importantly those who stand to make billions from their share in the now non-embargoed oil you will not find any French or German owned or based companies. You will however find companies who fund the election campaigns of the majority of the US Senate and pay huge ammounts of taxes to the British government.

Schroeder and Chirac may have scored political points with the masses temporarily, but in the long run their disastorous right-wing policies on unemployment and immigration respectively will ensure they remain as negatively memorable as Bush and possibly Blair.

Furthermore, what you call, the carnage in Iraq was not unimaginable four years ago. Senior Britsh military and independent analysts predicted that Iraq would turn into a bloody policing action in a similar manner to the explosion of violence in Northern Ireland in the 1950s. They were mocked in the newspapers when immediatedly after the 'liberation' there were no mass reprisals. Any occupying force in history, whether benign or not, has inevitably become the scapegoat for all local problems and has then been attacked, at the very least in the popular press and at the worst in the form of terrorism and or an armed uprising. International examples of this include Aden, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, etc.

Finally the Iraqi's are not better off than they were before. However a basic understanding of the power dynamic in the Arab world and the disparate collection of races Iraq is made up of shows that widespread conflict in Iraq was inevitable. If and when Saddam died in power the same Sunni, Shiite, Criminal or potential Dictators would have formed their own cliques and siezed or recruited whatever weapons and branches of military they could and resumed the infighting. The proof of this is that this has occurred every time there has been a transition of power in Iraq since they deposed of their King just prior to World War 2.

Wars are never fought for the reasons claimed before or decided after the event.

Answer 2

Your question implies that there was some amount of foreknowledge about impeding chaos in Iraq. However, there was none. The current situation in Iraq was not brought about by diplomatic failure, but rather a military strategy riddled with fundamental flaws.

Had we gone into Iraq with 400,000-500,000 troops, and secured the boarder with Iran and Syria, progress would have been made a lot quicker, and there wouldn't be this huge insurgency.

After Hitler seized land through Munich, the French Foreign Minister tried to convince the French President that sanctions against Germany would be adequate and a war wasn't necessary. Later we found that the Bank of France was one of Hitlers top backers. Today France, Germany, and Russia had strong financial ties with Saddam Hussein.

Furthermore, it's important to understand that those countries don't have substantially large military forces like we do. In fact the former U.S. Ambassador to N.A.T.O said that any threat made by France or Germany against Iran is an idol threat without American assistance. France and Germany simply can't afford a war with any other country, and Russia has been a long time backer and business parter with Saddam. It took a lot of talks to get the then Soviet Union on board with offering support to the U.N. resolution authrorizing the use of force to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

So it is not, as some think, a clever France or Germany; in fact, history will be far kinder to Bush and Blair than their French and German counterparts.

Answer 3

The main difference here is that Chirac and Schroeder have brains and Bush and Blair don't. GB and TB are just disgusting murderers. They should be thrown in jail to rot forever the dirty swine. They make me ashamed to be white!

Before starting a massive full scale war, they could at least have attempted some sort of covert assassination; it not like legality would have been an issue because they went to war illegally anyway.

I am so utterly disgusted by the actions of Bush and Blair, it makes me sick to my stomach. Sure, Saddam Hussein wasn't the nicest of guys but he did do a lot for Iraq as a country.

I hate the way the American media portrays Iraqis as being glad that Saddam is gone. They only ever interviewed the people with reasons to be happy, e.g. the people who have had family killed by Saddam etc. They excluded the people, which also happens to be the majority, whos lives were improved because of Saddam. Why would any Iraqi be glad that Saddam is gone when the amount of deaths that have occurred since he's been deposed have by far exceeded the amount that Saddam himself caused?

Iraq used to be one of the poorest nations in the middle east until Saddam came to power. I don't agree with his acts of genocide but at least when he was in power he kept the Sunnis and the Shi'ites under control.

As far as I'm concerned, Chirac and Schroeder forsaw the problems that have come about from the Iraq war due to their wisdom as leaders.

The U.N. didn't approve the Iraq war for a reason, and it's a shame there are such arrogant leaders controlling two of the most powerful countries on earth.

And what's the use of having the United Nations if the members exerting the most influence don't even follow the rules?

Down with George Bush, Tony Blair and the Iraq War.

PS: Even if Saddam Hussein was evil and should have been deposed, what gave America and Britain the right to do it? They should keep their dirty long redneck noses out of other countries business.
Iraq etc didn't sponsor terrorism, what a load of BS that is! What's Iraq got to profit out of that? Iraq belongs to Iraq, and so do all it's issues. We westerners with completely different ways of thinking have no right to barge in and balls things up the way we have.

By god I hope those filthy swine die miserable deaths, although even if they did it wouldn't account for the thousands of men, women and children that have been brutally tortured and killed as a result of their actions.

Answer 4

This is the problem with peoples reasoning. Saddam did a poll to see if he was liked and he was voted for by a margin of 99% of the vote. Even if you allow for intimidation, he would still poll higher than either Bush and Blair. The people who were actively oppressed were the political dissidents who make up less than 1%.

This fact is conveniently ignored by the warmongers, but today I will explain what it means in real terms in relation to an invasion. It means, like Adolf Hitler and Stalin before him, the people are always going to fight for their dictator against foreign forces. That is one reason for such an insurgency. And this among other things were clearly seen by the two leaders.

There is one more thing that was seen and was not made public and I will tell you that some other time.

Answer 5

They may have seen nothing, but had to voice an opposition voice due to allegiance with other nations such as russia etc. However they also had to voice an opinion differing to USA and UK so that it didnt show the unity of the ruling elite, be they the bilderbergs, the illuminati, free masons or whomever.

However it was clear Sadaam had no long range missiles since these are what the UN clearly found to be the case and his only threat was to his on people. Dont forget that the Bush family financed Hitler (search nazi and bush on youtube.com), 911 wasnt what it seems (see youtube for inplanesight) and that Oil is what kept the occupiers there and no Oil is what keeps them out of Zimbabwe and Korea or even humanity breakers China. Greed is the power now. Also more muslims died in Gujrat than in 9/11 yet no bombings happened then, and more die daily in Africa due to uneccesary interests of the IMF Bank (world bank) yet no bombing there.

Are we so blind or afraid to want real justice?

ps: Please remind yourself that it was USA (Regan of 1980's) & UK (Thatcher) that funded and sold WMD to Sadam Hussein and allowed him to bomb the helpless kurds, yet why is Sadam the only one facing trial? USA helped Sadam to fight against Iran and now they claim they are the axis of evil, why? Was Vietnam not occupied by a terrorist STATE? wasnt nicaragua in the 1980s? Hasnt Israel broken more UN mandates than Iraq and occupy a state illegally and also parts of lebanon and hold many more WMD?? Are the Neturei Karta wrong?

Answer to Iraq: UN should have had more control on an invasion however they should be fair and look at the uncessary atrocities and blatant 2 faced or rather biased-ness of those claiming to be the global liberators ie UK, USA, Australia & Co. (arent these the nations built on racism and slavery, and do red native indians, or aborginies get an equal voice yet or the blacks an apology for losing their culture and heritage in slavery).

Answer 6

i certainly wouldn't say that chirac and schroeder are correct, as if they are some kind of prophets. their reasons for not participating in the war certainly were not noble and moral, but out of greed and their own liberal and muslim populations. the French have been anti-american long, long before 2003 and the germans haven't been keen on military interventions since WWII, so their hands were tied. In fact, almost everyone agreed that the war would be short and an easy american victory as was in afghanistan. even people that thought the war was unjust or illegal didn't mention the amount of money or casaulties that would occur, so i dont think chirac and schroeder can pat themselves on the back for sitting back and watching iraqis get blown to pieces by terrorists while they counted the money they made off of the oil for food scandal.

Answer 7

Chirac and Schroeder were opposed to the invasion because they and their cronies were in Saddam's pocket. I think Bush and crew have really screwed up, but the slogan "no blood for oil" was more appropriate for the opposition. Even Kofi Annan's son was in on it.

Answer 8

Hatred in men should not be a reason for blowing a country apart.

leaders have a sacred response to the world to provide security
and blair and bush failed.

Answer 9

The French especially and the Germans are held hostage by their Muslim immigrant problem. If they continue on the same path they are going to be overrun by them. If they hadn't gotten themselves in such a spot they might have been able to help and we would not have the problems we are having today.

Answer 10

i dont totally agree....the one thing we just couldnt take a chance on was that saddam really did have WMD's and was planning to use them...the world's intel said that...my feeling is chirac, being the frenchman he was, was hoping he could appease saddam instead....this kind of thing happened with the french in WW2, imsurprised so many of them forgot...you do understand that the french are putting rearview mirrors on their tanks...so they can see they fighting as they are fleeing.....