To all the people who think we shouldn't be in Iraq, what exactly should we have done?

Answer 1

Good point. If we had not invaded, there would have been 150,000 US troops cooling their heels and getting picked off in the staging areas, thousands would still be starving because of Iraq's oil-for-palaces swindel, we never would have found out about all the mass graves or the secret deals with France and Russia, and Saddam would still have been training terrorists and hatching his schemes.

it would have been irresponsible for Bush NOT to go in.

Answer 2

Invading Iraq was an incredibly stupid thing to do. You can't invade another country and really think that it will be fine and there will be no reprucussions. Bush and Blair (or Bliar because that what he is) were so naive and the whole thing was a complete stitch up. Blair tried so hard to make us believe the weapons of mass destruction were there, but were some very unhappy people in the security services who had different ideas on WMD. Unfortunately both Bush and Blair were very selective in what they wanted to listen to and very selective in what they told us. It was a complete load of Bol***ks. I didn't believe it at the start and I was proved right.
Yes there were mass graves, but we already knew that Saddam had killed lots of people so we were bound to find massed graves somewhere along the line (sorry but nothing unexpected there). Most of Saddam's assasinations took place in the late 80's and early 90's. Yes, he was still having people assasinated but probably a few score each year are the estimates. That is not too demean the lives of those poor people who were were killed.
It is ILLEGAL under international law to attack invade another country in order to remove it's government no matter how evil that Government may be. That is International law and thats that. The USA and GB have decided themselves to basically overule the rule of law.
Saddam although hated by many Iraqi's stil had alot of support by a large minority of other Iraqi's. The Sunni's afterall represent several million people in Iraq. Also it must be noted the Sunni muslims are the most populous group of muslims throughout the world.
Also don't forget we were very happy in Saddam invading Iran because the Ayatolla (?) was greatly feared by the west at the time. We didn't even complain very much when Saddam used chemical weapons on his own people.
Now we have unleashed Lord only knows what in years to come. We probably will not fully realise what we have done in Iraq for another generation or two.
We have also probably made the USA and GB two of the most hated nations in the world. That's real clever!!!!!
Saddam was evil and I am pleased he has gone, but not the way we have gone about it which was foolish and naive in the extreme.

Answer 3

We should have rebuilt Afghanistan for one. For all of republican's cut and run talk, that is exactly what they did to that country. Now it produces the most opium of any country in the world.

Iraq could have been easily contained. They had little or no serious weapons capability, no proven connection to terrorists. Their oil supply didn't effect us very much. They were simply not a threat.

On the other hand look at it now, the pentagon is now saying Iraq contributed to an increase in al-Qaeda and that the president's claim that they hate our freedoms simply isn't true. Instead Muslim extremists hate our political policies regarding that part of the world.

Answer 4

Good question, one of the best that has been asked on Answers for a while. What would have been the consequences if we (the West) had done nothing?

Quarterback - don't get too cocky, the British army has a long history of fighting successful campaigns against a guerrilla enemy, the US hasn't done so well, Vietnam? We're allies on the same side, it isn't a pissing contest over who's in charge and has more men!!

Answer 5

We should have avoided starting a civil war which only resulted in a new government that is going to be just as repressive as the last one, only towards a different group of people.

We should have trusted Hans Blix, who was in charge of UN weapons inspections, who continually said his people had not found any WMD and that he had no reason to believe there were any.

We should have placed all of our military effort on the sole goal of finding 9-11 Al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden and making him responsible for that attack.

We should have avoided over 24,000 Iraqi civilian deaths from US military acts, plus 100 more happening every day due to the ground civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites.

We should not have forgotten about Afghanistan, leaving its new leader Hamid Karzai struggling and helpless, allowing the former government, the Taliban, which harbored Osama, to regain strength and recognition in that country.

We should not have created a situation where our loyal soldiers and troops find themselves in double- and triple-length and frequently-repeated tours of service.

Answer 6

Left Iraq alone and concentrated on Afghanistan. Afghanistan is strictly rural and thus allows us to use the full might of our military power. Their were no terrorist in Iraq and thus Saddam shouldn't have been a priority. If you really wanted him out of the way you could have had him assassinated that would have been vastly more efficient and whole lot cheaper in lives and money.

Answer 7

About Iraq? or about elsewhere?
If Iraq then nothing - there was no legitimate reason to do anything at all except tell President Hussein that we didn't like what he was doing.
c.f. China, Rwanda, Korea, Burma and on, and on, and on.

Answer 8

There were no WMD's, Iraq was no threat to the US or anyone else for that matter. We should have kept up economic and UN Security Council pressure and kept our sons and daughters in their own country, Alive.

Answer 9

at the moment everyone was all for it b/c of the situation but now i think it would have been better to investigate more and plan things a lot better. i do agree that Saddam need to be stopped for treating people so cruel but i am going to be selfish now. i have friends and relatives that are in Iraq and i want them home NOW.

Answer 10

As an ex-serviceman I would've thought the answer is obvious, we should've done it right the 1st time. When the justification was right not made excuses of WMD's to go back and do it again.