Are you satisfied that we went to war with Iraq?

Question

Are you content with the knowledge that our president went on bad intelligence, and effectively cut off gathering anymore intelligence, like the UN weapons inspectors tried to offer?

that isn't an answer. But to address your diversion, the UN inspectors were kicked out after NOT FINDING ANY WMDs, and it turnsout they didn't find them because THEY WEREN'T THERE. So are you satisfied?

Rest assured, whoever I pick will have ANSWERED THE QUESTION. And since that isn't you...

Taliban was not in Iraq until we invaded. Does that change your mind?

Answer 1

The US government has the technology to know what you are doing in your home or office this very minute, but somehow they made a mistake about Saddam's supposed WMDs??? BUSH was determined to invade, no matter what -- and Saddam knew that. We could have had UN inspectors practically sit on top of Saddam for as long as necessary, but our emotional, panicky president was afraid and resentful of Saddam. Bush didn't listen to anyone who told him what would happen -- he can't understand complex ideas and he had to see for himself.

"I think Saddam and the United States very often have a commonality which bonds them together and that is simply this: That without Saddam Hussein, Iraq would disintegrate into several countries and make more trouble for the rest of the Middle East....When the rebellion started against Saddam in 1991, that danger loomed. The United States helped Saddam crush that rebellion...The American administration was afraid that Iraq will disintegrate. They had no plan for what might follow Saddam Hussein. And certainly President Bush was explicit on that subject, saying he did not want to be mired in Iraqi internal affairs--until he was forced into getting into Iraq by television and the pictures of the poor Kurds. And so that rebellion failed...In the case of the United States, there are huge problems that we want to solve before we think seriously of moving him..."
The Survival of Saddam: Secrets of his life and leadership
an interview with Said K. Aburish
published jan. 2000
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aburish.html

And, in discussing the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Bush said: "After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad."
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/bush.war.talk/

I made up my mind that Hussein needs to go. The policy of my government is that he goes.-- G. W. Bush
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/02/06_Whocares.html

Answer 2

No.
But they didn't go in on bad intelligence. They went in on intelligence they manipulated.
This administration was talking about making a preemptive strike on Iraq six months before 9/11. They were looking for a reason to go, and the attack on the WTC just gave them the excuse they needed. They were not going to pass that up, no matter what the UN, the CIA or even members of their own cabinet tried to tell them.
Every time someone gave them an answer they didn't like, they told that person to go back and try again.

btw- It was mistakenly claimed there was an insurgency in Japan and Germany after the war. There wasn't. After both countries surrendered, not one American soldier died in combat.
Don't feel too bad, though. Rumsfeld made the same mistake. He talked about "Werewolves" and the assassination of a mayor in post-war Germany. Trouble is - it didn't happen. The civilian population was compliant to the point of being helpful. And the mayor he spoke of was actually killed six weeks before the end of the war.

Answer 3

Sorry ph-yo but you are wrong. The UN weapons inspectors left Iraq on March 18 and we invaded on March 20.
And no - I am not content with what we did. I lived through Vietnam and know what can be expected from wars that are fought involving sects and cultures we do not understand. It was wrong from the beginning and cannot be justified.

Also - to Earnest T - if 19 terrorists are all it takes to make a country a threat - I guess the US is next on that list. I am quite sure there are at least 20 good old American white supremacists living somewhere within our borders. Remember Timothy McVeigh?

Answer 4

Yes, I think that given the state of knowledge at the time it would have been irresponsible not to do something.

The intelligence reports were not the only reason we went:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

And there is no way to re-evaluate that decision, "knowing what we know now," because we will NEVER know what would have happened had we not gone in.

And I believe someone can disagree with the reasons for the war and/or our original decision to go in, and still want us to stay now, based on a belief that the situation will be worse in the long run - for all of us - if we leave at this point without prevailing - working to create a relatifvely stable, peaceful and self-sufficient Iraq.

We did it in Germany and Japan, where "insurgents" also killed thousands of Allied soldiers after the war ended. Those deaths aren't generally discussed, because the combat losses were so very heavy in comparison.

Answer 5

Not in the slightest, and haven't been since day 1. Iraq was not a terrorist haven. In fact, Saddam did not like Al Qaida, he was fearful of them. He was a murderous dictator and is good that he can't commit any genocides anymore. However, humanitarian reasons was not why we went to war. If it was, then why would we be letting the horrible situation in Darfur to continue? It's about the oil and Bush's oil buddies. Why do you think Haliburton got the rebuilding job? Remember, they got the contract without the government even taking a second bid. Curious....
It was all lies and was also used as a diversion from failing domestic policies.

And just because I don't support the war does not mean that I don't support our troops. Utmost respect and love for their sacrifices.
I know that the Bush supporters try to make someone like out as a hater of the troops. Not true at all.

Answer 6

the UN weapons inspectors were the source of most of the bad intelligence!! They reported not being able to account for over one hundred thousand gallons of materials for nerve gas (in UN record) and that they had nearly one thousand Scuds that were not destroyed and that they were barred from the university section where nuclear research was being done and professors who worked on those projects were missing. That is the UN contribution to this. We did not find any of the materials that the UN said was there. Does that mean that the UN was lying of Saddam? Which do you now prefer? The UN or Saddam? The UN inspectors were thrown out of the country by Saddam. Our President who is a Republican went to war on bad intelligence, maybe, but then our Congress which was at the time the majority party voted for the military action against Saddam's Iraq. The Senatre foreign relations committeee and the Senate Intelligence Committee were both chaired by senior Democratic Senators who authored the reports from the CIA and NSA showing potential WMD sites, terrorist training camps, etc. A Democratic Congress produced the information for Bush and supported, by vote, the decision to go to war. Because Bush was following a Dem administration and the Dems held power in the Congress, he had very few cabinet appointments of his own in place and the intelligence gathering agencies will still Clinton era appointees as the other appointees were waiting for Congressional hearings to approve them. They were held up by politics. Political cultists, of which you must be one, try to find ways to have some moral high ground in this and yet to do so much completely ignore the records and history of the war. Thats what a good cultist does. Now you have Hillary, who voted for the war, pretending she did not do so or that she was misled. Because she is lusting for power and will lie. The importance of a lie is that political cultists will accept that new lie to cover up the old lie. People who are all revved up over politicians make me sick. They are all the same and unfortunately so are people who believe them. The same people who now are trying to pretend that they were against the war when they were for it (on record), are now saying that we should be sending troops to Darfur and intervene there. Yikes, people like you are befuddled, gullible and dangerous to the rest of us.

Answer 7

No, I am not. Bush lied to congress about the Intel. There were numerous sources which told him that his State of the Union address was wrong. I remember right before we invaded Saddam and the Inspectors were BEGGING the US to continue the search and to continue to try talking diplomatically. Bush ignored this and did what HE wanted which was revenge for what Saddam tried to do to his father and the oil. I KNEW that when Bush was assigned the office that he would be going for Iraq and thousands of our men and women would be sacrificed for it. And I was right. We are now sitting ducks in a civil war and Bush wants to send MORE people over there. I now think that Bush is wanting to go into Iran and I think THAT is the real reason for the escalation. Iran HAS a military, what is Bush trying to do? Start WW III.

NONE OF THE TERRORISTS WERE IRAQIS!!! Not ONE! Based on this kind of logic that people who are trying to tie Iraq with 9/11, why don't we go after Saudi Arabia where over 1/2 of the terrorists were from???? HHMMMMMmmmmm?

Answer 8

You are going to rely on a UN inspector? You don't think there are a zillion places Saddam could have hidden WMD? Iraq is a desert, remember? How long did it take us to find the mass graves of the innocent people Saddam had killed????? YEARS, and YEARS? I am content that Mr. Bush went to war. He did the right thing. And if for no other reason, freeing Iraq of a murdering tyrant, gives us another ally in the middle east, which is detrimental to us winning the war on terrorism, which we will do, as long as the Liberals don't undermine it!

Answer 9

Bush, marionett of the jewish lobby as he is, had already set his sights on Iraq. Meaning that he really didn`t care whether they had any WMD`s or not. He was just obsessed with invading iraq at the time no matter what.

Answer 10

The minute I heard the word Iraq, I said to my BF at the time (Army Major) --this is it-there is no way we aren't going to war in Iraq. No matter what they did, our government would never be satisfied, because it was very clear to me from the get go we were going to war there. Sadly, I was correct.

It is a black mark on our nation.