bush doesn't know what he's doing

[bossel]

The funny thing is bossel, if the United States did that you'd be the first decrying the US for its attack on another country.

Misunderstood something? I did not mean that the US should have attacked Saudi-Arabia. I'd never propose attacking some country because you don't like the government.

And lets be honest with ourselves, not just the US, but the world runs on oil, over half of which exists under the middle east. Going around and pushing democracy in every state without understanding the dynamics of the international system could be catastrophic, so your assertion is really very weak.

Sorry, don't get your point. Didn't you say that the neo-cons believe & the US acts according to their beliefs? Wouldn't "act according to their beliefs" mean that they do so in every case, not just in an exceptional one?

Their actions however do follow these beliefs.The bush administration has dramatically altered its position towards these countries as well. Despite Michael Moore's assertions, the bush administration has made it a point to criticize the country's human rights record.

Criticise the record? That is according to their beliefs? Why then is the reaction to the SA record so weak ("Oooh, that's not nice, guys. Now we have to look the other way."), & in Iraq so excessive (BIG hammer)?

Are they protectionist? I'd really like you to back that one up.Comparatively the United States is more open than any other western state save for Canada.

You could ask Vietnamese catfish exporters or South Korean computer chip producers.

 

[noyhauser]

Yes, it was by far one of the weakest, which totally blows apart the Bush administration's national security rationale for the war, which was far and away the main justification for it.

Your point can be countered by two points. First off The threat the US and the UN security council resolutions were aimed at were not conventional military strength (which everybody knew Iraq was very weak) but weapons of mass destruction. These are considered assymetric weapons; a weak state could threaten their use against an overwhelming opponent, by attacking their civillian populaces as an assymetric response. There was clear indication that Saddam had chem and biological weapons (he had possessed them before and was hindering the progress of weapons inpsectors.) and that was the justification used.

Secondly, within the UN and in international law it is almost impossible to get consensus for regime change under the justification of humanitarian intervention. Especially when you have China and Russia sitting on the security council. The Clinton Administration learned that the hard way during Kosovo. The Bush Administration used the easiest justification possible, which was the weapons threat.

Speaking of protectionism and the neo-cons, the Bush administration just recently reacted to a binding NAFTA decision that US tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber were illegal by saying they would ignore the ruling and that the US government would keep the 5 billion dollars in tariffs it had collected despite being ordered to return it.

You could ask Vietnamese catfish exporters or South Korean computer chip producers.

There is no doubt that the US does practice some protectionist behavior, almost all states do. I could just as easily reciprocate embarassing examples for any other State. However pointing out single examples ignores the greater state of affairs that the US has the least trade barriers of any of the OECD state.

As for softwood lumber, actually, thats an example of Canadian protectionism rather than the US. It is our stumpage laws are very close to be considered illegal, not the US. The WTO ruled in January of 2004 year our forest practices were illegal, and could be considered unfair subsidies. I believe we've been ruled against on 3 different occassions. Canadian producers harvest wood from crown lands at abnormally low stumpage fees. American producers must purchase their land and manage them. Moreover Canada limits the export of raw logs preventing US manufacturors from processing them, which gave their own secondary industries an unfair advantage.
Its not a case of the Canadians being free of blame. Actually they have been found guilty of being protectionist. The whole compensation issue is about the US's response to Canadian illegality. Where the US was ruled against was on the calculation of the tarriff it imposed, and therefore had to be refunded. The US does not believe that this is the case and therefore has elected to ignore the ruling, because it believes that it deserves some compensation in any case.

Criticise the record? That is according to their beliefs? Why then is the reaction to the SA record so weak ("Oooh, that's not nice, guys. Now we have to look the other way."), & in Iraq so excessive (BIG hammer)?

Sorry, don't get your point. Didn't you say that the neo-cons believe & the US acts according to their beliefs? Wouldn't "act according to their beliefs" mean that they do so in every case, not just in an exceptional one?

I really suggest you re-read my comments above, because I don't like to repeat myself. Its not "exceptional" because the adminstration has acted towards promoting democracy moreso than any other government since Harry Truman. The bush administration has criticized Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for their record. This is a radical departure from previous admins, which largely remained silent on their behaviour. I don't see what more the US could do, without endangering the US's ability to act.What you are inherently suggesting is that the US act everywhere all at once to promote democracy. What would you suggest doing beyond issuing Diplomatic demarches? The next step would be to impose sanctions of some kind, which the Saudis would retaliate to by cutting oil production, like they did in 1973. Doing that would ensure that the US achieves nothing at all by sinking its economy and the international system in very quick order. Bankrupting themselves in one go would be a self defeating strategy, as in the end you would fail in one;s objectives. Not going all out, and chosing opportunities to implement change where they exist is a more intelligent strategy, one that will ensure success for the venture in the future, rather than mindless application of their values which is what you are suggesting.

 

[No-name]

Noyahauser- I have not taken the time to disagree with you, because although our perspectives are different, for the most part your information is correct. You have convinced me of one disturbing and alarming fact: Dubya knows exactly what he is doing.

 

[senseiman]

Your point can be countered by two points. First off The threat the US and the UN security council resolutions were aimed at were not conventional military strength (which everybody knew Iraq was very weak) but weapons of mass destruction. These are considered assymetric weapons; a weak state could threaten their use against an overwhelming opponent, by attacking their civillian populaces as an assymetric response. There was clear indication that Saddam had chem and biological weapons (he had possessed them before and was hindering the progress of weapons inpsectors.) and that was the justification used.

There was absolutely no "clear indication" that Saddam had Chem and Biological weapons. He had possessed them more than a decade earlier, and it was known that the vast majority of them had been destroyed long ago, and in fact we later learned that all of them had been destroyed. As for him launching an "assymetric response" (interesting term, correctly implying that the only situation in which Saddam would have used them was in 'response' to some act of aggression), assuming he did have some chemical or biological weapons, it would have been quite impossible to do given Iraq's complete lack of a delivery system capable of hitting anything. Nor would invading have made any sense as a means of ridding the world of that threat -had it existed, which it didn't- due to the fact that the only conceivable reason he would have for developing such weapons would be to deter just such an invasion. The logic just fails on so many levels....

His government's lack of cooperation with UN inspectors could be chalked up to any one of a million reasons, many of them more convincing than a desire to cover up a non-existant weapons program. Maybe individual officers were trying to cover up their own corrupt scams or maybe they just didn't want a bunch of foreigners with a track record of spying on behalf of a country on the brink of invading them snooping around sensitive military sites. The evidence presented would get laughed out of court.

 

[senseiman]

.

Secondly, within the UN and in international law it is almost impossible to get consensus for regime change under the justification of humanitarian intervention. Especially when you have China and Russia sitting on the security council. The Clinton Administration learned that the hard way during Kosovo. The Bush Administration used the easiest justification possible, which was the weapons threat.

Well, it seems only natural that it would be difficult to get consensus for regime change under the justification of a humanitarian intervention when there isn't any existing humanitarian crisis to stop or prevent. Saddam wasn't violently putting anybody down at the time of the invasion nor was there any reason to believe he would at any point in the forseeable future. The humanitarian justification would seem to fall apart on that basis alone, but when you consider the scale of the easily predictable humanitarian crisis the invasion provoked it just seems so divorced from reality as to be totally incomprehensible that anyone would take up that argument. Perhaps there is a good reason why the US finds it so difficult to get people on board with its "humanitarian interventions" (with Kosovo being another case where humanitarian intervention exacerbated a situation and made things worse).

There is no doubt that the US does practice some protectionist behavior, almost all states do. I could just as easily reciprocate embarassing examples for any other State. However pointing out single examples ignores the greater state of affairs that the US has the least trade barriers of any of the OECD state.

As for softwood lumber, actually, thats an example of Canadian protectionism rather than the US. It is our stumpage laws are very close to be considered illegal, not the US. The WTO ruled in January of 2004 year our forest practices were illegal, and could be considered unfair subsidies. I believe we've been ruled against on 3 different occassions. Canadian producers harvest wood from crown lands at abnormally low stumpage fees. American producers must purchase their land and manage them. Moreover Canada limits the export of raw logs preventing US manufacturors from processing them, which gave their own secondary industries an unfair advantage.
Its not a case of the Canadians being free of blame. Actually they have been found guilty of being protectionist. The whole compensation issue is about the US's response to Canadian illegality. Where the US was ruled against was on the calculation of the tarriff it imposed, and therefore had to be refunded. The US does not believe that this is the case and therefore has elected to ignore the ruling, because it believes that it deserves some compensation in any case.

Agreed.

I really suggest you re-read my comments above, because I don't like to repeat myself. Its not "exceptional" because the adminstration has acted towards promoting democracy moreso than any other government since Harry Truman. The bush administration has criticized Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for their record. This is a radical departure from previous admins, which largely remained silent on their behaviour. I don't see what more the US could do, without endangering the US's ability to act.What you are inherently suggesting is that the US act everywhere all at once to promote democracy. What would you suggest doing beyond issuing Diplomatic demarches? The next step would be to impose sanctions of some kind, which the Saudis would retaliate to by cutting oil production, like they did in 1973. Doing that would ensure that the US achieves nothing at all by sinking its economy and the international system in very quick order. Bankrupting themselves in one go would be a self defeating strategy, as in the end you would fail in one;s objectives. Not going all out, and chosing opportunities to implement change where they exist is a more intelligent strategy, one that will ensure success for the venture in the future, rather than mindless application of their values which is what you are suggesting.

Yet the commitment to democracy seems selective. Bush was the first (and if I'm not mistaken only) international leader to embrace the short lived coup against Venezuala's democratically elected government. Even in the democracy showcase of Iraq the commitment only seems to have come out of a need to find some justification for the war once the WMD excuse fell apart. Right up to the eve of the invasion they were still trying to come up with some sort of political program for Iraq, with some in the administration favouring simply replacing Saddam with another dictator more amenable to US interests.

 

[noyhauser]

To start, Senseiman, I think most of your arguments ignore the mindset and knowledge of people at the time and are made with the benefit of hindsight.

Well, it seems only natural that it would be difficult to get consensus for regime change under the justification of a humanitarian intervention when there isn't any existing humanitarian crisis to stop or prevent. Saddam wasn't violently putting anybody down at the time of the invasion nor was there any reason to believe he would at any point in the forseeable future. The humanitarian justification would seem to fall apart on that basis alone, but when you consider the scale of the easily predictable humanitarian crisis the invasion provoked it just seems so divorced from reality as to be totally incomprehensible that anyone would take up that argument.

First off, Saddam was violently putting down his own people, up until 2003. Security forces were regularly executing Shias and Kurds, most recently as the 1999 Basra Massacre. This wasn't going to stop. Regular intimidation via random interrogations, torture and executions occurred daily. It was an ongoing humanitarian crisis, one that had occurred time and again since 1988.

Secondly, I fundamentally disagree with your point that the current situation was "easily predicable." Hindsight is 20/20, and the outcome was dependant on how the Administration handled the situation. Before the invasion, experts in post conflict reconstruction, were divided on the possible outcome of the invasion. Personally I wasn't sure either (I was involved in post conflict reconstruction research at the time), as it depended completely on how the administration handled the occupation stage. Had they have done so differently, such as retaining some baathists and administrators from the old regime, while slowly rebuilding the country, the insurgency might never have materialized to the strength as it did. This was the method applied in post 1945 Japan and many other occupied states, and it has worked quite well by provided continuity while enabling change to occur. However the government was dissolved and chaos ensued with basic infrastructure. Not many people would have predicted that the US adminstration would have taken its committment to emancipating the Iraqi people so seriously as to do this move.

Perhaps there is a good reason why the US finds it so difficult to get people on board with its "humanitarian interventions" (with Kosovo being another case where humanitarian intervention exacerbated a situation and made things worse).

Your argument parallels that made by Noam Chomsky, and is fundamentally flawed and debased from fact. First off, the Clinton Administration did not want to get involved in Kosovo, and actively rejected the idea of involvement throughout 1998, except to go with the diplomatic option. Actually out of the NATO allies, they and Greece, were the most reluctant to become involved, as it was Germany, France and the United Kingdom that wanted intervention. They were unable to carry one out because most of the military capabilities needed for such an undertaking were provided by NATO and the US. This would foster the creation of the European Union Security and Defence Policy at Portlach and St. Malo conferences, because Europe could not get involved without the US. The deteriorating situation on the ground, forced Clinton to act beyond his limited diplomatic response, but even the military campaign reflected his want to limit US involvement.

Secondly Kosovo was a problem that was going to get worse before it got better. While, it is true that Milosevic did intensify his ethnic cleansing actions after the bombing started, the mere fact he had forces deployed to the region that were able to carry out such attacks indicated to many that he was prepared carry it out in any event. The bombings was merely the excuse for him to carry out what he was planning to do all along. Milosevic had been complicit in one act of mass murder already, while under sanctions and international focus, do you think the EU was going to sit around and trust him not to do so again? This time in an area he considered as part of Serbia?

This is the paradox of preventative humanitarian intervention. You will never know if you've prevented a humanitarian catastrophe from occuring if you sucessfully intervene. Had UNAMIR prevented genoide from occurring in Rwanda in 1994, would we know how bad it could be?

His government's lack of cooperation with UN inspectors could be chalked up to any one of a million reasons, many of them more convincing than a desire to cover up a non-existant weapons program. Maybe individual officers were trying to cover up their own corrupt scams or maybe they just didn't want a bunch of foreigners with a track record of spying on behalf of a country on the brink of invading them snooping around sensitive military sites. The evidence presented would get laughed out of court.

Your comment just ignores the fact he WAS obligated to provide a clear unfettered access to his WMD facilities, which he did not. By not allowing weapons inspectors, he was failing his obligations under international law. There was no means to independantly verify his disarmament without weapons inspectors. Many different organizations, including The International Institute of Strategic Studies, put out various documents that predicted what Saddam's capability could be, most of which predicted he had a capability. This was because there was no way to know what he did have. Without inspectors, everybody were forced to rely on saddam's word, a very dodgy prospect. Even though Saddam defied predictions, there were few that knew that. He openly flaunted missiles that exceeded regulations placed on him, by wheeling out a IRBM when he was supposed to be giving access to weapons inspectors.

I don't deny that this was a weaker rationale for war, but given that it was a contravention, the UK and the US used it. The threat may have been overstated, and only localized, but it was legally an easier rationale to get passed.

 

[senseiman]

To start, Senseiman, I think most of your arguments ignore the mindset and knowledge of people at the time and are made with the benefit of hindsight.



First off, Saddam was violently putting down his own people, up until 2003. Security forces were regularly executing Shias and Kurds, most recently as the 1999 Basra Massacre. This wasn't going to stop. Regular intimidation via random interrogations, torture and executions occurred daily. It was an ongoing humanitarian crisis, one that had occurred time and again since 1988.

I don't deny that Saddam was repressing the population right up until the day he fled Baghdad. But the question that has to be asked for the humanitarian justification to make any sense whatsoever is whether or not the scale of that repression was worth the tremendous financial and human costs of the invasion. By any reasonable standard it seems clear that secret police intimidation, torture and execution of relatively small numbers of political dissidents (post 1991 anyway) on a level that probably wouldn't put Iraq out of the norm for dictators in the region can't be used as a justification for a war that has caused exponentially greater harm and suffering among the Iraqi people than would have been inflicted with the status quo, undesirable thought that would have been.

Secondly, I fundamentally disagree with your point that the current situation was "easily predicable." Hindsight is 20/20, and the outcome was dependant on how the Administration handled the situation. Before the invasion, experts in post conflict reconstruction, were divided on the possible outcome of the invasion. Personally I wasn't sure either (I was involved in post conflict reconstruction research at the time), as it depended completely on how the administration handled the occupation stage. Had they have done so differently, such as retaining some baathists and administrators from the old regime, while slowly rebuilding the country, the insurgency might never have materialized to the strength as it did.

Of course predicting the exact situation wouldn't have been easy, but it shouldn't have been at all difficult to predict that by invading an unstable, ethnically and religiously divided country in a part of the world where vast majorities of the population are extremely antagonistic to the US things wouldn't have gone well -and possibly could have gone much worse. The fact that the Bush administration would have bungled the occupation should have been obvious from before the invasion too, commited as they were to on the one hand minimizing the troops levels and costs while at the same time insisting that the best case scenario was what was going to happen, end of story and anyone who suggests otherwise can be shown the door. They had their heads so far into the sand that it was months after the insurgency started before they could even admit that one existed.

This was the method applied in post 1945 Japan and many other occupied states, and it has worked quite well by provided continuity while enabling change to occur. However the government was dissolved and chaos ensued with basic infrastructure. Not many people would have predicted that the US adminstration would have taken its committment to emancipating the Iraqi people so seriously as to do this move.

Attributing this gross incompetence to "the US administration taking its committment to emancipating the Iraqi people so seriously..." is, with all due respect, about the lamest excuse I've ever heard. It seems pretty obvious from the evidence that emancipating the Iraqi people (if by emancipating we are to read "improving the lives of") came pretty damned low on the list of priorities for the Bush administration, which as I've alluded to above didn't even have any sort of political program for Iraq planned or agreed on at the time of the invasion.

Your argument parallels that made by Noam Chomsky, and is fundamentally flawed and debased from fact. First off, the Clinton Administration did not want to get involved in Kosovo, and actively rejected the idea of involvement throughout 1998, except to go with the diplomatic option. Actually out of the NATO allies, they and Greece, were the most reluctant to become involved, as it was Germany, France and the United Kingdom that wanted intervention. They were unable to carry one out because most of the military capabilities needed for such an undertaking were provided by NATO and the US. This would foster the creation of the European Union Security and Defence Policy at Portlach and St. Malo conferences, because Europe could not get involved without the US. The deteriorating situation on the ground, forced Clinton to act beyond his limited diplomatic response, but even the military campaign reflected his want to limit US involvement.

Secondly Kosovo was a problem that was going to get worse before it got better. While, it is true that Milosevic did intensify his ethnic cleansing actions after the bombing started, the mere fact he had forces deployed to the region that were able to carry out such attacks indicated to many that he was prepared carry it out in any event. The bombings was merely the excuse for him to carry out what he was planning to do all along. Milosevic had been complicit in one act of mass murder already, while under sanctions and international focus, do you think the EU was going to sit around and trust him not to do so again? This time in an area he considered as part of Serbia?

This is the paradox of preventative humanitarian intervention. You will never know if you've prevented a humanitarian catastrophe from occuring if you sucessfully intervene. Had UNAMIR prevented genoide from occurring in Rwanda in 1994, would we know how bad it could be?

Those arguments make sense vis a vis the other NATO members, but I mentioned Kosovo only in reference to China and Russia, which opposed both wars. I've read Chomsky on the subject, and his point that NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days to eventually sign an agreement that was extremely similar to one they could have gotten without the bombing struck me as interesting. I haven't studied the peace agreement and the negotiations in any detail, so I don't know if that is an accurate appraisal though.

Your comment just ignores the fact he WAS obligated to provide a clear unfettered access to his WMD facilities, which he did not.

I'm not ignoring anything. The fact that he was obligated to provide unfettered access to the facilities is completely immaterial to his (or more accurately his government's) possible motives for failing to do so, which is the issue in question. If I follow the logic of your argument, the US invaded Iraq because it had a reasonable fear of Iraqi WMD, not simply because Iraq wasn't strictly adhering to the provisions of the UN security council resolutions (though they were an anciliary consideration).

By not allowing weapons inspectors, he was failing his obligations under international law. There was no means to independantly verify his disarmament without weapons inspectors. Many different organizations, including The International Institute of Strategic Studies, put out various documents that predicted what Saddam's capability could be, most of which predicted he had a capability.

Perhaps it may have been reasonable to assume he had some sort of capability, but should the debate end there? Even if we assume he did have one, the fact that he lacked the ability to project those weapons and more importantly the complete lack of any possible situation in which he could have used them to his benefit completely negate the argument that in even the worse case scenarios Saddam could have been thought to pose a threat to anyone outside of Iraq. This view is further backed up by the fact that except Kuwait none of Iraq's neighbors -despite the extreme anymosity they felt towards Saddam and their countries geographic proximity to the 'threat' - felt that the invasion was justified on those lines.

This was because there was no way to know what he did have. Without inspectors, everybody were forced to rely on saddam's word, a very dodgy prospect. Even though Saddam defied predictions, there were few that knew that. He openly flaunted missiles that exceeded regulations placed on him, by wheeling out a IRBM when he was supposed to be giving access to weapons inspectors.

Its not entirely true to say that they just relied on Saddam's word. They had aerial, satellite and electronic surveillance, the testimony of defectors, intelligence from neighboring countries and many other sources of information with which they could form a picture of what was going on. The missiles that exceeded regulations which he "openly flaunted" only exceeded those limits by a narrow margin and he was in the process of destroying them when the war began. The threat they posed can be readily assessed by the fact that when he launched the remaining stockpile during the war they didn't cause any damage anywhere.

I don't deny that this was a weaker rationale for war, but given that it was a contravention, the UK and the US used it. The threat may have been overstated, and only localized, but it was legally an easier rationale to get passed.

Sort of used it...they also announced on the eve of invasion that even if Saddam gave in completely they were still going to invade.

It was more of a political rationale than a legal one, there wasn't any legal mechanism that would have allowed the invasion in the event of non-compliance.

 

[noyhauser]

Of course predicting the exact situation wouldn't have been easy, but it shouldn't have been at all difficult to predict that by invading an unstable, ethnically and religiously divided country in a part of the world where vast majorities of the population are extremely antagonistic to the US things wouldn't have gone well -and possibly could have gone much worse.

Maybe, but there were strong reasons to believe that national solidarity would trump ethnic concerns, especially once Saddam had been overthrown. The Iraqi Army had operated very well against Iran, including Shia elements. I still think that the current situation can be managed. Syria did an excellent job of it in Lebanon during the late 1980s and 90s. The final outcome of Iraq is still not clear.

Attributing this gross incompetence to "the US administration taking its committment to emancipating the Iraqi people so seriously..." is, with all due respect, about the lamest excuse I've ever heard. It seems pretty obvious from the evidence that emancipating the Iraqi people (if by emancipating we are to read "improving the lives of") came pretty damned low on the list of priorities for the Bush administration, which as I've alluded to above didn't even have any sort of political program for Iraq planned or agreed on at the time of the invasion.

Actually I suggest then you read more about the US involvement. First off the US coalition authority disbanded the Baathist regime, because of the belief that retaining the regime would give the perception that the US was just interested in occupying the country, and would just replace the Saddam as the leader and employ the same apparatus. Chris Patten, former Commissioner for Foreign Affairs in Europe, said just yesterday that this was one of the most grievous errors that the US committed, a decision that the UK should not have agreed to. The dissolution of the central government caused the collapse of the public infrastructure, which is what I would label one of the underlying causes of the indigenous insurgency. Furthermore the complete disbanding of the army, parts of which could be salvaged, pretty well forced the Coalition forces to develop an army from scratch. Now the Iraqi forces are all completely green and unable to mount effective combat operations, when they could have had several ready brigades to counter the insurgency in the country.

Your point about the rebuilding the country as being a low priority is because of this, the poor security situation, and the lack of a effective civil government pretty well makes reconstruction next to impossible. Companies and NGOs are not willing to work out in the streets, and the civil government cannot effectively assert itself, so reconstruction has not occurred. Furthermore, the US did not believe that it needed to get involved in Nation building. It believed that it Iraqis should be in control of its own infrastructure and governance, rather than be directed by the US.

Basically the political program for Iraq was based on regime change, and the quick formation of a national government, and a withdrawal of forces as soon as possible. I won?ft disagree that the Administration underestimated the task they set out for themselves, and messed it up. But there is little that can be done now except stay the course.

Those arguments make sense vis a vis the other NATO members, but I mentioned Kosovo only in reference to China and Russia, which opposed both wars. I've read Chomsky on the subject, and his point that NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days to eventually sign an agreement that was extremely similar to one they could have gotten without the bombing struck me as interesting. I haven't studied the peace agreement and the negotiations in any detail, so I don't know if that is an accurate appraisal though.

That?fs Chomsky for you. Milosevic clearly said no to Rambouillet in Dec. 1998 and had been escalating his actions in Kosovo. When special Envoy Richard Hollbroke went to Belgrade three days before the bombing for a last minute agreement, he asked him three times if he understood the consequences if he didn?ft agree to Rambouillet, and he knew that he was going to get bombed. He still persisted, and in the end NATO got the rambouillet agreement that they wanted in the first palace. Had he of said yes in December, the US would have been happy and Operation Allied Force would have never happened. The US just didn?ft want to be there, and got dragged into it.

Its not entirely true to say that they just relied on Saddam's word. They had aerial, satellite and electronic surveillance, the testimony of defectors, intelligence from neighboring countries and many other sources of information with which they could form a picture of what was going on. The missiles that exceeded regulations which he "openly flaunted" only exceeded those limits by a narrow margin and he was in the process of destroying them when the war began.

But the fact that he did break law, only uncovering them when he realized he was in trouble with the international sphere, just heightened peoples belief that he may have more where that came from. There were several defectors that had said that there were WMD activities going on. Given Saddam?fs possession and use of Chemical weapons, as well as an active Nuclear program during the 1980s, I think it more fit the pattern that he had Chemical weapon, than him not having. Especially when he barred access to certain facilities. If you?fve openly had these weapons before, publicly show that you have developed a battlefield missile that contravenes regulations placed on you and bar weapon inspectors from doing their work?c I think the perspective that he had weapon is far more supported than him not having any.

Also, had the Coalition had even hinted that they were going in for regime change, their efforts to get a UN security council resolution would have evaporated. China and Russia and possibly france would have vetoed the resolution as being just a legal pretext for regime change (which it was anyway). They were really unable to say other justification, because it would blow their legal justification away. Remember people believed that even if saddam didn?ft have a completely active program, they would find something, so that this would satisfy the pretext that they wanted.

 

[senseiman]

Maybe, but there were strong reasons to believe that national solidarity would trump ethnic concerns, especially once Saddam had been overthrown. The Iraqi Army had operated very well against Iran, including Shia elements. I still think that the current situation can be managed. Syria did an excellent job of it in Lebanon during the late 1980s and 90s. The final outcome of Iraq is still not clear.

IMHO the arguments and evidence that things would go bad were significantly more convincing than that. At any rate, it seems clear that the Bush administration was utterly unprepared for the eventuality that the best case scenario wouldn't transpire.

Actually I suggest then you read more about the US involvement. First off the US coalition authority disbanded the Baathist regime, because of the belief that retaining the regime would give the perception that the US was just interested in occupying the country, and would just replace the Saddam as the leader and employ the same apparatus. Chris Patten, former Commissioner for Foreign Affairs in Europe, said just yesterday that this was one of the most grievous errors that the US committed, a decision that the UK should not have agreed to. The dissolution of the central government caused the collapse of the public infrastructure, which is what I would label one of the underlying causes of the indigenous insurgency. Furthermore the complete disbanding of the army, parts of which could be salvaged, pretty well forced the Coalition forces to develop an army from scratch. Now the Iraqi forces are all completely green and unable to mount effective combat operations, when they could have had several ready brigades to counter the insurgency in the country.

So in other words it was incompetence. They could have simply purged the government of hardcore Baathists if they wanted to give the impression that they were going to change things for the better, but instead they disbanded the whole government which has had disastrous consequences which, as with the whole war itself, ought to have been easily predictable to the people in charge at the time. So either it wasn't apparent to them, or it was and they just didn't give a damn.

Your point about the rebuilding the country as being a low priority is because of this, the poor security situation, and the lack of a effective civil government pretty well makes reconstruction next to impossible. Companies and NGOs are not willing to work out in the streets, and the civil government cannot effectively assert itself, so reconstruction has not occurred. Furthermore, the US did not believe that it needed to get involved in Nation building. It believed that it Iraqis should be in control of its own infrastructure and governance, rather than be directed by the US.

This again goes to the complete incompetence and lack of foresight on the part of the Bush administration. They planned on everything going along perfectly well (completely ignoring extremely convincing arguments and evidence to the contrary) and when the proverbial **** hit the fan they were completely unprepared to deal with it, and now the Iraqi people are suffering because their infrastructure, economy and government are a complete mess.

This is another point that I think gives the lie to the allegation that the Bush administration was even remotely concerned with the well being of Iraqis. If they had been, surely they would have made adequate provisions to deal with these problems, but they didn't. Instead, they invaded with JUST enough troops to topple Saddam's regime (their main focus) but nowhere near enough to provide the security needed to rebuild Iraq after they had achieved their primary objective. You can argue all you want about uncertainties prior to the war and disagreements in the establishment over how things would go, but the fact remains that any responsible government with an actual interest in seeing reconstruction succeed would have made contingency plans to deal with foreseeable problems like this. The insurgency isn't like Hurricane katrina, it didn't just materialize out of nowhere. Prominent people in all quarters were warning that this would happen, and the fact that the Bush administration chose to completely ignore them speaks volumes to me about their motivations and concern for the well being of the Iraqi people, and I have to say that I am not at all impressed.

Basically the political program for Iraq was based on regime change, and the quick formation of a national government, and a withdrawal of forces as soon as possible. I won?ft disagree that the Administration underestimated the task they set out for themselves, and messed it up. But there is little that can be done now except stay the course.

Simple regime change, formation of a new government and withdrawal isn't a political program, its a military objective.

Some Senator recently remarked that "Staying the course isn't a policy" and I'm inclined to agree. Bush looks like the proverbial dog chasing a car - now that he's caught it he doesn't have a clue what to do with it so he just hangs on for dear life. I'm not entirely certain what the best course is myself, but I would feel a lot more comfortable if somebody in charge did, and they clearly don't.

That?fs Chomsky for you. Milosevic clearly said no to Rambouillet in Dec. 1998 and had been escalating his actions in Kosovo. When special Envoy Richard Hollbroke went to Belgrade three days before the bombing for a last minute agreement, he asked him three times if he understood the consequences if he didn?ft agree to Rambouillet, and he knew that he was going to get bombed. He still persisted, and in the end NATO got the rambouillet agreement that they wanted in the first palace. Had he of said yes in December, the US would have been happy and Operation Allied Force would have never happened. The US just didn?ft want to be there, and got dragged into it.

Thats interesting, I'll have to read more on the subject when I have the time (whenever that'll be).

But the fact that he did break law, only uncovering them when he realized he was in trouble with the international sphere, just heightened peoples belief that he may have more where that came from. There were several defectors that had said that there were WMD activities going on. Given Saddam?fs possession and use of Chemical weapons, as well as an active Nuclear program during the 1980s, I think it more fit the pattern that he had Chemical weapon, than him not having. Especially when he barred access to certain facilities. If you?fve openly had these weapons before, publicly show that you have developed a battlefield missile that contravenes regulations placed on you and bar weapon inspectors from doing their work?c I think the perspective that he had weapon is far more supported than him not having any.

If I recall there was some debate over whether they were in violation of UN regs, with the Iraqis claiming that the test fired missiles didn't have guidance systems, which would have reduced their range to within the limits. I don't know...

Personally I'm not at all sold on the argument that mere possession of WMD would have made a sound argument for the war either. That argument still ignores the fact that A) he would have had no way of delivering them outside of Iraq and B) there would have been absolutely no way for him to use them against any other country to his benefit. You might add C) that any weapons he could have had would likely have been of very limited effectiveness.

These facts have been almost completely absent from the debate on the war, but I think they are key in evaluating the justification for the war. The simple equation of:

Saddam is behaving suspisciously and not complying with the rules + He has a bad track record = The US has a right (indeed has no other choice but) to invade his country.

is outrageously lacking and really ought not to be taken seriously.

Also, had the Coalition had even hinted that they were going in for regime change, their efforts to get a UN security council resolution would have evaporated. China and Russia and possibly france would have vetoed the resolution as being just a legal pretext for regime change (which it was anyway). They were really unable to say other justification, because it would blow their legal justification away. Remember people believed that even if saddam didn?ft have a completely active program, they would find something, so that this would satisfy the pretext that they wanted.

Well, that certainly cuts to the chase. Regime change was the reason why they went in and all the publicly stated reasons (WMD, compassion for the people of Iraq, etc.) was just fluff.