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10 Years On, Paul Wolfowitz Admits U.S. Bungled in Iraq

Dittohead not! said:
Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld, the real architects of the war against Iraq, were all members of the Project for a New American Century, which had as its agenda the maintenance of a pax americana on the rest of the world. Iraq, according to their philosophy, had to be taken over. They thought the war could be over and won in six months or less.
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Yes, I am well aware of PNAC (though you should also read Present Dangers​). I have their entire website backed up on external hard drives for future research. Nevertheless, they conceptualized the War on Terror as necessitating a change in style in cracking down on terrorism: from policing to looking at it as a socio-economic and political problem.
 
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CanadaJohn said:
I give President Bush far more credit than you do and frankly far more than a lot of Americans do. I don't think he was that ignorant of the Iraqi dynamics. Similar to what's going on in Syria now, when a minority rules the majority with an iron fist, once there is instability there is a great possibility that chaos with result if there isn't a strong central authority and a policing presence to sustain it. America would have had the moral authority immediately upon the fall of Saddam but once that was lost there was no way to recover it. That said, Iraq is a far better situation than Iran and has a more promising future. I'd also say that Iraq has a more promising future than Eqypt - in my view, Egypt is headed towards an Iran style state more so than a democratic state.

Without the advent of 9/11, I believe Bush would have been a fairly isolationist President, pulling back on American involvement around the world. Once attacked, that was no longer possible.
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I don't believe BushII or his staff had a very strong grasp of the Middle East past Israel First. I doubt anyone in his cabinet had a firm grasp of Muslim sects and traditions. I recall them immediately knocking down ANY suggestion 200,000 troops would be needed to police Iraq once Saddam was ousted. With the history of using minor Nazi Officials in post war Germany I don't see why the Bush Administration thought a complete dump of all of Iraq's security and administrative people was a smart thing. While Bemmer is the scapegoat, I can't see how the Bush Administration could claim they didn't know what would happen between Sunni and Shia factions in post Saddam Iraq.

I see BushII as already leaning toward making a bold move on the international front before 9/11. He was already pissed about an attempt on BushI while Daddy was visiting Kuwait (1993). He was already saying sanctions are not enough and everytime the Iraqis fired a SAM at our aircraft it was an act of war. I don't see BushII as an isolationist, he never held a passport, but he had quite a few political wonks who thought they knew the world from think tank white papers...
 
Fiddytree said:
Yes, I am well aware of PNAC (though you should also read Present Dangers​). I have their entire website backed up on external hard drives for future research. Nevertheless, they conceptualized the War on Terror as necessitating a change in style in cracking down on terrorism: from policing to looking at it as a socio-economic and political problem.
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It is a socio economic and political problem.


Their approach didn't prove too successful, it seems to me.
 
notquiteright said:
I don't believe BushII or his staff had a very strong grasp of the Middle East past Israel First. I doubt anyone in his cabinet had a firm grasp of Muslim sects and traditions. I recall them immediately knocking down ANY suggestion 200,000 troops would be needed to police Iraq once Saddam was ousted. With the history of using minor Nazi Officials in post war Germany I don't see why the Bush Administration thought a complete dump of all of Iraq's security and administrative people was a smart thing. While Bemmer is the scapegoat, I can't see how the Bush Administration could claim they didn't know what would happen between Sunni and Shia factions in post Saddam Iraq.

I see BushII as already leaning toward making a bold move on the international front before 9/11. He was already pissed about an attempt on BushI while Daddy was visiting Kuwait (1993). He was already saying sanctions are not enough and everytime the Iraqis fired a SAM at our aircraft it was an act of war. I don't see BushII as an isolationist, he never held a passport, but he had quite a few political wonks who thought they knew the world from think tank white papers...
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Not surprisingly, I disagree pretty much with your every mischaracterization of President Bush.
 
Dittohead not! said:
It is a socio economic and political problem.


Their approach didn't prove too successful, it seems to me.
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Not generally, no. Nevertheless, defining Iraq as an excuse.... is too simplistic of an explanation for the ideas they had about why it was necessary as well as how the United States were to supposedly gain from it.
 
Middleground said:
Iraq was a huge mistake. Besides the countless lives lost and the lives that are now destroyed by war, nothing has changed. Unless you want to count the death of a has-been dictator who at least kept his people in check. It was like the Bush Administration took a 2 trillion dollar dump and flushed it down a ginormous toilet.
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In addition to the waste of lives and taxpayer dollars was the counter productive growth of al Qaeda around the world recruited by our attack on Iraqis who had not attacked us.
 
Fiddytree said:
Not generally, no. Nevertheless, defining Iraq as an excuse.... is too simplistic of an explanation for the ideas they had about why it was necessary as well as how the United States were to supposedly gain from it.
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and yet they did use the attack to garner support for the invasion of Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with the attack.

No doubt, they would have invaded anyway, sooner or later. The terrorist attack just gave then a little boost, that's all.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld, the real architects of the war against Iraq, were all members of the Project for a New American Century, which had as its agenda the maintenance of a pax americana on the rest of the world. Iraq, according to their philosophy, had to be taken over. They thought the war could be over and won in six months or less.
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The WAR was over quickly.
The occupation was the part that dragged on and on....and where the blood and money was lost.
We seem to be unable to impose our will on this region.
Nation building is futile.
If we decide, foolishly, to initiate a ME war, better to decimate our foe and walk away.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Not surprisingly, I disagree pretty much with your every mischaracterization of President Bush.
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That gives me a great sense of satisfaction, thank you very much. Mainly because rather than use facts you simply say I am wrong. The right wing will work long and hard to rework history. Bottom line- Iraq was a huge mistake from beginning to how ever it turns out.
 
radioman said:
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The WAR was over quickly.
The occupation was the part that dragged on and on....and where the blood and money was lost.
We seem to be unable to impose our will on this region.
Nation building is futile.
If we decide, foolishly, to initiate a ME war, better to decimate our foe and walk away.
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Correct.
Having defeated Saddam and his army was easy. It was the "nation building" that was difficult and costly.

and any war we get into, we'd be well advised to be ready to defeat the foe completely.
 
pbrauer said:
Gee Paul, tell us something we didn't know already.


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The former deputy Pentagon chief, Paul Wolfowitz, a driving force behind the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, has conceded that a series of blunders by George W. Bush’s administration plunged Iraq into a cycle of violence that “spiralled out of control”.​


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In an interview with The Sunday Times to mark the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, he said there “should have been Iraqi leadership from the beginning”, rather than a 14-month occupation led by an American viceroy and based on “this idea that we’re going to come in like [General Douglas] MacArthur in Japan and write the constitution for them”.​


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He accepted that too many Iraqis were excluded by a programme to purge members of the ruling Ba’ath party, that the dissolution of the Iraqi army was botched and that the “biggest hole” in post-war planning was not to anticipate the possibility of an insurgency.​


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“The most consequential failure was to understand the tenacity of Saddam’s regime,” he said.​


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Wolfowitz, 69, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington since he stepped down as World Bank president in 2007, has a somewhat diffident manner but he became animated as he reflected on the lead-up to the invasion and its aftermath.​



Read more: 10 Years On, Paul Wolfowitz Admits U.S. Bungled in Iraq | RealClearPolitics
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitterm
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Notice he didn't say they failed to make the rich richer by increasing the welfare payments, though...;)
 
notquiteright said:
That gives me a great sense of satisfaction, thank you very much. Mainly because rather than use facts you simply say I am wrong. The right wing will work long and hard to rework history. Bottom line- Iraq was a huge mistake from beginning to how ever it turns out.
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I expressed my opinion about President Bush in two posts above, you expressed your opinion about President Bush in response to one of those posts. I respectfully responded, saying I disagree. If you want facts, go back and read my posts. If you want a continued, useless, back and forth argument talking past each other, I'm not interested. If that gives you satisfaction, glad to help.
 
I agree with Canada's position on the Iraq war.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Correct.
Having defeated Saddam and his army was easy. It was the "nation building" that was difficult and costly.

and any war we get into, we'd be well advised to be ready to defeat the foe completely.
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Yes, but to decimate a foe completely, you to have an animus against that supposed foe, i.e. the Iraqi people.
We had no beef against the hapless Iraqis.
If we don't hate an enemy enough, we aren't willing to kill millions of innocent, enslaved people just to get rid of their despot.
World War II was the last war fought---by the US---where we were willing to really decimate the enemy country--civilians and all.
 
CanadaJohn said:
I expressed my opinion about President Bush in two posts above, you expressed your opinion about President Bush in response to one of those posts. I respectfully responded, saying I disagree. If you want facts, go back and read my posts. If you want a continued, useless, back and forth argument talking past each other, I'm not interested. If that gives you satisfaction, glad to help.
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I saw your opinion, but no facts to verify. I gave facts, like the dismissal of needing 200,000 troops to try and stop a civil war. The past use of low level Nazis in post WWII Germany... BushII having no passport, railing against the SAM launches and he claim that in 1993 Saddam tried to assassinate BushI.

Far from an isolationist, well on things like Koyoto, land mines and arms treaties he was a rejectionist, but he did see his 'destiny' as carving out a legacy overseas, 9/11 simply gave him a brief window for rash action.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Is this a trick post? You agree with Canada's position or CanadaJohn's position? :2canadian
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I agree with Canada and the majority of its citizens, not to join in the invasion of Iraq without approval of the invasion by the UN. They suffered less needless loss of life and they didn't incur the huge debt we did for the optional war.
 
Catawba said:
I agree with Canada and the majority of its citizens, not to join in the invasion of Iraq without approval of the invasion by the UN. They suffered less needless loss of life and they didn't incur the huge debt we did for the optional war.
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Thanks for clearing that up and I respect your position. I personally have little respect for the UN and the UN is not a very popular body in Canada but you're right, most Canadians were opposed to joining the war in Iraq but did approve joining the war in Afghanistan. While not directly connected, the Canadian government was defeated shortly after the decision not to join the US and Britian in Iraq.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Thanks for clearing that up and I respect your position. I personally have little respect for the UN and the UN is not a very popular body in Canada but you're right, most Canadians were opposed to joining the war in Iraq but did approve joining the war in Afghanistan. While not directly connected, the Canadian government was defeated shortly after the decision not to join the US and Britian in Iraq.
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I think I remember reading that 71% of Canadians opposed invasion of Iraq. Most admirable!
 
Catawba said:
I think I remember reading that 71% of Canadians opposed invasion of Iraq. Most admirable!
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Actually, Canadians originally opposed the war with Iraq without UN sanction and the Canadian government and the public in general were in favor of joining the US and Britian in the war if the UN sanctioned it. Canada continued to attempt to get the UN Security Council to sanction the action but once France vetoed any attempt to do so, the Canadian government declined to be an active participant even though Canada had significant numbers of troops in the gulf working with the US and they participated in the preparations and in actions. In fact, Canadian troop involvement outnumbered many countries who publically joined in the war.

Once it became clear that the US and Britian, with other countries, were going ahead with the invasion, the Canadian public were supportive of that action. Traditionally, Canada has always been on the US side in these matters and the public was not about to side with Saddam against Bush in this action.

At the time, Canada was led by a Prime Minister who was very much in support of the UN and was at one time considered a leading candidate to be Secretary General - he was not about to approve any action that was not sanctioned by the UN. Most Canadians were not of the same mind, this is why I say this contributed to the governments defeat in the next federal election.

This article might interest you as it relates to Canada-US relations after the Iraq war - http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/may03/noble.pdf
 
CanadaJohn said:
Actually, Canadians originally opposed the war with Iraq without UN sanction and the Canadian government and the public in general were in favor of joining the US and Britian in the war if the UN sanctioned it. Canada continued to attempt to get the UN Security Council to sanction the action but once France vetoed any attempt to do so, the Canadian government declined to be an active participant even though Canada had significant numbers of troops in the gulf working with the US and they participated in the preparations and in actions. In fact, Canadian troop involvement outnumbered many countries who publically joined in the war.

Once it became clear that the US and Britian, with other countries, were going ahead with the invasion, the Canadian public were supportive of that action. Traditionally, Canada has always been on the US side in these matters and the public was not about to side with Saddam against Bush in this action.

At the time, Canada was led by a Prime Minister who was very much in support of the UN and was at one time considered a leading candidate to be Secretary General - he was not about to approve any action that was not sanctioned by the UN. Most Canadians were not of the same mind, this is why I say this contributed to the governments defeat in the next federal election.

This article might interest you as it relates to Canada-US relations after the Iraq war - http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/may03/noble.pdf
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"In March 2003, a poll conducted by EKOS Research Associates for the Toronto Star and the Montreal newspaper La Presse found 71% of those questioned did not support the United States-led invasion, with 27% expressing disapproval.
Canada and the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Catawba said:
"In March 2003, a poll conducted by EKOS Research Associates for the Toronto Star and the Montreal newspaper La Presse found 71% of those questioned did not support the United States-led invasion, with 27% expressing disapproval.
Canada and the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Again, this poll was taken before the invasion began March 19, 2003 and was reflective of Canadians general preference to be part of a UN sanctioned invasion of Iraq, not a US led invasion. However, once the invasion began without UN sanction, Canadians were supportive of the US/British led invasion. Canadians, including our Prime Minister at the time, were supportive of the US initiative both generally and as it worked to get UN support. I would also indicate that the people of Quebec were generally opposed to going into Iraq with or without UN support and the Prime Minister was from Quebec and his position was partially reflective of politics in the province of Quebec.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Most Canadians were not of the same mind, this is why I say this contributed to the governments defeat in the next federal election.
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That's absolute bull. You know the real reason the Liberals were voted out, and it has little to nothing to do with Iraq. In fact, despite the sponsorship scandal that had many a Canadian up in arms, the Conservatives only won by the skin of their teeth.

In any event, let me clarify that most Canadians--apart from Stephen Harper, who, laughingly, wrote an apology ad in the WSJ :roll:-- were thrilled at the decision to not get involved with Iraq. In fact, millions from coast-to-coast marched against it.
 
Middleground said:
That's absolute bull. You know the real reason the Liberals were voted out, and it has little to nothing to do with Iraq. In fact, despite the sponsorship scandal that had many a Canadian up in arms, the Conservatives only won by the skin of their teeth.

In any event, let me clarify that most Canadians--apart from Stephen Harper, who, laughingly, wrote an apology ad in the WSJ :roll:-- were thrilled at the decision to not get involved with Iraq. In fact, millions from coast-to-coast marched against it.
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You can believe what you want to believe - as I said, the Chretien government's position on Iraq did indeed play a part in the demise of Chretien and then the Liberal government. Was it the sole cause? - No - and I never claimed it was.

Your claim that millions from coast-to-coast marched against it is utter nonsense and I defy you to point out any credible source that would support such a claim.

The Canadian public eventually tired of our role in Afghanistan and pushed for withdrawal but except for a few of the usual professional protestors and union operatives (often one and the same) few Canadians got overly worked up about the war in Iraq, even years after the fact when the rationale for entering Iraq became questionable.
 
radioman said:
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Yes, but to decimate a foe completely, you to have an animus against that supposed foe, i.e. the Iraqi people.
We had no beef against the hapless Iraqis.
If we don't hate an enemy enough, we aren't willing to kill millions of innocent, enslaved people just to get rid of their despot.
World War II was the last war fought---by the US---where we were willing to really decimate the enemy country--civilians and all.
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and it's the last war in which we had a clear victory.
War is hell. We need to get beyond war as soon as possible.

But, the history of man is the history of war, with the history books written by the victors.
 
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