Former Military Chief: Iraq War Was A 'Failure' That Helped Create ISIS

Thoreau72 said:

It was not an "oops, mistake" to invade Iraq. It was a deliberate act, planned for a long time. As the Downing Street Memo made clear, the facts and propaganda would be adjusted to fit the agenda.

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The military tends to have plans for a lot of things. Contingency planning. I understand that some British guy had some thoughts about US intentions but one should remember that 1)he was not a US person and would not have had the best view, and 2)his boss, Tony Blair apparently disregarded his thoughts. That would seem significant unless one simply believes that Blair was a complete twit under the control of the US. Doesn't speak well of UK.
And contrary to the memo, the Congressional authorization for Iraq listed 23 reasons for the invasion. 23 initial paragraphs beginning with "Whereas.....". 2 of which had something to do with WMD, leaving 21 other reasons.

I am constantly amazed by those who think that it would have been OK somehow to invade a country on the basis of "WMD" and only opposed it when that basis turns out false. You don't invade a country because they have WMD. That is a violation of international law. There were a number of valid reasons for the invasion by the 43 nations. There are some scary people out there (like Hillary) who thought it was OK to invade if they had WMDs.

TheDemSocialist said:

Do you have anything to reinforce your view that continually occupying the country of IRAQ would have lead to ISIS not rising?

Limited? Its continuing to this day... "Lives saved"? Around 500,000 Children died as a result of the sanctions on Iraq before the war, then add on anywhere from 500,000-1,000,000 died as a result of the war in Iraq... Thats quite the silly assumption that we "saved lives".

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Anything to reinforce my view that leaving a force in Iraq would have limited the rise of ISIS is subjective and conjecture. An opinion.
The lives saved business is easier. Just study the demographics. See the death rate drop from the 8-14 per 1000 per year to 5. See the infant mortality rate drop from 62 per 1000 per year to 37. Watch the population grow from 22 million to 33 million. Of course, you may be right that UN sanctions on Iraq did cause a lot of deaths. Those sanctions were lifted with the invasion so I don't understand your point. Oddly, the UN thought that Saddam had WMD or something.

Eric7216 said:

Anything to reinforce my view that leaving a force in Iraq would have limited the rise of ISIS is subjective and conjecture. An opinion.

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And this is a debate politics site. You usually reinforce your opinion(s) with sources such as statistics, analysis, expert opinions, etc.

The lives saved business is easier. Just study the demographics. See the death rate drop from the 8-14 per 1000 per year to 5.

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It was consistently dropping before the Iraq war as well...

See the infant mortality rate drop from 62 per 1000 per year to 37.

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Hmm wonder why it was so high before the Iraq war? Oh yea, because we had brutal sanctions on the country that blocked medical supplies.....

Watch the population grow from 22 million to 33 million.

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Was constantly growing before the Iraq war as well...

Of course, you may be right that UN sanctions on Iraq did cause a lot of deaths.

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Its a fact that the sanctions caused a massive amount of deaths, mostly infants and children were the victims.

Those sanctions were lifted with the invasion so I don't understand your point.

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That we didnt "save lives".

Oddly, the UN thought that Saddam had WMD or something.

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Well yea they did at the time. I mean we helped them establish that program....

TheDemSocialist said:

Read more @: Former Military Chief: Iraq War Was A 'Failure' That Helped Create ISIS

Well ya dont say!? It should be perfectly clear that the war in Iraq was a failure, it was a mistake, and it did help create ISIS. [/FONT][/COLOR]

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I suspect Flynn is quite right.

And the same can and should be said about Libya and Egypt because of our involvement. Good thing Egypt managed to straighten itself out.

Speaking of Flynn, I think he was also right when he said ...

And I will tell you that accuracy and the warnings that have been provided on the rise of radical Islamists over the last few years have been very, very clear. So what the President has actually received from the national intelligence system is pretty good intelligence. And I would say it's very accurate. So what he's done with that intelligence, you know, from what we can tell right now is, you know, he's taken on this really lousy policy --

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I think that this issue of not meeting a narrative out of the White House, which meant, don't talk about radical Islam. Don't talk about this as being a form of a radicalization of the Islamic religion, which in fact, it is. It is a cancer inside of the Islamic religion and the White House and the President frankly has not wanted to say that. So, if you continue to get this pushback, which is really what happened, and I think that's what you're seeing from the analysts, the great analysts down at CENTCOM, which have been at this thing for a long, long time

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TheDemSocialist said:

And this is a debate politics site. You usually reinforce your opinion(s) with sources such as statistics, analysis, expert opinions, etc.
It was consistently dropping before the Iraq war as well...
Hmm wonder why it was so high before the Iraq war? Oh yea, because we had brutal sanctions on the country that blocked medical supplies.....
Was constantly growing before the Iraq war as well...
Its a fact that the sanctions caused a massive amount of deaths, mostly infants and children were the victims.
That we didnt "save lives".

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Some thing are largely matters of opinion. Don't know how I can "prove" what would have happened with or without US military presence in Iraq. It may surprise you to know that there is politics in the Army and at high levels it helps to think like the Commander in Chief. The opinions of someone promoted by Obama have to be held with a grain of salt.
Actually, the death rate went up under Saddam versus pre-Saddam times. Reach the high of 14.5 per 1000 during the Iran-Iraq war. 8.5 in 2002. 5.3 post invasion.
Infant mortality rates were amazing low in the pre-Saddam era. Iraq had a rather good system. It was 17 per 1000 per year but steadily increased to 62 pre-invasion. Now 37 per 1000.
The 43% jump in population in Iraq during the Iraq war is rather amazing, equaled or exceeded by few countries during that time period.
I don't think that you have actually looked at the data. The source is the UN data published by the NYTimes in annual World Almanacs.

Eric7216 said:

Some thing are largely matters of opinion. Don't know how I can "prove" what would have happened with or without US military presence in Iraq. It may surprise you to know that there is politics in the Army and at high levels it helps to think like the Commander in Chief. The opinions of someone promoted by Obama have to be held with a grain of salt.

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Actually, the death rate went up under Saddam versus pre-Saddam times. Reach the high of 14.5 per 1000 during the Iran-Iraq war.

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8.5 in 2002. 5.3 post invasion.[/QUOTE]

Infant mortality rates were amazing low in the pre-Saddam era. Iraq had a rather good system. It was 17 per 1000 per year but steadily increased to 62 pre-invasion. Now 37 per 1000.
The 43% jump in population in Iraq during the Iraq war is rather amazing, equaled or exceeded by few countries during that time period.
I don't think that you have actually looked at the data.

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The source is the UN data published by the NYTimes in annual World Almanacs.

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World Almanac you say? You must be using some erroneous data then because none of what you said is true according to the world Alamanc. Dont believe me? Check it out here:
Iraq Country Statistics | World Almanac

VanceMack said:

Indeed. The decision wasnt a bad one. It was the post war execution and our own tendency to put politics before country, even at the expense of country. You bet.

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What makes a bad idea a bad idea is that it has bad outcomes, bad effects, and bad consequences.

The reason going to war in Iraq was a bad idea is because we did not have to do so.
The reason deposing Hussein was a bad idea is because we knew we couldn't hold Iraq together. That's exactly why we didn't do it back in the 90's.

Eric7216 said:

The military tends to have plans for a lot of things. Contingency planning. I understand that some British guy had some thoughts about US intentions but one should remember that 1)he was not a US person and would not have had the best view, and 2)his boss, Tony Blair apparently disregarded his thoughts. That would seem significant unless one simply believes that Blair was a complete twit under the control of the US. Doesn't speak well of UK.
And contrary to the memo, the Congressional authorization for Iraq listed 23 reasons for the invasion. 23 initial paragraphs beginning with "Whereas.....". 2 of which had something to do with WMD, leaving 21 other reasons.

I am constantly amazed by those who think that it would have been OK somehow to invade a country on the basis of "WMD" and only opposed it when that basis turns out false. You don't invade a country because they have WMD. That is a violation of international law. There were a number of valid reasons for the invasion by the 43 nations. There are some scary people out there (like Hillary) who thought it was OK to invade if they had WMDs.

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Doesn't speak well for any member of the human race, IMO. But you bring up an interesting point, as to changing one's mind. Soon after the event, changing one's mind might be necessary to comport with reality. I suppose it is an art form, something positive.

As for me, I was right from the start--the invasion of Iraq was brought under fraud. :mrgreen:

Simon W. Moon said:

What makes a bad idea a bad idea is that it has bad outcomes, bad effects, and bad consequences.

The reason going to war in Iraq was a bad idea is because we did not have to do so.
The reason deposing Hussein was a bad idea is because we knew we couldn't hold Iraq together. That's exactly why we didn't do it back in the 90's.

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Thats silly. Great ideas are frequently poorly executed. Best laid plans are ****ed up by politicians all the time. The removal of Saddam was a good thing. The war was executed well. Post war ops were not. Our politicians...thats a whole nuther bucket of **** up.

Simon W. Moon said:

What makes a bad idea a bad idea is that it has bad outcomes, bad effects, and bad consequences.

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VanceMack said:

Thats silly.

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The outcomes of a decisions are actually quite a good method of determining if s decision is a good one or not.
If the decision will lead to contrary or unhelpful consequences, then it's not a good decisions.
It's fairly standard that a decision which will lead to poor outcomes is a poor decision.

This is the method which one uses to determine that drinking from your coffee while it is too hot is a bad idea.
Drinking from your coffee while it is too hot leads to unpleasant consequences--a burned mouth.
This is how you can tell that drinking from your coffee while it is too hot is a bad idea--it has bad consequences.
Surely you see no fault with concluding that poor outcomes are effective criteria for judging a bad idea.

If you are unwilling to accept that poor decisions can be detected by the poor outcomes they produce, I am not sure how we can proceed with our conversation.
[Nor am I clear on how you could effectively conduct the affairs in your life.]

VanceMack said:

Thats silly. Great ideas are frequently poorly executed. Best laid plans are ****ed up by politicians all the time. The removal of Saddam was a good thing. The war was executed well. Post war ops were not. Our politicians...thats a whole nuther bucket of **** up.

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It's true that good ideas can be poorly executed. But that does nt apply to the invasion of Iraq.

Invading Iraq was a poor idea because we did not have to do so.
Since ancient times, war has been widely known to bring about unintended consequences which can have major and lasting effects on a country.
[I can cite Clausewitz, Sun Tse or whomever you would like in this regard if you like.]
That's one of the many, many reasons why it's a bad idea to go to war when it is unnecessary to do so.

It has been well-known for decades that deposing Saddam Hussein would lead to massive unrest and that we were not capable of effectively dealing with that unrest.
Cheney himself even said so before he came to be VP.
That's exactly why we didn't depose Hussein it back in the 90's.
We knew that we could not control the consequences.

You are free to believe that it's a good idea to go to war unnecessarily.
That is your prerogative.
You're wrong if you believe it's a good idea to go to war unnecessarily.
But you're free to believe it.

You are free to believe that even though we knew that the consequences of deposing Hussein would be uncontrollable and bad, that bringing about the uncontrollable and bad situation was a good idea.
That is your prerogative.
You're wrong if you believe it.
But you're free to believe it.

Eric7216 said:

I am constantly amazed by those who think that it would have been OK somehow to invade a country on the basis of "WMD" and only opposed it when that basis turns out false. You don't invade a country because they have WMD. That is a violation of international law. There were a number of valid reasons for the invasion by the 43 nations. There are some scary people out there (like Hillary) who thought it was OK to invade if they had WMDs.

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The premise which was sold to the public was not merely that Iraq had WMD, but that Iraq was likely to use WMD against the US via a terrorist attack.
The electorate did not go to war merely because of the existence of WMD in Iraq.
The electorate believed that we were in danger from Hussein and that we needed to preemptively invade to protect ourselves from Hussein attacking us with WMD.
The GWB Admin had a meeting and decided that was the angle which would get the public on board.
That's how the war was sold.

But the best info available at the time was that Hussein was not going to attack the US.
Somehow, that singularly relevant point was swept under the rug.

Simon W. Moon said:

The premise which was sold to the public was not merely that Iraq had WMD, but that Iraq was likely to use WMD against the US via a terrorist attack.
The electorate did not go to war merely because of the existence of WMD in Iraq.
The electorate believed that we were in danger from Hussein and that we needed to preemptively invade to protect ourselves from Hussein attacking us with WMD.
The GWB Admin had a meeting and decided that was the angle which would get the public on board.
That's how the war was sold.

But the best info available at the time was that Hussein was not going to attack the US.
Somehow, that singularly relevant point was swept under the rug.

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Yes, swept under the rug by the very same folks planning the invasion, in accordance with what we learned from the Downing Street Memo. This country was taken to war under fraud.

Obama is treating his policy in Iraq like the sex act; in and out in and out and back in until he leaves office dumping the whole mess on the next loser to fill the office. Yeah, Bush started it but isn't odd that we are still there 8 years later despite Obama's words to the contrary? He is the weakest president we have had. Truly no courage. He pledged to do something on gun control but shriveled to a raisin in front of the NRA. Do some Al Greene for us president it is all you can do.

Simon W. Moon said:

The premise which was sold to the public was not merely that Iraq had WMD, but that Iraq was likely to use WMD against the US via a terrorist attack.
The electorate did not go to war merely because of the existence of WMD in Iraq.
The electorate believed that we were in danger from Hussein and that we needed to preemptively invade to protect ourselves from Hussein attacking us with WMD.
The GWB Admin had a meeting and decided that was the angle which would get the public on board.
That's how the war was sold.

But the best info available at the time was that Hussein was not going to attack the US.
Somehow, that singularly relevant point was swept under the rug.

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At the time, I thought that everyone knew what was really going on. Saddam was a menace and should be removed. He invaded Iran and Kuwait and gave no indication that he wasn't going to invade someone else in the future. Saddam was acting similar to Hitler in 1937 and 1938, Japan in the 1930s in China, and Italy when they invaded Ethiopia. I thought that everyone knew that the WMD thing was just a technicality that allowed the world to violate a country's sovereignty. The UN inspectors were constantly whining about lack of access. He was acting suspiciously.
There are numerous countries with WMD. We don't invade them and don't want to. But Saddam was a menace and the world used the lack of progress on WMD inspections to invade. People could not understand why Saddam was dinking around with inspectors. But I thought that the politicians knew that we were using the WMD as a pretense to remove Saddam and the only reason for invading was to remove him.
But then the opposing politicians decided to make a big deal of the WMD thing. I was surprised because that never was the real reason.

Eric7216 said:

At the time, I thought that everyone knew what was really going on.

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I suspect that you overestimated "everyone".
Polls show that quite a significant number of people believed that Hussein was involved with the 911 attacks.
The GWB Admin had meetings to discuss the strategy to best make Americans willing to send the kids to die and realized that the narrative had to be one of defending the US.
As Wolfowitz said there was only one reason that could justify putting "American kids' lives at risk...on the scale we did..." and that reason was the threat to the US from Iraq.
Basically America agreed to go to war because we thought were defending ourselves.

Simon W. Moon said:

I suspect that you overestimated "everyone".
Polls show that quite a significant number of people believed that Hussein was involved with the 911 attacks.
Basically America agreed to go to war because we thought were defending ourselves.

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You are probably right. I never gave much thought to Wolfowitz and assumed that he was an idiot. Which makes it ironic that so many people believed in Wolfowitz and the neo-con idea and supported the war when they thought that Iraq had WMD, was involved in 9/11, and was a threat to the US. Including many on the left, such as Hillary and many others who supported the war initially.

On the other hand, there were 42 other countries who supported the effort as well and I can't believe that they were worried about Saddam attacking them or the types of rationale that Wolfowitz had. These are respectable, sovereign countries. Not lackeys of US imperialism. Not subject to the hostilities that the US generates because of Israel and other issues. I am guessing that they joined the effort because they felt Saddam was a menace to the international order and to his own people and they were willing to expend the effort to remove him.

Eric7216 said:

At the time, I thought that everyone knew what was really going on. Saddam was a menace and should be removed. He invaded Iran and Kuwait and gave no indication that he wasn't going to invade someone else in the future. Saddam was acting similar to Hitler in 1937 and 1938, Japan in the 1930s in China, and Italy when they invaded Ethiopia. I thought that everyone knew that the WMD thing was just a technicality that allowed the world to violate a country's sovereignty. The UN inspectors were constantly whining about lack of access. He was acting suspiciously.
There are numerous countries with WMD. We don't invade them and don't want to. But Saddam was a menace and the world used the lack of progress on WMD inspections to invade. People could not understand why Saddam was dinking around with inspectors. But I thought that the politicians knew that we were using the WMD as a pretense to remove Saddam and the only reason for invading was to remove him.
But then the opposing politicians decided to make a big deal of the WMD thing. I was surprised because that never was the real reason.

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Regarding how it came to pass that Saddam invaded Kuwait, are you familiar with the testimony April Glaspie, the Ambassador to Iraq at the time, gave in Congress about how it all happened?

Thoreau72 said:

Regarding how it came to pass that Saddam invaded Kuwait, are you familiar with the testimony April Glaspie, the Ambassador to Iraq at the time, gave in Congress about how it all happened?

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The one in which she stated that the US had no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, such as any issues Iraq had with Kuwait?

Not sure what relevance that has to Iraq 2003. History is filled with such statements. Such as Truman in 1948 stating that South Korea is out of US's sphere of influence. There are typically misstatements or errors in understanding somewhere involved in every war, from the Mexican War's Spot Resolution, to USS Maine, to Gulf of Tonkin. I suppose that it would not be hard to find statements from the Obama administration regarding the US role in the region that could be implied to lead directly to the rise of ISIS.

It was a stupid statement. Arguably corrected with the massive international effort to liberate Kuwait.

Eric7216 said:

The one in which she stated that the US had no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, such as any issues Iraq had with Kuwait?

Not sure what relevance that has to Iraq 2003. History is filled with such statements. Such as Truman in 1948 stating that South Korea is out of US's sphere of influence. There are typically misstatements or errors in understanding somewhere involved in every war, from the Mexican War's Spot Resolution, to USS Maine, to Gulf of Tonkin. I suppose that it would not be hard to find statements from the Obama administration regarding the US role in the region that could be implied to lead directly to the rise of ISIS.

It was a stupid statement. Arguably corrected with the massive international effort to liberate Kuwait.

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My previous post was in response to your claim that Saddam was a menace.

A menace to whom? At least he kept the freaky Sunni and Shia factions from killing each other, and he kept the electricity and sewers running.

My point is that Saddam was our fair-haired son, doing our bidding in his war with the Persians, receiving our chemical weapons, loans guaranteed by our Commerce Dept. We used him all up, and then declared him persona non grata, and the media is too damn stupid to ask any questions or connect any dots.

If Saddam was still in power in Iraq Isis wouldn't exist. Truth hurts. Bush was an idiot. A terrorist. His grandfather gave money to the Nazi's.

We sold Saddam WMD's.

TheDemSocialist said:

Well ya dont say!? It should be perfectly clear that the war in Iraq was a failure, it was a mistake, and it did help create ISIS. [/FONT][/COLOR]

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I thought it was well established that ISIS is the direct result of the power vacuum in the region. Hell, haven't they said as much themselves? Any claim otherwise is petty partisan politics and/or ignorant patriotism.

TNAR said:

I thought it was well established that ISIS is the direct result of the power vacuum in the region. Hell, haven't they said as much themselves? Any claim otherwise is petty partisan politics and/or ignorant patriotism.

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Who is mainly responsible for creating that vacuum?

TheDemSocialist said:

Who is mainly responsible for creating that vacuum?

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I'd say the United States holds the bulk of that blame. Feel free to toss in various U.S. allies as you see fit. For countless decades the U.S. has been playing overseer of the region, pitting the various religious sects against each other while pulling the strings behind the scenes. The immediate cause of the creation of ISIS was the removal of Saddam, though that too was a side-effect of policy actions. Seems to me like the bureaucracy massively dropped the ball by completely underestimating the importance (and nuances) of religion in the region.