The cost of freeing Iraq

[Ramo]

Why is it there's never any leftist handwringing about the cost of leaving this kind of ******* in power?

Of course coming up with a coherent plan along with guarantees protecting Iraqi human rights before the invasion, instead of relying on Chalabi to sort everything out in a prelude to a US corporate takeover, was never a possibility.

[GePap]

Interestingly enough, when it comes to Iraq, invariably the French position turns out correct: before the war they said the WMD threat was not worth war..they were right..then they urged the US to undergo a quick transfer of power to Iraquis while the admin said no to timetables, that they would take their time and write a constitution...and now, they are talking about a quick transition of power before a constitution.

So lets listen to what the French are saying now, cause it will be the Bush policy in a couple of months.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by techumseh
I will forgo the delights of shooting fish in a barrel, and just ask one question: Given that this report was intended for public consumption (how often do CIA reports get "leaked"?), what do you think the REAL number is?

If you count passive sympathizers who provide shelter, and just sort of look the other way, I'd say the number is more like a million. Ones who will take risks by storing materiel, acting as couriers and lookouts, but not actually fighting? Maybe a quarter of that number. Ones who will actually fight? Less than the 50,000 number.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by mindseye

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Also, O brilliant foreign policy visionary, what would you have done?

(a) Left Saddam Hussein and the Baath party in power and continued sanctions ad infinitum (...)

or

(b) Left Hussein and the Baathists in power (...)

Hey, you got that false dilemma from **** Cheney! Because the rest of your arguments have been spot-on, I'll assume you were providing as examples two of many options, right? I know I was far from alone in favoring (c) Take another year for an all-out attempt to build a legitimate international coalition that would be better positioned politically and economically to deal with the aftermath.

Actually, it's not a false dilemma unless you go back almost a year prior, and even then, it's not very false. Once Bush/Cheney/Rummy sent 3ID to Kuwait and started augmenting forces, there was already a limited timetable. Sending a reinforced division as a sabre rattling exercise is damned expensive in terms of direct cost, and combat readiness for the affected units once you move them - it's a use it or lose it for a while while you redeploy and do all your heavy vehicle maintenance resulting from a desert deployment.

In terms of a "legitimate international coalition" there's some real problems - one, the fact that sanctions and playing along with the status quo had dragged on for 12 years, the other that you'd need a compelling selling point (hence the grasp at WMDs) to get other countries on board. If you tried to pitch humanitarian concerns, the question of why delay 12 years would have dogged the US, and France and Russia would just want to drop sanctions so they could collect past debts and make some bucks off of rearming Saddam.

The real problem comes down to the UN and the US spending 12 years to paint themselves into a corner with Saddam such that there really was no good solution. Once the US deployed heavy forces in strength, we couldn't keep them there forever (and six months in Kuwait feels like forever, let alone another year on top of that). If we recall those units, it sends a signal to Saddam and everyone else that we're bluffing, and if we keep them in the ****hole northern Kuwaiti desert for an ever increasing time, routine personnel rotations, vehicle wear, boredom and morale issues all seriously degrade the readiness of those units.

There's also timing issues with the winds, rains, and summer heat, such that there are only a couple of windows during the year that conditions are favorable to attack, and there is always an issue that the more you stall, the more time you give your enemy to prepare and the more you encourage him with your hesitation.

Even if one last all-holds barred attempt failed, it would have put more post-war pressure Germany and France for refusing to contribute to the re-building (after years of hand-wringing about the sanctions' effects on the Iraqi people).

The problem is how to make the case - if you claim an urgent need, then take forever trying to bring everyone on board, you shoot yourself in the foot. If you don't claim an urgent need, then you give UN inertia a chance to assert itself, and the tendency is to maintain the status quo. "After all, we've done nothing of note for 12 years, what's another year or two? Bush planned to force the issue, and thought he could buffalo everyone along, and it didn't happen. At the same time, the lack of a long term plan, the concept of just maintaining sanctions ad infinitum at the expense of the Iraqi people when they clearly had no effect on the Hussein regime, and the refusal to address real remedies for flagrant defiance of UNSCRs are all gross failings on the UN's part, and on the Clinton administration for failing to even attempt to inject any real leadership into the UN process.

Why is it there's never any leftist handwringing about the cost of leaving this kind of ******* in power?

I think your "they're all ****s" view of "the left" and "the right" is a bit over-simplified.

I borrow it from the majority of the Euros who seem to consider me a right-wing warmonger.

I think that plenty, if not the majority of "the (American) left" were in favor of trying a little harder before playing the military card. Saddam's regime was just about a textbook example of the kind of government that "lefties" abhor the most.

Then why wasn't it a priority issue when Clinton was President, or on Gore's part, or even in the leftist media - the only issue was how nasty sanctions were. We've had 12 years of Cheneying around with Saddam, so it's certainly not a hurry up approach, or a shortage of time. The problem was a shortage of interest and leadership.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ramo


Of course coming up with a coherent plan along with guarantees protecting Iraqi human rights before the invasion, instead of relying on Chalabi to sort everything out in a prelude to a US corporate takeover, was never a possibility.

Apparently not, since nobody even paid attention to the issue for 12 years.

[atawa]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Then why wasn't it a priority issue when Clinton was President, or on Gore's part,

The Clinton campaign wasn't financed by the arms and oil lobby?

[Ramo]

Apparently not, since nobody even paid attention to the issue for 12 years.

And naturally, the gov't's of the US were run by bleeding heart pinko's for the past 12 years.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Well, I didn't hear any of them whining, except about those evil genocidal sanctions and half a million Iraqi kids killed by bad water because Saddam couldn't buy chlorine. (Never mind that it's not necessary for primary biological treatment of potable water).

Besides, Clinton and Boxer and their ilk are what passes for pink in US politics. And I sure didn't hear many of our Eurocom friends whining about anything other than how sanctions were hurting the poor Iraqi people, so let's get rid of them so Saddam can pay us and buy more new hardware from us.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Actually, it's not a false dilemma unless you go back almost a year prior, and even then, it's not very false. Once Bush/Cheney/Rummy sent 3ID to Kuwait and started augmenting forces, there was already a limited timetable. Sending a reinforced division as a sabre rattling exercise is damned expensive in terms of direct cost, and combat readiness for the affected units once you move them - it's a use it or lose it for a while while you redeploy and do all your heavy vehicle maintenance resulting from a desert deployment.
---

Once the US deployed heavy forces in strength, we couldn't keep them there forever (and six months in Kuwait feels like forever, let alone another year on top of that). If we recall those units, it sends a signal to Saddam and everyone else that we're bluffing, and if we keep them in the ****hole northern Kuwaiti desert for an ever increasing time, routine personnel rotations, vehicle wear, boredom and morale issues all seriously degrade the readiness of those units.

There's also timing issues with the winds, rains, and summer heat, such that there are only a couple of windows during the year that conditions are favorable to attack, and there is always an issue that the more you stall, the more time you give your enemy to prepare and the more you encourage him with your hesitation...

Michael, please spare us this militaristic crap.

"Yeah, we had all these troops ready to roll and the boys were getting bored, so we had to start a war to keep them happy"

Now you (USA) have put yourself in a situation much worse than the one you decribe. What's six months of training in the desert compared to years of guerilla war in Iraq? And if the troops were getting bored and needed to maintain their equipment, you could rotated them with another division. Expensive, probably, but nothing compared to what you have to pay now.

[atawa]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
And I sure didn't hear many of our Eurocom friends whining about anything other than how sanctions were hurting the poor Iraqi people, so let's get rid of them so Saddam can pay us and buy more new hardware from us.

The same can be said about the states:

Lets invade them so we controll their money and oil supply and can make sure they buy/sell everything to American company's.


Shame though, I would have loved to see how the American economy would have reacted if other Arab country's started to sell their oil in € instead of $

[Sikander]

Originally posted by atawa


The same can be said about the states:

Lets invade them so we controll their money and oil supply and can make sure they buy/sell everything to American company's.


Shame though, I would have loved to see how the American economy would have reacted if other Arab country's started to sell their oil in € instead of $

Many things can be said, much fewer proven. I'd like to see you prove that we attacked Iraq for their money (it was well known that they were many billion dollars in debt before the war) or their oil.

[atawa]

Can you prove it wasn't about the money?

If it was a purely humanitarian mission there would have been better targets in Africa or North Korea.