How Bremer screwed up in Iraq

[Q Classic]

Q-Cubed - I just came back to this thread because I saw you posted. I enjoy what you write, because it typically is consistant and well thought out. In fact it might qualify for that dirty word - moderate

what did you just call me?

[Q Classic]

That might be true. This is quite different, though, from Kerry's constant refrain.

of course it's different from kerry's constant refrain. why? because kerry's refrain is that shinseki was fired, which is utter bollocks.

just because kerry's being a douche and using the good name of shinseki doesn't mean that the administration wasn't filled with asshattery towards shinseki.

robert novak
bruce clark
washington monthly

novak again

ned, there's no "that might be true" about it. rumsfeld announced shinseki's retirement 14 months before it was scheduled, which is unprecedented--and in the words of many pentagonites, made shinseki a lame duck.

shinseki wasn't fired because of his predicitions. he made those predictions after he was reduced to irrelevance because rumsfeld didn't like him.

[Q Classic]

I keep wondering why Bush lets Kerry get away with the lie about Shinseki? No one disciplined him or fired him over what he said.

he wasn't disciplined. they did say shinseki was bad with numbers, though, and that his estimate that it would take hundreds of thousands of troops was worthless.

[DanS]

And I'm still torn on the whole Iraqi invasion issue, it may have been a brilliant move to smoke out the terrorists instead of playing cat and mouse with them all over the globe. On the other hand, did invading Iraq motivate "fence sitters" to join the terrorist groups leaving us with even more enemies to deal with? What I'm afraid of is if we are planning on using Iraq as a staging ground for invasions of Iran and maybe Syria.

I'm much less conflicted on the war itself. I see it as a natural, if ugly, conclusion to Gulf War I (which I opposed, by the way). 9/11 was partly the result of al Qaeda being able to contend in its propaganda that the US was weak -- a paper tiger. One of the festering sores pointing to this weakness was that there was no ultimate consequence for Saddam. Add the Beirut barracks bombing, Somalia, etc. More directly, our presence in Saudi Arabia was due to our choice to not topple Saddam in Gulf War I. For this reason, I see Scowcroft's current stance as ludicrous, for instance, since his policies to let Saddam crush his rivals are what put us in this mess in the first place.

The tough choices that we have had to make over the last two years have been choices between lesser evils. But we have to make them, in order to bring the underlying problems of Gulf War I to some sort of conclusion/solution.

In tactical arena of the terror war, I know it's ugly, but we are pounding targets in Fallujah every day. Some of those bombs kill bona fide terrorists. That should at least be some consolation to those who believe that the war was tactically unwise.

[Mr. Harley]

Q-Cubed, thanks for tracking that down. Now it makes a little more sense, and also follows from the Rumsfeld DOD. Marginalize those who you don't like or disagree with. This means that Shinseki was not per se risking his career, he was just being honest when he had nothing left to lose. Doesn't change my attitude about Rumsfeld or Bush one bit, but it does mean that Shinseki wasn't being heroic and sacrificing his career to save American boys. He still did the right thing, which is rare enough anyway these days, but that does put it in a different context.

[Q Classic]

This means that Shinseki was not per se risking his career, he was just being honest when he had nothing left to lose. Doesn't change my attitude about Rumsfeld or Bush one bit, but it does mean that Shinseki wasn't being heroic and sacrificing his career to save American boys. He still did the right thing, which is rare enough anyway these days, but that does put it in a different context.

personally, i like think that shinseki would have said the same thing even if rumsfeld hadn't announced his retirement... but that's just idle speculation and my respect for the first american-asian joint chief.

[Mr. Harley]

I'd wondered about the name, but I wasn't sure.

[Ramo]

Regarding the total dismantlement of the army, that was Defense's **** just as much as Bremer's. Feith and Chalabi were big proponents fo this, and I wouldn't be suprised if they exerted some pressure on Bremer to that effect. Bremer was state's man after all, so he'd be slightly less inclined to make insane policy decisions. And yes, that was a horrendous mistake without a doubt; increasing Iraq's unemployment (especially of people with weapons) by so much, was one of the many pivotal mistakes in the occupation of Iraq.

In any case Bremer's mistakes were legion, and the Bush Administration is far more culpable than Bremer for these mistakes.

[Ramo]

I'm much less conflicted on the war itself. I see it as a natural, if ugly, conclusion to Gulf War I (which I opposed, by the way). 9/11 was partly the result of al Qaeda being able to contend in its propaganda that the US was weak -- a paper tiger.

Not really. The idea of 9/11 was to create a lose-lose scenario for the US. We could either back out of the Muslim world in general and Saudi Arabia in particular, abandoning our satellite states, or we could invade and get in a long quagmire where we'd piss off the Islamic world immensely, possibly leading to revolutions toppling these secular states eventually. The latter scenario was to repeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for us; that's why the 9/11 hijackers didn't bother to use fake names - they wanted a trail leading straight to Kabul.

That ended up not happening in Afghanistan, but the irony is that that's exactly what happened in Iraq.

[Bosh]

, or we could invade and get in a long quagmire where we'd piss off the Islamic world immensely, possibly leading to revolutions toppling these secular states eventually. The latter scenario was to repeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for us;

Right, the Islamic fundies give themselves and the Afghani quagmire a HUGE amount credit for the collapse of the Soviets. Bin Ladin wanted to have the same thing happen to the US. Not the best logic in the world, but its pretty consistent.

[Berzerker]

Ned -

Either that, or not finishing the job so that we could withdraw. With Saddam in power, we had no option but to stay.

We had the option to leave after the first Gulf War and leave Saddam with a simple yet clear message - don't invade your neighbors. If we gave him that message prior to his invasion of Kuwait, we could have avoided all this. But George the 1st was wishy washy and amoral so we got bogged down in a quagmire.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Ned -

We had the option to leave after the first Gulf War and leave Saddam with a simple yet clear message - don't invade your neighbors. If we gave him that message prior to his invasion of Kuwait, we could have avoided all this. But George the 1st was wishy washy and amoral so we got bogged down in a quagmire.

Berz, you are obviously an intelligent man as you are leading the Lombardi contest by 4 over all competition. Now, I ask you this. Why did Bush I not finish Iraq off in 1991, but rather left it to UN sanctions to deal with the WMD? Let me give you two possible choices.

1) He was weak, as exhibited by the fact that he went to war against Saddam while Kerry voted against.

2) He had to limit his objectives to keep the coalition together. France, for one, would have vetoed any move on Saddam.

[Bosh]

*points to sig*
*cough*

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Ned
Bush said the only mistakes were some of his appointments.

So Bush admits it was all his fault? Great.

[Dinner]

I'm sure that Cheny quote was post 1991 but pre-2000.