Comments Posted By Jonathan
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Comment Posted By Jonathan On 13.01.2007 @ 08:04Rumsfeld, May 30, 2003: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 13.01.2007 @ 07:43Then-CIA Director "George Tenet stood up and said, 'It's (weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) a slam-dunk case".' It was not a slam-dunk case. ... There isn't any slam dunk in intelligence." - Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman, Senate Intelligence Committee, on NBC's Meet the Press.
Sgt. Thomas:
OK, you win, President Bush is the greatest geopolitical and military genius since Napoleon. And invading Iraq is the greatest military adventure since Napoleon invaded Russia.
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 16.01.2007 @ 06:50
Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz calculates true cost of Iraq war at over $2 trillion.
11/03/06 "Milken Institute Review" -- -- In January, we estimated that the true cost of the Iraq war could reach $2 trillion, a figure that seemed shockingly high. But since that time, the cost of the war – in both blood and money – has risen even faster than our projections anticipated. More than 2,500 American troops have died and close to 20,000 have been wounded since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. And the $2 trillion number – the sum of the current and future budgetary costs along with the economic impact of lives lost, jobs interrupted and oil prices driven higher by political uncertainty in the Middle East – now seems low.
One source of difficulty in getting an accurate picture of the direct cost of prosecuting the war is the way the government does its accounting. With “cash accounting,†income and expenses are recorded when payments are actually made – for example, what you pay off on your credit card today – not the amount outstanding. By contrast, with “accrual accounting,†income and expenses are recorded when the commitment is made. But, as Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, notes, “The budget of the United States uses cash accounting, and only the tiniest businesses in America are even allowed to use cash accounting. Why? Because it gives you a very distorted picture.â€
Sgt Thomas:
I may have missed it but I don't recall seeing a link for Al Queda and Saddam cooperating on VX gas production.
Given that we really do not know yet whether or not the newest stategy in Iraq is going to work, do you think the invasion of Iraq was worth the cost that we have paid so far in blood, wounded and treasure?
Apparently, the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that was supposedly producing chemical weapons was not in fact doing so.
On August 20, Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan and the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. But the strikes were at best ineffectual. There was little convincing evidence that the pharmaceutical factory, which admin istration officials believed was involved in the production of material for chemical weapons, actually was part of a weapons-making operation, and the cruise missiles in Afghanistan missed bin Laden and his deputies.
Instead of striking a strong blow against terrorism, the action set off a howling debate about Clinton's motives. The president ordered the action three days after appearing before the grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair, and Clinton's critics accused him of using military action to change the subject from the sex-and-perjury scandal — the so-called "wag the dog" strategy. Some of Clinton's allies, suspecting the same thing, remained silent. Even some of those who, after briefings by administration officials, publicly defended the strikes privately questioned Clinton's decision.
It appears that the Republicans in Congress at the time didn't care too much about terrorism either since they accused Clinton of using the bombings as a distraction from Monicagate.
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 14.01.2007 @ 23:28
One can surmize that the fact that Colin Powell stated this in February 2001 that President Bush was not sworn in January 20, 2001 with the pre-conceived notion of attacking Iraq to “avenge his Father and steal Iraq’s oil†correct?
I have no clue what Bush was thinking, I'm not a mind reader and don't pretend to be one.
I do, however, know what some other Bush administration figures were thinking becuase the were part of the Project for a New American Century or PNAC.
In 1998, following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, members of the PNAC, including former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, wrote to President Bill Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power using US diplomatic, political and military power. The letter argued that Saddam would pose a threat to the United States, its Middle East allies and oil resources in the region if he succeeded in maintaining his stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The letter also stated "we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections" and "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council." The letter argues that an Iraq war would be justified by Hussein's defiance of UN "containment" policy and his persistent threat to US interests.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were SoD and Deputy SoD for the Bush administration and I would be surprised if they had no input into the thinking of the Bush administration given their positions of influence in said administration.
I do know that on Sept 27, 2002, CNN reported that Bush said.
He said the Iraqi leader's "hatred" was largely directed at the United States and added: "After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad."
If someone tried to kill your father, do you think that might influence how you think about that person?
Bush might be inhuman and not react to such an event and allow it to influence his judgement, but I rather doubt it.
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 14.01.2007 @ 17:43
“Blowback†only applies when the policy that causes it was stupid. Supporting the Mujahadein was a no brainer.
It certainly has come back and bitten us on the *ss really hard.
A lot of people seem to be claiming that the Islamic terrorists are a far bigger threat than the Soviet Union ever was. They may well be right, atheistic communists, no matter how fanatical, are far less likely to indulge in suicide missions than fanatical theists who believe they are getting a free ticket to that great wh*rehouse up in the sky. The atheists, after all, have no expectations of an eternal reward, for them this life is it.
We used the Mujahideen for our own purposes, and then when we were done with them, we dropped them as casually as one would discard a used sanitary napkin. People don't like being treated like that and often react negatively to such treatment.
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 14.01.2007 @ 17:24Hosea 8:7
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.
Sgt Thomas:
In my post #30 above I quoted Secretary of State Powell:
At a press conference on 24 February 2001 during Powell’s visit to Cairo, Egypt. Answering a question about the US-led sanctions against Iraq, the Secretary of State said:
We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions—the fact that the sanctions exist—not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein’s ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq…
I still don't understand why, if Saddam Hussein had WMDs, SecState Powell would assure the Egyptian government that he did not.
Judging by your links above, it is apparent that a lot of people did think Saddam had WMDs, why, in light of this fact, would Powell state in Feb, 2001 that Saddam did not have WMDs?
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 14.01.2007 @ 14:21
Sgt Thomas:
Your outline of the new plan for Iraq is interesting and enlightening.
Two questions.
I trust that you have not violated opsec by posting this?
Why, in the three plus years that we knew Iraq was steadily going downhill, has this not been tried before?
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 14.01.2007 @ 14:15
Here's an interesting quote I found today:
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 14.01.2007 @ 14:10‘‘Just as the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan emboldened and enlarged al-Qaida, just as our withdrawal from Somalia encouraged them to go find more targets, our defeat in Iraq would expand the numbers of terrorists and embolden them to seek new strategic targets,’’ said Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, a Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee
Apparently, Rep. Thornberry doesn't remember that the US supported the Afghani Mujahideen insurgents in their guerrilla war against the Soviets. It would seem that is yet another example of "blowback".
Sgt Thomas:
The question is, now that we are in Iraq and it has descended into bloody chaos, what do we do next.
Do you have any suggestions?
Even though I seriously doubt it will do any good, for reasons I have already expounded upon numerous times, I'm in favor of allowing President Bush to go ahead and increase troop levels as he sees fit. After all, Bush is the CiC and has far better intel than any of us just posting on a blog.
I think we need to try everything within our power to prevail in Iraq. I just hope that we do not get trapped like a coyote in a spring trap and have to chew our own leg off to escape.
Comment Posted By Jonathan On 13.01.2007 @ 19:56
