[Bobboau]

one could say the same for: "it's all the US's fault"
were are responsible for removeing a repressive force that forced these people not to kill each other, we are not the reason they want to kill each other.

[Mefustae]

I don't think anyone's saying that. They're saying that it's not just the Coalition's fault the place devolved into a cesspool of violence and chaos, and that there are root causes that run deep into the annals of history. This is very true, but the fact that the invasion served to ignite the area means it's the blood is as least partially on their hands.

one could say the same for: "it's all the US's fault"
were are responsible for removeing a repressive force that forced these people not to kill each other, we are not the reason they want to kill each other.

That makes about as much sense as my going into your house, banging the **** out of the tap in your kitchen sink until it breaks and starts spraying water everywhere, and then claiming that it was in fact your own damn fault for having that water in there to begin with.

[Nuclear1]

Whilst I'll agree that the British Empire shouldn't have divided up the land as it did, I think simply saying 'It's Britains fault our invasion went to ****e' is just a little far of the mark

Sure, I know this has happened more than once in history, but, as you said, the British did most recently.   I'm in no way saying that its the Empire's fault that the war has been mismanaged; that's not even related. 

EDIT: Damn you and your posting first Mefustae.

one could say the same for: "it's all the US's fault"
were are responsible for removeing a repressive force that forced these people not to kill each other, we are not the reason they want to kill each other.

That makes about as much sense as my going into your house, banging the **** out of the tap in your kitchen sink until it breaks and starts spraying water everywhere, and then claiming that it was in fact your own damn fault for having that water in there to begin with.

No, but it's like saying that that faucet was going to fling off at one point and get everything really ****ing soaked, but I just happened to come in and knock it off earlier.  Very few people have managed to keep a typically-disunited people together without ethnic violence; Joseph Tito is a great example.  He held Yugoslavia together during the Cold War, but after his death, the region erupted in ethnic cleansing.  Same goes for Rwanda (at least I think it was Rwanda), where its leader had died in office, thus allowing the deeply-rooted racism to explode into genocide.

[jr2]

meh, we should have just popped Sadaam after he went bad (used WMDs on the Iranians and his own ppl).  That would have sent a message: We'll support you to defeat our enemies, but you'd better play by the rules.
Couldn't do that, of course, because assassinations are 'illegal'.  Whoever made that rule should have thought of some exceptions for ppl like Sadaam.

[aldo_14]

meh, we should have just popped Sadaam after he went bad (used WMDs on the Iranians and his own ppl).  That would have sent a message: We'll support you to defeat our enemies, but you'd better play by the rules.
Couldn't do that, of course, because assassinations are 'illegal'.  Whoever made that rule should have thought of some exceptions for ppl like Sadaam.

Well, given that the CIA provided the intelligence satellite maps of Iranian troop positions from 1984 (in the full knowledge that it'd be used for gas etc attacks) & that the Senate approved 771 different export licenses for 'dual use' technology (not forgetting CDC experts on pathogens like West Nile Disease who were apparently sent to Iraq).... it'd be a bit hypocritical.  The only message the US was, or has even been, interested in sending was 'do whatever the **** you want to your own people, so long as you follow our interests'.

[Mefustae]

No, but it's like saying that that faucet was going to fling off at one point and get everything really ****ing soaked, but I just happened to come in and knock it off earlier.  Very few people have managed to keep a typically-disunited people together without ethnic violence; Joseph Tito is a great example...

To be honest, I never thought of it like that. Very good point! Okay, so the region would have inevitably exploded with or without the invasion, but at the very least we can all agree that the Coalition never passed plumber college, if you get my meaning.

[aldo_14]

Generally speaking, the best course of action around an open barrel of gunpowder is not to play with matches, after all....

[Mefustae]

Matches!? The Coalition was juggling flaming torches!

[aldo_14]

Matches!? The Coalition was juggling flaming torches!

In a lake of oil!  Wearing oven gloves!  With one eye closed!  And listening to Led Zeppelin at full volume!  With an itchy leg!

[Unknown Target]

Oh teh noes! Not the leg too!

[Nuclear1]

No, but it's like saying that that faucet was going to fling off at one point and get everything really ****ing soaked, but I just happened to come in and knock it off earlier.  Very few people have managed to keep a typically-disunited people together without ethnic violence; Joseph Tito is a great example...

To be honest, I never thought of it like that. Very good point! Okay, so the region would have inevitably exploded with or without the invasion, but at the very least we can all agree that the Coalition never passed plumber college, if you get my meaning.

Yes, there's no dispute that the invasion wasn't preplanned well at all.

[aldo_14]

No, but it's like saying that that faucet was going to fling off at one point and get everything really ****ing soaked, but I just happened to come in and knock it off earlier.  Very few people have managed to keep a typically-disunited people together without ethnic violence; Joseph Tito is a great example...

To be honest, I never thought of it like that. Very good point! Okay, so the region would have inevitably exploded with or without the invasion, but at the very least we can all agree that the Coalition never passed plumber college, if you get my meaning.

Yes, there's no dispute that the invasion wasn't preplanned well at all.

Or that it was picked at a particularly stupid time.  (military streteched overseas? worried about angry muslims taking up arms? build up international sympathy thanks to a horrible crime against you?  What better time to invade a Muslim country against the wishes of much of the world, and sideline the UN, whilst lacking any sort of concrete evidence to prove that country is any sort of a threat to you?)

Ah dear.

[Nuclear1]

I'm not disputing that the war was planned wrong or executed at the wrong time, all I'm conerned with is how to clean up the mess and not leaving nasty mildew stains everywhere (to continue the rogue water faucet analogy).

[Hippo]

Drano.


(cue photoshopped picture of a fat hairy plumber bent over under a sink with some politicians face)

[aldo_14]

I'm not disputing that the war was planned wrong or executed at the wrong time, all I'm conerned with is how to clean up the mess and not leaving nasty mildew stains everywhere (to continue the rogue water faucet analogy).

Oh, I agree.  I just can't see a way to clean it up, now, thanks to the hideous botch job that has occured and the catastrophic failures we've seen at every level and stage of pre and post-war planning.

[Nuclear1]

Drano.


(cue photoshopped picture of a fat hairy plumber bent over under a sink with bush's face)

Nucular Drano™, I can see it now!

[Bobboau]

these people should oppen a geopolitical division.

"like in never even happened."

[Janos]

I'm not disputing that the war was planned wrong or executed at the wrong time, all I'm conerned with is how to clean up the mess and not leaving nasty mildew stains everywhere (to continue the rogue water faucet analogy).

Oh, I agree.  I just can't see a way to clean it up, now, thanks to the hideous botch job that has occured and the catastrophic failures we've seen at every level and stage of pre and post-war planning.

Pre-war planning wasn't bad, it was decidedly nonexistant. 

FORT EUSTIS, Va. — Long before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a postwar Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday. In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a postwar plan.

    Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure postwar Iraq. Scheid, who is also the commander of Fort Eustis, made his comments in an interview with the Daily Press. He retires in about three weeks.

    In 2001, Scheid was a colonel with the Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East. On Sept. 10, 2001, he was selected to be the chief of logistics war plans. On Sept. 11, he said, "life just went to hell."

    That day, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of Central Command, told his planners, including Scheid, to "get ready to go to war." A day or two later, Rumsfeld was "telling us we were going to war in Afghanistan and to start building the war plan. We were going to go fast.

    "Then, just as we were barely into Afghanistan, Rumsfeld came and told us to get ready for Iraq." Scheid said he remembers everyone thinking, "My gosh, we're in the middle of Afghanistan, how can we possibly be doing two at one time? How can we pull this off? It's just going to be too much."

    There was already an offensive plan in place for Iraq, Scheid said. To start, the planners were just expanding on it.

    "The secretary of defense continued to push on us that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay." But Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations such as security and reconstruction.

    Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

    "I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," he said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today. "He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war," Scheid said.

http://www.statesman.com , but link is down

[jr2]

Or that it was picked at a particularly stupid time.  (military streteched overseas? worried about angry muslims taking up arms? build up international sympathy thanks to a horrible crime against you?  What better time to invade a Muslim country against the wishes of much of the world, and sideline the UN, whilst lacking any sort of concrete evidence to prove that country is any sort of a threat to you?)

Ah dear.

1
4
4
1
mean something to you?

[aldo_14]

Or that it was picked at a particularly stupid time.  (military streteched overseas? worried about angry muslims taking up arms? build up international sympathy thanks to a horrible crime against you?  What better time to invade a Muslim country against the wishes of much of the world, and sideline the UN, whilst lacking any sort of concrete evidence to prove that country is any sort of a threat to you?)

Ah dear.

1
4
4
1
mean something to you?

A UN resolution which was ambigously worded so as not to allow automatic use of military force; this was because it would have been veto-ed had it done so.  In the event of the resolution being defied by Iraq, the intent was to return to the security council and then determine sanctions.

To quote US ambassador John Negroponte; "This resolution contains no 'hidden triggers' and no 'automaticity' with respect to the use of force"


And, of course, the British Attorney General seems to have agreed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1471664,00.html

What was the legal advice?

Three days before the first US missiles hit Baghdad, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, answered a question in the Lords on the legal basis for the use of military force. In nine short paragraphs he set out his reasoning: that even without the "second resolution" UK diplomats had been frantically trying to secure, existing UN resolutions permitted an invasion.

His argument was that the security council's authorisation for the 1991 Gulf war (resolution 678) could be reactivated if Iraq were found to be in material breach of its ceasefire conditions (resolution 687). Since resolution 1441, unanimously passed the previous November, stated that Iraq had not "fully complied with its obligations to disarm", the authority to use force was automatically revived, Lord Goldsmith wrote. His view was that if the resolution demanded another meeting of the security council to authorise war it would have said so. All 1441 required, he wrote, was "discussion by the security council of the Iraq's failures".

Was that the case?

Key UN personnel including Kofi Annan, the secretary general, and Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, later disputed the legal status of the invasion under international law. Plenty of international lawyers also disagree with the reasoning of Lord Goldsmith's nine paragraphs.

Tony Blair, the prime minister, insists the written answer of March 17 was a "fair summary" of the advice he was given and Lord Goldsmith said it was "consistent" with the longer document. But leaked documents and disclosures suggest the full 13 pages Lord Goldsmith wrote for the prime minister 10 days before were more ambiguous.

What did he say?

A summary of the advice, obtained by the Guardian and Channel 4 News, said resolution 1441 was "capable in principle" of reauthorising 678 (the gist of his written answer) but it added two qualifications omitted on March 17. First, that the language of 1441 suggests "differences of view within the [security] council" on the legal impact of 1441 so the safest legal course would be to secure a second resolution. Second, that the eventual argument he did deploy - the reactivation of 678 - would only be "sustainable if there are strong factual grounds for concluding Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity" to comply with the Gulf war ceasefire.

"In other words," read the summary of Lord Goldsmith's advice to the prime minister, "we would need to demonstrate hard evidence of non-compliance and non-cooperation. Given the structure of the resolution as a whole, the views of Unmovic and the IAEA [the two UN weapons inspections authorities] will be highly significant in this respect."

What were the views of the weapons inspectors?

Hans Blix, the head of Unmovic, moved to the opinion that Iraq was beginning to comply with 1441's call for it demonstrate it had disarmed. On February 14 2003 he delivered a report to the security council listing examples of Iraqi compliance and questioning some of the US intelligence behind Colin Powell UN presentation on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes. He followed up on February 28 with a more mixed assessment but marked out Iraq's commitment to comply with a deadline to destroy its illegal Samoud 2 missiles as a positive development. The Swede's final report to the council, delivered on March 7, was also ambivalent but Mr Blix stressed the disarmament under way: "We are not watching the destruction of toothpicks," he told the security council.

What happened next?

Mr Blix's reports divided security council opinion. March 7, the day Lord Goldsmith suggested a second resolution to authorise force would offer the "safest legal course" and the day of the final Unmovic report, was the day this second resolution became increasingly unlikely. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, proposed the UN set an ultimatum for Iraq to demonstrate "full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation" by March 17, but France made it clear it would veto such a resolution.

Britain then proposed setting "six tests" for Iraq to meet if it was to avoid war. The idea galvanised some diplomatic support but not enough to suggest Britain and the US could win a second resolution. On March 12, with the hope of a such a resolution fading, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of defence staff, asked the prime minister for an unequivocal statement on the legality of war under resolution 1441. The next day, Lord Goldsmith saw Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan, two of Mr Blair's closest advisers, at an unminuted Downing Street meeting, and expressed his "clear view" that war would be lawful under 1441.

Did Lord Goldsmith change his mind?

Previous disclosures suggest he did. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, resigned in March 2003 because she did not believe war with Iraq was legal. Her letter setting out why said Lord Goldsmith "gave us to understand" he agreed with Foreign Office lawyers that the war was illegal without a new UN resolution but changed his advice twice just before the war to bring it in line with "what is now the official line".

The summary certainly reveals doubts. The attorney general says in conclusion that he could not be sure that if the "reasonable case" for reactivating 678 (the case that became the nine published paragraphs) ever came to court "the court would agree with the view". This detail - and the reference that the published argument was one he heard in Washington - appear to make for a tricky week ahead for the prime minister.

Resolution 1441 does not authorise any military action, as you can see by the text; it directs the matter to return to the Security Council.  UN General Assembly President Jan Kavan said "I do not interpret the wording of 1441 as automatically enabling military action without a specific consent by the Security Council".  (Then) Secretary General Kofi Annan has also declared the war as illegal without a second resolution;  "I'm one of those who believe that there should have been a second resolution...Yes, I have indicated it is not in conformity with the UN Charter, from our point of view and from the Charter point of view it was illegal."

The Downing Street memo, whilst not addressing 1441 directly, also covers this ground; "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."