[Unknown Target]

Iraqi defector admits lying about WMDs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110216/ts_yblog_thecutline/iraqi-defector-admits-lying-about-wmd-claims

I posted my comments on my tumblr.

http://twitlink.ws/5bd


The whole Iraq war, all of it; it was all about one man wanting freedom for his people.
Our countrymen did not die for a lie. They died for an idea…an idea so basic, an idea so profound, that a man was willing to hang the chain of thousands of dead around his neck and around his family’s necks. He was willing to have the hatred of millions, and he was willing to stand up and admit it.
He did this because the one country that believed in democracy enough, the one country that was hurt enough to believe him, the only country that could do something - that one country was us.
I know those lost are each terrible, terrible tragedies. Thousands have died on both sides…
But in the end, they did not die for a lie. They did not die because we had a dictator lie. They did not die because this man lied. They died because this man saw a chance to free his people, and he saw that we were the only ones who could help.
The question I put before you, then, fellow countrymen; do we forgive? Do we lash out? What do we do?
The response that I would give is that we wait. And we think.
America was founded upon the ideal that we are all equal, that we all have the chance to change the world. This man has proven it is still possible. What shall you do now?

[Nuclear1]

Whatever his intentions were, Bush and friends didn't give two ****s.  Curveball ended up being a useful tool for the administration to wave in our faces and tell us Saddam is a bad guy. 

Our countrymen did die for a lie, because we didn't go in to Iraq trying to bring freedom.

[Scotty]

You certainly managed to say "What do you think" in a lot more words than usual.

Although, I'm curious as to what you think we're doing right now.  It's probably almost as hotly contested as "what should we do" will be.

[Unknown Target]

You certainly managed to say "What do you think" in a lot more words than usual.

Although, I'm curious as to what you think we're doing right now.  It's probably almost as hotly contested as "what should we do" will be.

When you say "we", who are you referring to? If you were to say "we" as in the majority of those who control the political power in the United States (of America), then I would say that "we" includes a massive crop of people that are simply...not just out of date, but actively refusing a lot of what they're being told. I feel as if they're holding back a much better informed, better educated, stronger willed group of younger individuals from accomplishing the very tasks that the older generations are setting before them; for instance, if you make people go to college (university for you non-Americas, institution for me), so that they can have "the necessary skills" to solve global warming, why do you then not listen to them when they say "what you're doing is wrong, we have to change it if you want it fixed".
Personally, I think one of those major issues is our educational institutions. They ask "why are the students not interested in learning?" but they don't actually ask or listen to the students when they say "because this stuff is boring".

However, again, I beg of you to please define "we" so that I may more properly and directly answer your question.

I am pleased and impressed as well, that you picked up on the question I was asking everyone.

[Bobboau]

At the time we were pissed and the noble goal of freeing a nation was all we needed to justify the war. Of the people who supported the war, most of them genuinely believed that freeing the Iraqi people was one of if not the major goal. We were trying to redirect our anger into something constructive. It is tempting to shift the blame to someone else for our mistake, especially someone who did it out of love for his people, but if we went to war over one person's lie, then it was our foolishness for believing that one person.

I personally felt at the time that Bush couldn't have had any doubt about WMDs because if we went to war and found none he would have been found out right about the time his election came around, and that was exactly what happened, it was only the spectacular failure of Bush's opposition that allowed him to stay in office for a second term. But the WMDs were little more than a justification. and after a certain point it got a significant element of 'we have to because we said we were going to' to it.

that said, I still hope Iraq can turn out better in the long run, it certainly is not impossible, Germany and Japan turned out great as a result of a war, but that was a totally different type of war, with a different people.

- postmortem of someone who supported the war.

[General Battuta]

Wartime presidents rarely (ever?) lose elections, iirc

[Mefustae]

Of the people who supported the war, most of them genuinely believed that freeing the Iraqi people was one of if not the major goal. We were trying to redirect our anger into something constructive. It is tempting to shift the blame to someone else for our mistake, especially someone who did it out of love for his people, but if we went to war over one person's lie, then it was our foolishness for believing that one person.

I disagree. I believe that a majority of people, and I speak dominantly of the American public, signed off on the war as retribution for September 11. Let's face it, misinformation and outright lies were being thrown around by all the major news networks, trickling down to the public and leaving the vast majority with a very screwed up view of what had happened. All justification aside, I'd wager that dominant feeling within the US prior to invasion was that of revenge.

[Bobboau]

Wartime presidents rarely (ever?) lose elections, iirc

This is true, but most war time presidents are not reveled to have dragged the country, kicking and screaming, into that war for what turned out to be totally false reasons.

I always thought early resistance to the war was a strategic mistake for Bush's opposition, they should have supported it conditionally over the WMD issue, expressing doubts, but 'having faith', then when it turned out to have been false turned bush into a scapegoat. I think they would have easily taken the government in 2004 if they had done this.

[Bobboau]

I disagree. I believe that a majority of people, and I speak dominantly of the American public, signed off on the war as retribution for September 11. Let's face it, misinformation and outright lies were being thrown around by all the major news networks, trickling down to the public and leaving the vast majority with a very screwed up view of what had happened. All justification aside, I'd wager that dominant feeling within the US prior to invasion was that of revenge.

There was a lot of anger, and as I said this did get (mis)directed towards the war, but I can only speak for myself and the people I knew/heard from. people did all sorts of justifications for it, but it always came down to some form of 'what we are doing is right and just', that the world would be better after Saddam was gone.

[Mefustae]

There was a lot of anger, and as I said this did get (mis)directed towards the war, but I can only speak for myself and the people I knew/heard from. people did all sorts of justifications for it, but it always came down to some form of 'what we are doing is right and just', that the world would be better after Saddam was gone.

But I see that as less of a specific justification and more the old "we're the good guys, they'll be better off with (insert leader here) dead" speech given before every conflict in history. Revenge is a far more powerful emotion to tap compared to altruism, which is what that sentiment sort of implies. And revenge is exactly what gave so much support to the conflict.

[Bobboau]

Altruism is a good flavoring to make revenge more palatable. We wanted someone dead, we couldn't kill who we wanted to but someone else came up and pissed us off, our anger got directed to him and in order to justify what we were feeling we convinced ourselves it was for freedom, after that there was not much, short of Saddam surrendering and turning his country over to the UN, that could have stopped us. but you have to understand, we really thought that was why we were doing it, we realy beleived that it was for the good of the Iraqi people.

[General Battuta]

I'm reading Generation Kill right now, and while it's pretty non-judgmental and focuses more on the soldiers themselves, even these Recon Marines spend a lot of time thinking about how much they're ****ing up Iraq and how the protestors 'have some really good points'.

The author's Wikipedia page has a nice little quote about how "he believes the troops who fight the wars are more attuned to the moral consequences of their actions than the American public whom he accuses of being "alienated from the people who fight their wars" for them".

I dunno, we talk about Iraq on this really high-level strategy thing, kind of drop a few sops to thinking about the poor civilians, and then I read stuff like this:

Now Marines are out on berms watching the house through binoculars
and scopes. Several sniper teams in Bravo join them. Kocher in Third Pla-
toon observes a “mom with two kids hiding in the back of the house, ner-
vously peeping out.”

The Marines study the house for forty minutes. Surrounded by verdant
fields, with the rare quiet of all the Humvee engines having been shut off,
the morning feels peaceful.

Then a 25mm Bushmaster on one of the armored vehicles up the road
begins pouring rounds into the house. The women and children Recon
Marines had been observing through their optics disappear in a cloud of
dust, as the Bushmaster rounds blast the adobe walls.

Colbert jumps out of the Humvee. “What are they shooting at?”

“There’s civilians in there!” several Recon observers yell at once.
Colbert picks up his radio handset and shouts, “Tell those guys to cease
fire! They’re shooting civilians.” But it’s a fruitless effort. Even though the
vehicle doing most of the firing is only 100 meters or so ahead, First Recon
Battalion has no ability to reach it on the radio.

Now a dozen or more rifles and machine guns in the nearby armored
units come alive, crackling and sending red streaks of tracer rounds into the
entire hamlet.

Marines with mortars jump off a tracked vehicle in front of us, yelling
and cursing. They’re in such a rush to attack the village, one Marine falls
off the vehicle, landing on his ass. They launch a volley of 60mm mortars,
which fall short, exploding in the field immediately in front of us.

Colbert throws down his radio headset and stands outside his Humvee,
screaming, “Cease fire!” The Marines shooting into the village 100 meters
up from us continue unabated.

Then, behind us, Encino Man races up in his Humvee. He jumps out,
so eager to get in the fight, it seems, he forgets to unplug his radio head-
set, which jerks his head back as the cord, still attached to the dash unit,
tightens.

“Jesus Christ! There’s ****ing civilians in that house! Cease fire!” Col-
bert says.

Encino Man pops off a 203 grenade that falls wildly short of the house.
Colbert, like other Marines in Bravo, is furious. Not only do they believe
Encino Man is firing on civilians, but the guy doesn’t even know how to
range his 203.

Colbert gets back in the Humvee, trying to rationalize the events out-
side that have spiraled beyond his control: “Everyone’s just tense. Some
Marine took a shot, and everyone has just followed suit.”

Outside, Marines’ heavy 81mm mortars begin to land on the homes.
They make a sort of crunching sound as they detonate, sending black
plumes over the huts.

“They finally got good effects on target,” Kocher says, watching them
obliterate the hamlet.

The Marines also **** on people's lawns and then feel bad about it. One of them gets really upset about the fact that they're littering and leaving MRE wrappers lying around, because it's not their country.

[Unknown Target]

That's a really good post, thank you Battuta.
Mefustae, this article makes it clear that the information was lies - but were we lied to on purpose or not? If the government was functioning properly, I imagine they'd use more than just ONE person's testimony as a reason for war...so either they asked around and other people said so, or they were incompetent, or worse, actively and knowingly acting illegally and wrongfully by lying to the people and betraying their office.

So we should find out; which one was it?

[Bobboau]

yes, but we should not witch hunt, which is what this usually turns into. one of these days we might get something from wikileaks that is the minutes of a white house meeting where Bush and his minions are sitting around talking about how they can't corroborate this, and that they all doubt it's truthfulness, but that they could use it to legitimize the war regardless.

that would be nice.

[Nuclear1]

Mefustae, this article makes it clear that the information was lies - but were we lied to on purpose or not? If the government was functioning properly, I imagine they'd use more than just ONE person's testimony as a reason for war...so either they asked around and other people said so, or they were incompetent, or worse, actively and knowingly acting illegally and wrongfully by lying to the people and betraying their office.

Curveball's testimony was just one part of the WMD rationale for war.  Curveball and Chalabi were both used for us to be able to say "see, the Iraqis know they have WMDs, not just us".

Tenet and Bush manipulated the intelligence surrounding WMDs in Iraq that they existed at some point to say that they existed there at that very moment.  Yes, Iraq had chemical weapons, but they were the ones we gave them to use in the Iran-Iraq War.  But because that intelligence was so badly manipulated and every other bit that contradicted it thrown out, Congress and the American people were deceived into believing Iraq had operational WMDs at that moment.  Colin Powell admitted he gave bad information to the UN when he testified there, that the information was bogus. 

I'll never really know what Bush's real intentions were, but I can be damn sure he didn't go to war purely to liberate Iraq or that he had the better interests of the Iraqi people at heart.  Whether it was control of oil, a vendetta against Saddam, or to surround Iran after the invasion of Afghanistan, I don't know.  But he used the post-9/11 anger and fear, the manipulated intelligence, and the liberation arguments to drum up popular support for the war. 

Long story short:  he lied to us, and he knew it. 

[Unknown Target]

yes, but we should not witch hunt, which is what this usually turns into. one of these days we might get something from wikileaks that is the minutes of a white house meeting where Bush and his minions are sitting around talking about how they can't corroborate this, and that they all doubt it's truthfulness, but that they could use it to legitimize the war regardless.

that would be nice.

You say we should not witch hunt, but with your language you're clearly saying that you'd enjoy it and, by extension, want to do it. Is this true?

[Mars]

I believe he's saying he'd love the people responsible outed, not necessarily that he wants them hunted down.

[NGTM-1R]

That's a really good post, thank you Battuta.
Mefustae, this article makes it clear that the information was lies - but were we lied to on purpose or not? If the government was functioning properly, I imagine they'd use more than just ONE person's testimony as a reason for war...so either they asked around and other people said so, or they were incompetent, or worse, actively and knowingly acting illegally and wrongfully by lying to the people and betraying their office.

I had relatives who were in the loop regarding the intelligence at hand at the time, and after they retired they were intensely bitter about what happened and therefore somewhat talkative. You are greatly overestimating the indications of Iraqi WMD capability before the war. CIA interviewed defectors...and questioned their reliability. CIA's people on the ground weren't able to confirm or deny, but turned up plenty of circumstantial evidence that Saddam could not afford his old WMD programs anymore. The Defense Intelligence Agency's overheads were pressed to the limit, as they always are, but overhead photography can only reveal so much; they could be engaged in WMD research, maybe. NSA, the cryptology guys as always being the most reliable and voluminous source of intelligence in the modern age, were resoundingly negative.

But intelligence gathering via people, and even photographs, is not a game of absolutes. If you collect the opinions and reports of everyone from the field, some of them will be deliberately falsified by people who are telling you what you want to hear, some will be more innocently wrong. Photos are interpreted; and misinterpreted on occasion.

The administration, seeking a reason to invade Iraq, embraced the reports that were in the minority. They clung to the improbable, despite being warned of its likely falsehood. They ignored the NSA. Were we lied to? No, not directly. But we were most definitely mislead.

[Inquisitor]

Not all of "us" thought it was a good idea. Some of "us" would like to see Cheney at least in prison. They lied to us. Period. None of that link is news.

I dont hink I participated much in politics on this forum 10 years ago, and many of the forums I did participate don't exist any more, so I can't link to juicy remembrances.

The bastards lied. Friends died. I don't give two ****s about this douche bags desire for freedom. Glad they got rid of sadam, but it's not like they traded that for freedom. 7+ years later, and it's barely out of civil war. Hardly a rosy outcome. Sectarian violence, major military action, hundred of thousands dead.

The freedom thing is lipstick on a pig.

[Nuclear1]

Some of "us" would like to see Cheney at least in prison. They lied to us. Period. None of that link is news.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, all of the Joint Chiefs during the war, a large number of the lower-echelon commanders, damn near every Blackwater employee that worked in Iraq, everyone at the Guantanamo Detention Center, Tenet, and the directors of the NSA.

Bastards should all be in prison for the rest of their natural lives for all the completely unnecessary losses of life, their illegal spying on innocent people, torture of prisoners, and their betrayal of a hurtful nation's trust and fear.

Obama's refusal to prosecute these assholes has officially cost him my vote in 2012.