Icann, I realize you've repeated your words over and over again. Noone claimed
you haven't said the same thing over and over again.
YOU, however, stated
Quote:Yes, but nary a word on how it could have been done better.
To which I responded that people HAVE been saying words, over and over again, on how this invasion could have been handled better.
Fox, your post is a long one to respond to so I'm gonna cut it up, sorry.
Quote:Cyclop:
More troops, even though more than half the generals said no. Okay. Of course a few well spaced nukes could have eliminated the need for any troops, but we opted to do it differently based on military recommendations.
I guess your argument is we could have used nukes? Are you serious?
I would also like to point out that one of those who claimed that we would NEED more troops was fired for saying so.
Quote:The US will need to commit at least 100,000 troops to Iraq for at least a year, the former Army Secretary Thomas White said in an interview released on Tuesday. White, who left the Defence Department after a series of disagreements with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, insisted that the United States will now need a long-term presence in Iraq. He told the USA Today newspaper that senior US officials "are unwilling to come to grips" with the scale of the commitment that the US must now make to Iraq after invading to bring down Saddam Hussein. White said the US would need more than 100,000 troops in Iraq for at least one year to provide stability. There are about 150,000 US forces in Iraq at the moment but defence officials have admitted that they may have to review plans to let some units return to the United States following a series of attacks on US forces and widespread insecurity in Baghdad and other cities. "This is not what they were selling" before the war, White told the newspaper about comments by top defence officials that a large occupation force would not be needed. "It's almost a question of people not wanting to 'fess (face) up to the notion that we will be there a long-time and they have to set up a rotation and sustain for the long term." USA Today said there was a long series of disputes between Rumsfeld and White. It added that Rumsfeld was furious when White agreed with army chief of staff General Eric Shinseki in February that several hundred thousand troops might be needed in Iraq.
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/June%202003%20News/4n/US%20needs%20more%20than%20100,000%20troops%20in%20Iraq,%20says%20fired%20official.htm
Quote:More planning......in what way. Please spell it out. Do it with NO knowledge that has been learned since the invasion please.
Something of a tall order. You are asking me to erase knowledge from my head, which is difficult to do. But I can tell you the very things that were going through my head in the weeks before the invasion.
I remember seeing the UN weapons inspectors on TV, and reading articles about how they said the WMD simply weren't there. That should have been a real clue right there that we needed to take the time to verify that our intel was correct. This was not done. I remember looking at my roomate and saying, 'man, there's no f*cking wmd in Iraq, this is all an excuse to clean up daddy's messes.' He agreed with me. Turns out were were 100% right.
It should have been
incredibly obvious that the Iraqis were NOT going to welcome us with open arms, and then settle down and have a happy democracy party as things got better in Iraq. There has been DECADES of hostility towards the US from the region, much of it was fueled by religious leaders. This simply wasn't going to vanish overnight.
In an earlier post, Fox, you point out the size of Iraq and the numbers living there. To believe that you could control an occupied population of 25 million with a force of only 140
thousand, without resorting to massive human rights violations, is just plain stupid. It only makes sense if you didn't believe that the Iraqis were going to have rebels, or insurgents, or former Baathists screwing things up, or any of that sh*t. I predicted a guerrilla war a long time ago and it's completely come true.
The US is in a precarious position today b/c we didn't win the Iraqi civilian population over to our side. We should have known from the beginning that this is what was needed. Instead of giving out huge contracts to Haliburton with no bids (which I would NOT have done, thank you very much), we should have copied our EXTREMELY SUCCESFULL post-WWII strategies of employing and paying the
people of the conquered country to rebuild their OWN country. This not only funnels badly-needed monies into the hands of the people of Iraq, it gives them something to do and a sense of purpose. Right now they watch Americans get paid thousands of dollars a month to do the same jobs they would do for hundreds a month, while they sit unemployed.
More attention needed to have been paid to stockpiles of weapons, border security, and securing water and power plants, and LESS to the oil facilities. The idea that this war would be paid for from Iraqi oil monies post-war was idiotic. A child could have seen how easy
that was to stop by the insurgents and ex-baathists. Once we stretch our troops thin enough, to try and protect all the oil industry, they start hitting us in other places. It is exactly what has happened.
To recap: more troops were needed, that should have been obvious off of the start. We could have waited to see if intelligence bore out, we didn't. We could have planned on Iraqi resistance, we didn't. We could have taken steps to win the Iraqi populace over to our side, we didn't. These things combine into one massive f*ckup on our part, and yes, these were all obvious with no post-war intelligence; you just have to actually
assume the worst while our admin. planners did the exact opposite; they
assumed the best. Which is idiotic.
Quote:More world allies involved. Please identify who, and give your timeline for how long we should wait until other countries came up with comparable forces. (Don't forget that the only three that have been mentioned that was critical for us to have are France, Germany, and Russia, all who benefitted from Saddams OFF program, and all who have said they aren't going to war under Kerry either.)
While Germany, Russia, and France are former allies of ours that would have helped in this fight, there's no reason why we couldn't have recruited some of the other large countries to help us.
No reason except for the fact that the Admin sucks at diplomacy. Truly. Where's Brazil, or Turkey? There are something like 193 countries in the world. We certainly could have gotten the support of more of them.
We didn't have time to do this, however, because we rushed into this war. Saddam wasn't a threat to anyone. I have no doubt that you will point to the 'wmd evidence' that the Pres. built his case for a pressing attack upon, but in my mind it is clear that a large amount of that evidence was shaky or contradictary at the time they looked at it, and the admin chose to make the case for war anyways. Hell, the evidence was flat-out wrong! Colin Powell must feel like a damn fool for testifying in front of the UN the way he did with crappy intel.
Quote:It's real easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. But lets go back to the time. Ground zero was still smoking.
No, it wasn't. Don't be dramatic.
Quote: The UN was dragging its feet and it was becoming obvious they were never going to consent to an invasion or enforcement of their own resolution.
Seeing as we kept claiming there were WMD there, and that was why we needed to invade, they were
right. You do realize this? That the UN was
right when they opposed our claims of WMD in Iraq. You really should be able to admit that to yourself given the facts of the situation.
Quote:(Of course some of their top guys were also benefitting from the OFF program.)
Of course, there are many American top guys benefiting from the Iraq war. Many rich Americans are making money hand over fist off of the deaths of our soldiers. But that had nothing to do with the decision, nah.
Quote:Almost every member of the military, the Clinton administration, the Bush administration, and the UN believed there was overwhelming evidence of WMD in Iraq and that Saddam was crazy enough to use them.
Incorrect. You are very wrong to put the UN in there; if they believed Saddam actually had the WMD they would have voted to invade.
Quote:Okay there's your scenario. You have no more information than was available to the Bush administration. Lay out your war plan.
Done. Simply by planning for the worst we could have saved huge hassles.
Cycloptichorn
I do appreciate the laughs, though. 
