THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Congress's Joint Resolution September 14, 2001
emphasis added
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
...
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Congress's Joint Resolution Oct. 16, 2002
Public Law 107-243 107th Congress Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 114) To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.
...
[10th]Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

[11th]Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
...

Congressional Intelligence Report 09/08/2006
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE ON POSTWAR FINDINGS ABOUT IRAQ'S WMD PROGRAMS AND LINKS TO TERRORISM AND HOW THEY COMPARE WITH PREWAR ASSESSMENTS together with ADDITIONAL VIEWS;
...
[computer page 112 of 151 pages -- report page 109],
Conclusion 6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghadha had not controlled since 1991.

American Soldier, by General Tommy Franks, 7/1/2004
"10" Regan Books, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

page 483:
"The air picture changed once more. Now the icons were streaming toward two ridges an a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border with Iran. These were the camps of the Ansar al-Isla terrorists, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had trained disciples in the use of chemical and biological weapons. But this strike was more than just another [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile] bashing. Soon Special Forces and [Special Mission Unit] operators, leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, would be storming the camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted."

page 519:
"[The Marines] also encountered several hundred foreign fighters from Egypt, the Sudan, Syria, and Lybia who were being trained by the regime in a camp south of Baghdad. Those foreign volunteers fought with suicidal ferocity, but they did not fight well. The Marines killed them all. "

So,now only when America entered the war did it become a war?

Sorry,but since British,Australian,Dutch,and other nationalities forces died in war looong before the US got into WW2 (BTW,British,Australian,and other troops are dying in Iraq now),then for you to not include them now is wrong and xenophobic on your part.

mysteryman wrote:

So,now only when America entered the war did it become a war?

Sorry,but since British,Australian,Dutch,and other nationalities forces died in war looong before the US got into WW2 (BTW,British,Australian,and other troops are dying in Iraq now),then for you to not include them now is wrong and xenophobic on your part.

The question, when did the US enter WWII, was asked. Stop parading your ignorance.

so if WW II started in 1931 , has it ended yet ?
i recall there were some old germans that i worked with in the early 1950's that were still fighting WW I !
hbg

hamburger wrote:

so if WW II started in 1931 , has it ended yet ?
i recall there were some old germans that i worked with in the early 1950's that were still fighting WW I !
hbg

There are some people who claim the Spanish Civil War was an early segment of WWII and we all know that Americans fought in it.

I like your question, hamburger, particularly since the fact that one participant asked to be reminded when the US entered WWII and the answer has been a great deal of blather.

...the answer has been a great deal of blather...

MM -- You argue for the sake of arguing. I suggest you look up the US in WWII in the Encyclopedia . . . either AMericana or Britannica . . . and stop blathering.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9075317/Vietnam-War
VIETNAM WAR

(1954-75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. Called the "American War" in Vietnam (or, in full, the "War Against the Americans to Save the Nation"), the war was also part of a larger regional conflict (see Indochina wars) and a manifestation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.

US troops in Iraq want out
Published: Monday March 19, 2007



For US troops from 9th Cavalry Regiment bumping around the dangerous streets of Baghdad in Humvees after dark on Monday, news that their deployment in Iraq could be extended fell like a hammer blow.

Their commanders had cautioned that their second one-year tour due to end in October could be prolonged while US President George W. Bush later warned troops it was too soon to "pack up and go home."

The expletives during the four-hour night patrol turned the air in the Humvee, already thick with cigarette smoke, a dark shade of blue.

"We just want to get out of here as soon as possible," said one vehicle commander in one of his few printable comments.

"It's because the Iraqi army is so scared that we have to come here to die," he added, asking not to be named.

"Ninety-five percent of Iraqis are good but five percent are bad. But the 95 percent are too weak to stand up to the five percent."

"Bush should send all the Death Row prisoners here and they can be killed fighting the terrorists. We've had enough," said another soldier, as the Humvee accelerated past a roadside car in case it exploded.

Added yet another, "Bush can come fight here. He can take my 1,000 dollars a month and I'll go home."

Commander of the night operation, Lieutenant Brian Long, said the anger was understandable.

"One of the men has five children, another has three. Another has a boy aged four -- he's missed two of those years. He'll never get them back," said Long.

"It is like the movie 'Groundhog Day'. Each day is the same and nothing ever changes," he added, referring to the 1993 movie in which the principal character is doomed to repeat the same day endlessly.

"It's tough. Everyone just wants to get home to their families," said the officer.

Bush, after speaking to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the top US military commander in Iraq, said in Washington that his new plan to pacify war-wracked Iraq would take months.

"It could be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home," Bush said, four years to the day after he announced that American troops were fighting to depose Saddam Hussein.

"That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating," Bush said, warning that a US departure would spark chaos in Iraq which would engulf the region.

Platoon commander of the 9th Cavalry Regiment, Captain Christopher Dawson, said he understood the need for troops to stay in Iraq.

"We are starting to make a difference," he said. "The violence is dropping. We are training Iraqis to take over responsibility for their own security. We are helping them see their future ahead of them. It is in their hands."

But the lower ranks were in rebellious mood, especially after publication of a poll on Monday, commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV and USA Today, which showed only 18 percent of those questioned had confidence in US and coalition troops, while 78 percent opposed their presence.

"If no one wants us here we are quite ready to get out tomorrow," said the outspoken vehicle commander.

One of the few Iraqis the troops met during their night patrol -- most stay indoors once the 8pm curfew kicks in -- said he feared the day the US forces pulled out.

"They can stay for 100 years if they want," said Salam Ahmed, a security guard at a shoe warehouse on the outskirts of the city. "If they go, the bad guys will certainly come for me."

At least, MM, you seem now to stand corrected on your WWII thing.

Military in 'death spiral,' officials say

ANN SCOTT TYSON
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON - Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.

More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever-more-rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.

The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises, whether the internal collapse of Pakistan, a conflict with Iran or an outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula. Air and naval power can only go so far in compensating for infantry, artillery and other land forces, they said. An immediate concern is that critical Army overseas equipment stocks for use in another conflict have been depleted by the recent troop increases in Iraq, they said.

"We have a strategy right now that is outstripping the means to execute it," Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

The Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, described as "stark" the level of readiness of Army units in the United States, which would be called on if another war breaks out. "The readiness continues to decline of our next-to-deploy forces," Cody told the House Armed Services Committee's readiness panel last week. "And those forces, by the way, are . . . also your strategic reserve."

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked last month by a House panel whether he was comfortable with the preparedness of Army units in the United States. He stated simply: "No . . . I am not comfortable."

"You take a lap around the globe - you could start any place: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Venezuela, Colombia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, North Korea, back around to Pakistan, and I probably missed a few. There's no dearth of challenges out there for our armed forces," Pace warned in his testimony. He said the nation faces increased risk because of shortfalls in troops, equipment and training.

Pace said the unexpected demand for more troops in Iraq - from the 10 brigades that commanders projected last year they would need by the end of 2006, to the 20 brigades scheduled to be there by June - prompted him to recommend permanently adding 92,000 troops to the Army and Marine Corps, saying it would "make a large difference in our ability to be prepared for unforeseen contingencies."

Indeed, the recent increase of more than 32,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has pushed already severe readiness problems to what some officials and lawmakers consider a crisis point. Schoomaker said last week that sustaining the troop increase in Iraq beyond August would be "a challenge." The Marines' commandant, Gen. James Conway, expressed concern to defense reporters last week that it would bring the Marine Corps "right on the margin" of breaking the minimum time at home for Marines between combat tours. U.S. commanders in Iraq say they may need to keep troop levels elevated into early 2008.

The troop increase has also created an acute shortfall in the Army's equipment stored overseas - known as "pre-positioned stock" - which would be critical to outfit U.S. combat forces quickly should another conflict erupt, officials said.

The Army should have five full combat brigades' worth of such equipment: two stocks in Kuwait, one in South Korea, and two aboard ships in Guam and at the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean. But the Army had to empty the afloat stocks to support the troop increase in Iraq, and the Kuwait stocks are being used as units rotate in and out of the country. Only the South Korea stock is close to complete, according to military and government officials.

"Without the pre-positioned stocks, we would not have been able to meet the surge requirement," Schoomaker said. "It will take us two years to rebuild those stocks. That's part of my concern about our strategic depth."

"The status of our Army prepositioned stock . . . is bothersome," Cody said last week.

Equipment is also lacking among Army units in the United States, the vast majority of which are rated "not ready" by the Army, based on measures of available gear, training and personnel, according to senior military officers and government officials.

"For the National Guard, those shortages are even more," Cody said. Army National Guard figures show that 88 percent of its units are "not ready." Yet National Guard combat brigades - four of which have been notified already - will be increasingly called upon next year to relieve the active-duty troops in Iraq, with the Army Guard and Reserve expected to grow from 20 percent of the force to 30 percent, officials said.

The increasingly rapid tempo of rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan is also constraining the length and focus of training as active-duty Army combat brigades and Marine combat battalions spend at least as much time in the war zone as at home. As a result, all the training is geared toward counterinsurgencies, while skills important for other major combat operations atrophy.

The Marine Corps is not training for amphibious, mountain or jungle warfare, nor conducting large-scale live-fire maneuvers, Conway said. "We've got a little bit of a blindside there," he said. The Marine Corps and Army both lack sufficient manpower to give troops a break from the combat zone long enough to complete their full spectrum of training, senior officials said.

"We're only able to train them . . . for counterinsurgency operations," Cody told the House panel last week. "They're not trained to full-spectrum operations."

Walter Hinteler wrote:

At least, MM, you seem now to stand corrected on your WWII thing.

No,I still contend that the war started in 1939,and that the US was involved in the war long before 1941.

I also contend that if you are going to compare the length of the Iraq war to WW2,then you MUST compare it to the start,not to when the US declared war.

Sorry,but my position on that has not changed.

mysteryman wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:

At least, MM, you seem now to stand corrected on your WWII thing.

No,I still contend that the war started in 1939,and that the US was involved in the war long before 1941.

I also contend that if you are going to compare the length of the Iraq war to WW2,then you MUST compare it to the start,not to when the US declared war.

Sorry,but my position on that has not changed.

Hmm.. haven't we been involved in Iraq since 1991?

Either you are going to count troops on the ground in both or neither.

Meanwhile, on the war's fourth unhappy birthday, let's take a moment to look back at those clever folks at The Weekly Standard and their prescient mocking of some of those who disagreed with their cheerleading-cum-analysis:

The Cassandra Chronicles
The stupidity of the antiwar doomsayers
04/21/2003, Volume 008, Issue 31

AREN'T YOU PROUD of us? For most of this past week, as an overwhelmingly successful, lightning-quick Anglo-American military assault liberated Iraq's capital city, and ordinary Baghdadis poured into the streets to kiss our GIs and stomp on pictures of Saddam Hussein, THE SCRAPBOOK has remained the soul of magnanimity and restraint.

Here in our office there's this giant archive of newsclips, transcripts, and Internet postings we collected in the months preceding the war, wherein a world community of jackasses confidently predicted that the events lately unfolding on our television screens could not and would not ever take place. And you can imagine the temptation, we're sure: A lesser SCRAPBOOK would throw open the file boxes and run through the streets with treasures like these, laughing hysterically.

"This invasion of Iraq, if it goes off, will join the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut, and Somalia in the history of military catastrophe. What will set it apart, distinguishing it for all time, is the immense -- and transparent -- political stupidity."

-- Chris Matthews, San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2002

"Iraqis hate the United States government even more than they hate Saddam, and they are even more distrustful of America's intentions than Saddam's. . . . f President Bush thinks our invasion and occupation will go smoothly because Iraqis will welcome us, then [he] is deluding himself."

-- New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, October 4, 2002

But being the soul of magnanimity and restraint, we're not going to do any such thing. Instead, THE SCRAPBOOK is going to run through the streets, laughing hysterically at all the people who were so blinded by hatred of President Bush -- or general anti-Americanism, or their own sheer foolishness -- that they continued to prophesy doom even after the war had begun and was already being won. People like a certain former U.N. weapons inspector turned Baath party apologist turned peace-movement celebrity:

"The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated....We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of the United States in this war is inevitable. . . . [W]e will not be able to win this war, which in my opinion is already lost."

-- Scott Ritter, on a South African radio station, March 25, 2003

[...]

"Visions of cheering throngs welcoming them as liberators have vanished in the wake of a bloody engagement whose full casualties are still unknown. . . . Welcome to hell. Many of us lived it in another era. And don't expect it to get any better for a while."

-- James Webb, in the New York Times, March 30, 2003

And you've got your usefully idiotic, broadcast-media war correspondent, phoning it in from wherever his Baath party minders want him to:

[...]

"If history is a guide, you cannot subdue a large and hostile city except by destroying it completely. Short of massacre, we will not inherit a pacified Iraq. . . . To support 'the groundwork' for this effort is to support a holocaust, quite soon, against Iraqi civilians and also against the troops on both sides. That is what victory means."

-- James K. Galbraith on the American Prospect website, April 1, 2003

[...]

Is Wolfowitz really so ignorant of history as to believe the Iraqis would welcome us as 'their hoped-for liberators'?"

-- Eric Alterman in the April 21, 2003, issue of the Nation