Its sad that the lessions in Iraq are paid for in blood, but we have learned from them.Here's part of an article quoted in Ace's blog

Rules of engagement (ROE), highly criticized as being too restrictive and sometimes endangering our troops, have been "clarified." "There were unintended consequences with ROE for too long," Petraeus acknowledged. Because of what junior leaders perceived as too harsh punishment meted out to troops acting in the heat of battle, the ROE issued from the top commanders were second-guessed and made more restrictive by some on the ground. The end result was unnecessary - even harmful - restrictions placed on the troops in contact with the enemy.

"I've made two things clear," Petraeus emphasized: "My ROE may not be modified with supplemental guidance lower down. And I've written a letter to all Coalition forces saying 'your chain-of-command will stay with you.' I think that solved the issue."

Are the policies paying off? "King David" as Petraeus is known from his previous tour of duty up near the Syrian border, is cautiously optimistic. "Less than half the al Qaeda leaders who were in Baghdad when this [surge] campaign began are still in the city," he said. "They have fled or are being killed or captured. We are attriting them at a fearsome rate."

In terms of the ROE's, Landeck is absolutely right. You fight to win, or not at all. I hope Petraeus is correct in having taken care of this problem, but I can't overcome my skepticism.

This thing could have been settled long ago had we only let our boys do what they do best. We should have figured that out from the first assault on Fallujah.

I commented on this web site over one year ago that we were into another Vietnam. This letter sums up that very fact. The politicians are at it again in setting rigorous ROE's so that the papers back home will not be critical of our great leaders. If we are to fight a war then fight it, otherwise leave.
As to night patrols that the Captain desired. The British were in a similar situation in the Middle East in WWI. There answer that significantly curtailed the same problems that we face was to patrol at night and kill anything that moved.

Whatever you might think about the rest of that sad letter -- the father's recriminations about ROE's seems exactly right.

Why wasn't his son allowed to go night hunting? It seems ridiculous to forbid that. He was right -- let the other guys be afraid.

I am intrigued by your challenge that no one in several years on Extreme Games has made a cogent argument in favor of our continuing presence in Iraq. I thought I would take a stab at it, and I hope this exercise proves useful.

The only purpose for the Iraq incursion or wars is to prevent the use of WMD, in particular VX gas or detonated nuclear bombs, in the United States. The war in Iraq was begun with this purpose, and continues with this purpose.
Lesser considerations include standing by our ally Israel, and protecting our source of petroleum until we make the transition to non-petroleum energy sources.
Although the administration talks about a stable and democratic Iraq as a stabilizing force in the Mideast, I believe they are simply trying to forestall a return of a Baath party dictator or a similar dictator, with enormous petrodollar funds and a desire to provide WMD to terrorists.

Saddam Hussein had major nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs.
His chemical weapons program killed 5,000 Kurds, and was reported to be the only use ever of VX in war.
VX, discovered in England in 1953(?) has a lethal dose roughly the size of Lincoln’s eye on a penny. It is available as an aerosol, passes through skin, works quickly, and lingers.
Saddam had massive amounts of VX.
Saddam's nuclear program was primarily located in Libya.
Libya has a population of 6 million, a GDP of $30 billion (roughly one fourth of the Massachusetts economy), and a 75% literacy rate. Their nuclear program was built in an immense underground complex, and encompassed up to 20,000 scientists with a budget of $20 billion. The money and technicians came largely from Iraq.
When Libya was caught red-handed and gave over the nuclear equipment to the US, most of the program, including whereabouts of most technicians, has remained a deep secret. I can only surmise that there are details of participation of other Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and thus secrecy was preferred. The nuclear equipment and materials are now kept in Tennessee. Saudi Arabia was the main source of funding for the Pakistan nuclear program.
Libya was not the only location. Iraqi intelligence officials were working in Mauritania, intended as a launch site for ballistic missiles to threaten the US.
Had the Libya program been completed, Iraq would have had 10 crude nuclear devices a year.
Saddam Hussein was not an ally of Al-Queda, in fact, he was somewhat opposed to it. He did sponsor terrorism. Of course, his main opponent was Iran. He perceived his other enemies as the United States, and Israel.
Where did they go? Most of the WMD and the manufacturing equipment were taken to other countries, most likely Syria and Lebanon in the weeks leading up to the war.
And in the end, this is not so important because of the easy technology to create more VX and more biological toxins. If a government with enough money wants to get into the WMD business, it’s not hard, and many small countries have such programs.
A nuclear bomb is much harder to manufacture, as the centrifuges needed to refine the Uranium or Plutonium are expensive and hard to operate. They can be heard from satellite by their distinct electromagnetic signatures, so they are a hard secret to keep.
The war against Iraq has ended the Iraqi Nuclear, Biological and Chemical threat against the west. For this fact alone, I am truly grateful. Iraq has so much oil, and so much money, that an Iraqi government willing to fund terrorists would be a huge disaster, and it is to preclude this that we remain fighting in Iraq.

Why has the war gone so badly?

Most counter-insurgency efforts lose badly. In Africa, look at Algeria and most of French Equatorial Africa. In Asia, look at Vietnam. The last insurgency that lost was Malaysia in 1955(?).
It doesn’t seem to matter if we treat the populace nicely or bomb them mercilessly. If the insurgents are willing to die for their cause, they always win.
Most casualties in Vietnam were from mines. Many more died from ambush tactics. American generals will say, ”We never lost a battle!” but do not realize that insurgent tactics depend on inflicting terror and casualties, not winning battles.
Torture gave us little useful information in Algeria. (Battle of Algiers was a sensational movie!) and little useful information in Vietnam. In both situations and in Iraq, the enemy had better intelligence.
The American military has the pernicious habit of each branch of the service unwilling to take less money that the other branches. Shame on the Navy and Air Force for not permitting the Army a larger budget during a time of greater needs.
There should never be even a moment when US soldiers have less than the best equipment, in superb condition. We leaned in WWII that inferior Sherman tanks, “Tommy-cookers” cost many Allied lives. So too, our present vehicles are considered inadequate and dangerous compared to vehicles made in other countries.
There are an enormous variety of vehicles designed to do well if they hit land mines or are ambushed by grenades. While US tanks are superb, the other vehicles are marginal, and cost many US lives.
We are still using the M-16 rifle, and they still jam if you look at them funny.
What a mistake not to have enormous, comfortable prison camps where suspected insurgents can be kept for months or years as POW’s. No torture, just keep these guys from causing trouble.
What a mistake not to offer jobs to all the young men in Iraq who then turn to gangster behavior to make their living.
It was impressive to see the high vote turnout in Iraq, but that means little when a small insurgency can continue terror.
Army officers have a peculiar blind spot. After Blackhawk Down, the officers saw only a few casualties, and thought things were going well. As we saw the soldiers being dragged through the streets, the citizens of the United States reacted with shock.
The military is so used to hearing of thousands of casualties in the battles of history, so relatively low casualty figures are seem as success. The loss of three US troops per day is seen as a very acceptable loss to the military. For US civilians, that number is high. For Bush-haters, that number is unconscionable.

What next? Advice for President Bush for the next two years…
I am going to suggest that we adopt the ‘Clinton’ military policy of absolutely minimizing US casualties.
We should confine our activities to providing fire support, including air strikes and artillery, for the Iraqi troops, from fortified bases away from population centers.
We can provide training, supplies, and prison care for captured insurgents.
We already use roughly 25,000 soldiers for hire. We should double this number.
We should lessen our goals to that of preventing Iraq from falling into the hands of a terrorist supporting government. Other than that, they can fight each other until they are all dead and gone.
Our job is to prevent a terror supporting dictatorship in Iraq, and help find terrorists everywhere around the world.
Our additional job is to get tough on all purveyors of equipment that can be used to make WMD.
The president and vice-president need speech therapy. Please, no more stupid grins. Please, no more stumbling sentences
Every speech they make should include references to nuclear weapons, nerve gas, or smallpox or anthrax toxins, either describing our success in tracking down terrorists with such weapons, or identifying countries developing such weapons.
I have never served in the military, so my opinions do not reflect that of an experienced soldier, but reflections of a concerned patriot.

kwilcox -- Saddam Hussein had major nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs.

David Kay, the man Bush appointed to conduct the search for WMD in Iraq, said "We were all wrong." No one in the administration issued a correction.

Sometime afterward we found 500 expired nerve gas weapons, which Charles Dulfer, Kay's successor, said were less dangerous than items found under a kitchen sink.

Nuclear weapons are incredibly valuable. Do you think that Saddam would pay to develop a nuclear warhead in Libya and then sit around and hope that Qaddafi would hand it over to him? He tried that once before. He entrusted his air force to Iran before Gulf War I so that the US wouldn't destroy his planes. Guess what? Iran kept them. How trusting do you think Saddam would be that Libya would hand over a weapon which would put them among a handful of elite nations?

Lex - What makes you think the nerve gas weapons were "expired"? Binary shells have a long shelf life. And, comparing Saddam's close relationship with Libya, another Arab country with whom he had no quarrel, to his relationship with Persian Iran with whom he fought a bitter 8 year war is not very convincing.

kwilcox makes one erroneous assumption, though, in claiming that insurgents always win. In fact, a successful insurgency is more an exception than a rule.

Shining Path, Red Brigades, Bader Meinhoff, etc

All kaput.

Bart: I was wrong, David Kay said this as well, and the other fellow's name is Duelfer, not Dulfer.

Anyway, here's Kay's quotation on the 500 shells:

"less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this point."

To me that's expired all right.

We have a son, too. He's 15 years old but he has the mind of 9 month old and he always will, even though he has a normal life expectancy. We have never known our son as a thinking person and we never will, unlike Mr. Landeck and his family.

Our son is brain-injured from a immunization. He was born with a rare immunological condition and is one of very few people that the CDC says should not be immunized. Unfortunately, however, we did not know this before he was immunized and suffered permanent brain damage. His condition and prognosis have been confirmed by doctors at highly regarded medical institutions throughout the US that we consulted in our search for answers to his condition.

I'm sharing this story because sometimes life isn't fair and, in the worst cases, the unfairness affects our children rather than us. We have two choices when this happens. We can look at life through our grief and bitterness, but when we do that it will gnaw at us and everyone around us forever. Or we can move on and make the best of the life we have. Having a spiritual foundation helps a lot.

I hope Mr. Landeck can move past his bitterness and grief, and may God bless his son for his service to our country.

Yea Lex thats why the US government spend millions of dollars to de-mil even older chemical weapons. Next time can we just store them under YOUR sink?

Lex: 'Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), who believes the shells represent weapons of mass destruction, asked: "If you took that material and got it out of the country and took it to a metropolitan area, what would be the impact?" Maples replied, "I think conceivably it would have a very large impact."'

I tell you what, you're so certain, let's have a contest. I'll take something from under my sink and rub it into my arms and, you take some of those chemical weapons found in Iraq and do the same. The guy who has the least reaction wins. It'll never happen, of course but, it's fun to visualize you squirming out of it.

tracelan & Bart,

Weldon is very likely a felon, and beyond that he's a lunatic. Before being booted out of office he said "the jury is still out" on WMD, so even he was not willing to assert on record that Saddam had WMD.

I guess you two know more about biological weapons than David Kay, the man appointed by Bush to conduct the weapons search. Bush should have hired you two.

forget kay--you can go back to marine veteran of gulf war I and weapons inspector in iraq scott ritter's testimony on iraq's nuclear/biological weapons capabilities to find out what its taken kay and bush and blair and america four years to realize: sure, hussein had the *desire* to rebuild his program, but didn't have the *ability*. ritter was there for nearly a DECADE specifically tasked with making a case for hussein's *ability* but repeatedly came up short.

just read ritter's book, "iraq confidential," to learn how the Agency and the DIA and the israelis conspired to hamstring the inspections process--they didn't WANT the verdict on iraq to be "does not constitute a viable threat". every trip home--to tender his report on the scant evidence for wmds found--ritter was sidelined, his character besmirched, his opinions shouted down, his findings buried. when he would return to iraq, he would be perpetually tailed by an Agency man masquerading as part of the UN team because he'd become a liability.

like i said, ritter was a marine veteran of ops desert shield and storm, and after seeing fellow soldiers fall ill from the "gulf war syndrome" (likely side-effects of vaccine A treatments or exposure to the spent uranium used in US shell casings), NO ONE wanted to see hussein's secret cache of wmds exposed more. so why not believe the vet?

besides, the arm-chair analysts can shout all day long about the wmds "most likely" getting carted off to syria, or qadaffi's cozy relationship with hussein (as if all of those byzantine middle-eastern relationships are as solid as, say, the washington-london or beijing-pyongyang axes), but the stark reality is that the bush team gave us EVERYTHING they had in the old files PLUS some when they made their case for war. do you honestly think they'd have played up niger yellowcake when they had a libyan underground nuclear complex funded by saddam? either the bush cabal is stupider than anyone has thus far imagined or there was more there than meets the eye that someone doesn't want publicly known (like the flash-in-the-pan story about halliburton supplying iran with *nuclear reactors* a few years back--domestic reactors, to be sure, but nuclear reactors just the same.)

and if folks like "kwillcox" still won't be convinced that the US knew *all about* what comprised hussein's program, just shove alan friedman's "spider's web: the secret history of how the [reagan-bush] white house illegally armed iraq" (written in 1993) in their face.

richard landeck would've grieved his son had he died in afghanistan, of course. but having lost his boy in *iraq* gives him every right to be grief-stricken AND pissed...

That would be Scott Ritter, Al Jazeera columnist, who claimed the U.S. rigged the Iraqi elections.

This would be Scott Ritter, who took $400,000 from an Iraqi-American businessman to film a WMD Documentary in 2000, that was apparently financed with U.N. Oil-For-Food money.

This would be the same Scott Ritter that also continues to claim that those damn Israeli Jews are continuing to push U.S. into war with Iran.

Scott Ritter has twice been arrested by police for attempting to meet underage girls he met on the Internet.

Pardon me for not taking the word of a bribe-taking Jew-hating conspiracy-minded pedophile.

Pay attention Lex. I said CHEMICAL WEAPONS. Now you are talking about biological weapons.

I was talking about places like CAMDS or JACADS among other.

All of those chemical weapons were much older than anything found in Iraq.

Since you seem to think these old chemical weapons are so safe, I'll ask again:

Next time can we just store them under YOUR sink?

The ROE for the first few years of the war have been horribly restrictive and I too pray that General Petreus will put an end to that. It's been said many times that if our guys were allowed to fight, the war would have already been won. But let's not kid ourselves. The reason the ROE were restictive is because of the 24/7 media driven culture we live in. War is ugly and innocents will die. It is we, the people, that must allow the politicians to release the dogs of war to do their duty -- world condemnation and media scutiny of every accidental civilian death be damned. Our men and women of the fighting forces are the best we have and their sacrifices are more than we can imagine. The least we can do is support them in their efforts and that means allowing them to make war, and make war to win. That will not always be pretty, but it is necessary. Support the troops, let them win.

Lex - attack Weldon all you like. He just asked the question. The reply from Maples was "I think conceivably it would have a very large impact."

tracelan,

Pay attention Lex. I said CHEMICAL WEAPONS. Now you are talking about biological weapons.

Like it makes a difference.

Contact the administration ASAP with your insight about the 500 shells! Bush wants nothing more than to find WMD in Iraq. He gave up and called off the search long ago. It's unpatriotic of you to hoard this trove of knowledge. You are a man of destiny. I feel lucky to have made your acquaintance, however brief.

Bart --

Lex - attack Weldon all you like. He just asked the question. The reply from Maples was "I think conceivably it would have a very large impact."

It amazes me that you can think this is a big deal when neither Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc heralded it. Certainly the 500 shells were not worth $500 billion and 3200 soldiers, at least not to most of us. Perhaps you think this was well spent though.

There's no reason for Bush to herald something that's already been proven. We all know that Saddam was never going to cooperate with inspectors and was never going account for or clean up his previous weapons programs or give up the possibility of having a future weapons program once the heat was off.

CY,

Al Jazeera published a Ritter article, but it's inaccurate to imply that he works for Al Jazeera. That network has published articles by many Americans.

Ritter stated unequivocally that he was unaware of the ultimate source of funds for his documentary, and that there was any tit-for-tat involved. He's got a long and distinguished military career, including working directly for Schwarzkopf, so it's easy to believe that he's patriotic.

This would be the same Scott Ritter that also continues to claim that those damn Israeli Jews are continuing to push U.S. into war with Iran.

AIPAC is hawkish on Iran. Anyway, why do you imply that Ritter is anti-semitic because he disfavors bombing Iran? Lots of folks who aren't anti-semitic, and lots of Jews, don't wish to engage Iran militarily.

As for the pedophilia thing, I know of only one charge, and it was eventually dropped, so legally Ritter's record is clean.

lex said it better (and nicer) than i could, yankee. reminds me of a line from a movie lawyer--pertaining to a witness with a seedy background--i heard once: "I always wondered why, if she was a whore, she also had to have bad eyesight."

truth is the casualty here, even if one of the only ones shouting it was a "bribe-taking Jew-hating conspiracy-minded pedophile." the "pedophile conspiracy theorist" was **right**, you guys wrong. i'm sorry that galls you so...

Bohica22:
There's no reason for Bush to herald something that's already been proven.

What baloney. Bush doesn't even pretend that we found WMD. Nobody in his administration does. You are paranoid. You feel like the MSM is lying to you, but in reality not even Bush asserts that he found WMD. Instead he pretends like "marching Democracry" was his goal all along, or at least he did until it became apparent that that ain't gonna happen. Now I'm not even sure what his rationale is. Wait, I do--he wants to bomb Iran.

We all know that Saddam was never going to cooperate with inspectors

But the inspectors made hundreds of searches in every place they desired and found nothing, yet Bush hurried to war nonetheless. I'm sorry that you in a coma during 2002-2003.

and was never going account for or clean up his previous weapons programs or give up the possibility of having a future weapons program once the heat was off.

You're hedging. On top of that, this is certainly no justification for $500 billion and 3,200 soldiers.

Reality is not your friend.

"But the inspectors made hundreds of searches in every place they desired and found nothing"
Ha! talk about reality being your enemy. Saddam NEVER granted the unconditional and unrestricted access to inspectors mandated by UN resolution. Oh, and saying that Saddam didn't have a current weapons program, but wanted to have one in the future isn't hedging one's bets. Burying a nuclear centrifuge in your back yard, that's hedging one's bets.

Saddam NEVER granted the unconditional and unrestricted access to inspectors mandated by UN resolution.

That's worth $500 billion and 3,200 soldiers? Anyway it's misleading. There's no place the inspectors wanted to get into where they didn't. They would have looked in more places, but Bush abruptly brought them home so he could attack.

"Burying a nuclear centrifuge in your back yard"

Where do you get this stuff?

Again, Bush has no pretense of finding WMD, yet you are saying he did, only he won't admit it for reasons you won't disclose. You are a Ward Churchill of the right.

Bob, your sentiments strike me as exactly right on this. I've been struggling with Mr. Landeck's letter for a couple of days now.

Kevin Landeck is from Wheaton, IL, the same town I live in. I didn't know him, but learned about him from reading the local stories, and almost went to his services, but didn't. I was sorry later that I didn't, when I saw the pictures of the schoolkids lined up for his funeral procession, and his wife saluting his casket, etc. I was sufficiently moved to write this, Godspeed, Capt. Kevin Landeck, trying to capture my own conflicted feelings and my sorrow for a young man gone too soon. Quite a few of those pics at that link too.

The ROE's were definitely too restrictive, but that is nothing new to those of us who follow these things closely. So good on ya, Gen. Petraeus, for clarifying these ROEs, and maybe fewer fine young people like Kevin Landeck will be sacrificed because of it.

Bottom line, let's win the damn thing, so these young lives are not spent for nothing.

"Where do you get this stuff?"

Its called the real world, welcome.

you aren't digging deep enough, Bohica:

"But for the Bush administration, things quickly began to go wrong with the Obeidi story. True, Obeidi said he’d buried the centrifuge equipment, as he’d been ordered to do in 1991 by Saddam’s son Qusay Hussein and son-in-law Hussein Kamel. But he also insisted to the CIA that, in effect, that was that: Saddam had never reconstituted his centrifuge program afterward, in large part because of the Iraqi tyrant’s fear of being discovered under the U.N. sanctions-and-inspections regime. If true, this was a terribly inconvenient fact for the Bush administration, after months in which Secretary of State Colin Powell and other senior officials had alleged that aluminum tubes imported from 11 countries were intended for just such a centrifuge program. Obeidi denied that and added that he would have known about any attempts to restart the program. He also told the CIA that, as the International Atomic Energy Agency and many technical experts have said, the aluminum tubes were intended for rockets, not uranium enrichment or a nuclear-weapons program. And he stuck by his story, despite persistent questioning by CIA investigators who still believed he was not telling the full truth.

Soon, not only was Obeidi no longer a marquee name for the Bush team, he was incommunicado. Whisked off to a safe house in Kuwait, with no access to phones or the Internet, he waited in vain for what he thought had been offered to him: asylum in the United States and green cards granting permanent residency to him and his eight-member family.

...

[W]ith the Obeidi case, the message being sent by the Bush administration to Iraqi scientists being interrogated in Iraq is a troublesome one: if you don’t tell us what we want to hear, you won’t be rewarded. In fact, things might even get a little unpleasant for you. As [Former U.N. inspector David] Albright points out, provisional green cards can be arranged very quickly; among those so favored, for example, was the Iraqi man who tipped off the U.S. military to the whereabouts of Pfc. Jessica Lynch. 'I think they’re just keeping him under wraps,' said Albright."

get that?

"...the aluminum tubes were intended for rockets, not uranium enrichment or a nuclear-weapons program."

who's living in the *real* world here?

source for the above:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3068200/

MSN is tying two stories together. I never said that the aluminum tubes were proof of a current nuclear weapons program. Hell, I never even mentioned the tubes. I am only asserting exactly what is said. That Iraq HAD a nuclear weapons program and they buried it, literally, to keep it hidden, waiting for the world to lose interest. I for one am glad Saddam was hung by the neck before he would get this chance to put this program back together.

"Oh, and saying that Saddam didn't have a current weapons program, but wanted to have one in the future isn't hedging one's bets. Burying a nuclear centrifuge in your back yard, that's hedging one's bets." --Bohica

"Saddam had never reconstituted his [NON-nuclear] centrifuge program afterward, in large part because of the Iraqi tyrant’s fear of being discovered under the U.N. sanctions-and-inspections regime." --Mahdi Obeidi, Iraqi scientist-cum-Agency source

hmmm... whom to believe?

"I never said that the aluminum tubes were proof of a current nuclear weapons program." --Bohica

they aren't, apperently, proof of a *past* nuclear weapons program, either:

"...the aluminum tubes were intended for rockets, not uranium enrichment or a nuclear-weapons program." --Mahdi Obeidi, Iraqi scientist-cum-Agency source

Bohica22, I remember the rose garden incident now. Those 12 year-old centrifuge *components* (not even a working centrifuge, much less uranium) are a far cry from a WMD program much less the actual WMD we were promised in the buildup to the war.

So we've got 500 expired chemical shells and some centrifuge component buried under a rose garden. Yes or no, is this justification for 3,200 soldiers and $500 billion?

Bear in mind that while we've been tied down in Iraq, North Korea and Iran have been actually developing nukes, and Pakistan's been selling nuke components on the open market.

in north korea's case, the bush admin has actually been helping out:

"US grants N Korea nuclear funds

Wednesday, 3 April, 2002, 12:06 GMT 13:06 UK

The US Government has announced that it will release $95m to North Korea as part of an agreement to replace the Stalinist country's own nuclear programme, which the US suspected was being misused.

Under the 1994 Agreed Framework an international consortium is building two proliferation-proof nuclear reactors and providing fuel oil for North Korea while the reactors are being built.

In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework's requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors."

....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1908571.stm

read that last part carefully...

Jon, explain to me what a non-nuclear centrifuge project is?

Lex, the only people currently tied down in Iraq are the Third Infantry Division. Are you suggesting we use them against Iran to stop their nuke program? Damn, you're quite the hawk. CY has only suggested air strikes and an aggressive naval blockade against Iran. He never went as far as to send M1s to Tehran.

Oh, and calling Bush out on partially following through on a CLINTON plan to appease the NorKs is low, especially since all of Kim's funds are currently tied up in Macau.

Lex and Jon are just twisting themselves into pretzels trying to deny the obvious, which is that Saddam manufactured, possessed and employed WMD in the past and only a fool would believe he had no intention of doing so in the future. What is it that makes this basic, elementary truth so difficult to grasp by the usual suspects? Shrunken hippocampus?

now this conversation just got stupid and boring.

"A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor, that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying force perpendicular to the axis. The centrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration is used to separate substances of greater and less density. There are many different kinds of centrifuges, including those for very specialised purposes." --Wiki

needless-to-say, these aren't exclusively used for nuclear purposes.

s'long, B.

Stupid, I'll afree with you there. A gas centrifuge, like the one Obeidi was working on, has only one purpose. Pretending Iraq's secret centrifuge project was for anything other than uranium enrichment is as stupid as you can get.

Occaisionally the French unearth caches of munitions from the Great war - chemical rounds. when they do they evacuate everyone in the area and carefully haul them away to be disposed of.

Old chemical rounds are dangerous.

Bohica22, Bart:

"So we've got 500 expired chemical shells and some centrifuge component buried under a rose garden. Yes or no, is this justification for 3,200 soldiers and $500 billion?"

Yes or no?

Mikey NTH - David Kay, weapons inspector appointed by Bush, said the 500 shells are less dangerous than what people have under their kitchen sinks. No one in the administration contradicted him. Just deal with it.

Lex, you speak of the WMD issue as if it was the only issue went went to war with Iraq. It is just one of almost two dozen reasons listed by the White House, though certainly the one that got the most press.

The simple fact of the matter is that Saddam Hussein violated the terms of the 1991 ceasefire.

Of course, if you needed it, you could bring up the fact that Saddam attacked U.S. and British forces constantly in what became known as the No-Fly Zone war, with a serious increase in incidents starting in December, 1998.

You may very well be right about Saddam's WMDs (though I happen to know someone in the DIA who is working on a book suggesting otherwise), but that is not the only reason to justify the invasion.

As for why we remain now, I posted on WaPo yesterday why over continued involvement is worth the lives we've given and will give. They botched my paragraph breaks, so I'll reintroduce them:

Lots of self-styled experts here, I see, most of which couldn't find Amel if I gave them a map of Baghdad, don't know the difference between Sunni and Shiite, and probably think JAM is something you spread on toast. Overwhelmingly, it is this same crowd that strongly advocates pulling out of Iraq posthaste, with little regard and absolutely no understanding of precisely what effect that would have.

Iraq is arguably engaged in a conflict that is not quite a civil war, and if the Coalition forces withdraw precipitously, there are indications that the Iraqi government, still trying to establish the monopoly of force needed to ensure security, cannot hold.

The expected result of a collapse is a true civil war, devolving into an attempted genocide of Sunnis by Shia extremists.

Saudi Arabia has already publicly stated that if this occurs, they will provide military aid and funding to the Sunnis to keep their co-religionists from being wiped out. At the same time, Iran will increase as they have already been increasing their military support of the Shia, in hopes of establishing control over Iraqs oil fields in the south of the country.

Bluntly put, the immediate pullout of American forces that the so called pro-peace, anti-war crowd would instead likely lead to a regional war perhaps proxy, or perhaps evolving into direct combat between Saudi Arabia and Iran, occurring primarily on Iraqi soil. The human toll of such a conflict will dwarf that of the war weve seen in Iraq thus far, with Iraqi civilians taking the brunt of the casualties.

I think that it would not be unrealistic to suggest that the casualties of such a conflict could, in one year, equal or surpass all the deaths attributed to the Iraq War we are presently engaged in. If the conflict stalemated into long war such what we saw in the 1980-88 Iraq-Iraq War, we might expect to see perhaps similar number of dead and wounded, roughly a million.

This, of course, does not account for the global economic problems that would arise as the result of the near-certain shutdown of the Persian Gulf and the oil transported through it for the duration of the conflict. In the United States we'd suffer much higher gas prices and likely enter a recession. A few hundred thousand people would lose their jobs and their homes, and perhaps a few hundred or a few thousand people dying indirectly as a result.

We'd be getting out of it fairly easy.

Developing nations would suffer far worst, with economies of some nations collapsing, and civil war and rebellions possibly resulting.

Here is the essential reality far too many Americans are unwilling to admit: We broke Iraq. Whatever we meant to do, we made this mess, and like your mother told you countless times as a kid, when you make a mess, you are responsible for doing everything you can to clean it up.

The Petraeus plan, which includes the so-called surge, is our last best hope for stabilizing Iraq, and well know, and know obviously, within a year whether or not Iraq can be stabilized.

Over the course of the last three years of the war, weve lost roughly 850 soldiers killed and had another 6,800 or so wounded per year. Is it worth risking another 850 deaths and 6,800 soldiers wounded to implement the Patreaeus plan and perhaps keep a much wider war from killing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people and crippling the oil-dependant economies of developing nations?

That is a decision each of you will have to make, and if objective, the answer should be obvious. If you do look at everything Ive laid out for you, however, and can still state that the correct course of action is a full and immediate withdrawal, then you have gone far beyond being partisan, and have become something else entirely.

Executioners.

There is your answer, Lex. We broke it, and we need to give our best effort to fix it. It is worth the 3,200 lives we've lost, and the 850 will will likely lose in the next year if it keeps tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands from dying. It is worth 6,800 more wounded soldiers to head-off a projected genocide and regional war, and the likely shutdown of oil coming out of the Persian Gulf which will hurt developing nations even worse than our own.

Lex. The answer is yes. Those shells and centrifuge components prove that Saddam was in clear violation of UN Resolution 1441 and about 10 other resolutions as well as the agreements signed by Iraq at the conclusion of the first Gulf War. This along with Saddam's willingness to work with terrorists of all sorts, makes me believe that we made the right decision in invading Iraq. I have some problems with how the reconstruction was mishandled, but that doesn't change my opinion that we did the right thing.

"The simple fact of the matter is that Saddam Hussein violated the terms of the 1991 ceasefire. [He] attacked U.S. and British forces constantly in what became known as the No-Fly Zone war...." --yankee

you mean he tried to re-invade kuwait? he re-launched scuds against israel? he rebuilt the nuclear programme israel destoyed in 1981? b/c THOSE were the terms of the 1991 ceasefire, not the acceptance of the "no-fly zones".

not that it matters now that saddam is dead, but this is exactly how history is re-written: saddam never ratified or recognized the no-fly zones, so to "violate them" was not a violation of the cease-fire. yet this was cited as one of the 'violations' saddam had to be held accountable for.

if, for example, the US were to invade its southern neighbor (oops! we did that already) and a multinational army were to invade the US in return imposing "no-fly zones" on the US between the 35th and 45th parallels, would the US accept that? of course not! no sovereign nation would! UN resolution 681*, ratified by iraq in 1991, never mentioned these "no-fly zones", so they shouldn't (if one wants to be 'fair&balanced') be cited as an example of hussein's belligerency.

besides, he was most aggressive when the white house gave him leave: the toppling of kassem in 1963 (supported by the CIA and DIA at the time) and the invasions of iran and kuwait. april gillespie, the US ambassador to iraq gave him tacit approval for the invasion of kuwait, telling him, on the eve of the invasion,

"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction."

this was cited in newspapers at the time, as was his slaughter of the kurds in 1988 (about which reagan-bush said/did nothing). why doesn't this sink in with you when discussing the man? after all, our relationship with hussein didn't begin in 1990...

*read it in full here:
http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm

Lex asked: 'Yes or no, is this justification for 3,200 soldiers and $500 billion?"'

Uh... YEAH! Were you around on September 11, 2001, Lex, or were you locked in a mental ward somewhere? Oh, that's right, there was no connection between Saddam and the instability afflicting the Middle East, breeding terrorism against the US. Well, except for this:

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So, you would prefer to maintain the sanctions, enriching Saddam personally as well as all the Oil-for-Food scammers, causing far more deaths in Iraq than have died as a result of the war and its aftermath, and breeding terrorists like flies justifiably enraged at the treatment of the Iraqi people as geopolitical pawns, and lull yourself into a false sense of complacency that Hitler would never ally with Stalin, or rather Saddam would never ally himself or make use of Osama and his gang, or any of the other terrorists whom he supported and sheltered, to attack us.

That's not just stupid, Lex, it is sublimely stupid.

So, Jon, Saddam was really just a nice guy who was misunderstood and we are no better than he, is that your basic point? I have only one question, because I am perplexed: who, exactly, are you expecting to be receptive to that message?

bart, you don't sound perplexed, you sound really, really confused. uhhhmm...tell me again where i said saddam was "nice"? yeeeaahh...get back with me on that.

oh, and bart--meet NIE. NIE, meet bart.

whooopsie...

Bart,

That's a great link, except for one thing. Guess who said this: "We have no evidence that Saddam was involved with the 11 September attacks."

Now guess who said this: "Be glad of the good news: America is mired in the swamps of the Tigris
and Euphrates. Bush is, through Iraq and its oil, easy prey. Here is he now, thank God, in an embarassing situation and here is America today being ruined before the eyes of the whole world."

Wihtout doubt we would be much better off having finished the job in Afghanistan and getting Bin Laden, rather than hurrying into an unrelated misadventure in Iraq.

Saddam was a brutal tyrant, not a jihadist. Yes he gave money to Palestinian suicide bombers, but as PR. He was the furthest thing from a religious man, and he and the religiously-motivated Bin Laden distrusted each other.

That first quotation above is from George W. Bush. The second one is from Osama bin Laden.

CY: We broke it, and we need to give our best effort to fix it.

I agree that this is a noble sentiment, but where we differ is that I don't think we can win. Our military forces are the greatest the world has seen, but their hands are tied. If we are too aggressive, we kill innocents and breed that many more terrorists. Our soldiers are trained for war, and they are being asked to be policemen.

I've quoted retired General William Odom here a number of times. He was in charge of the NSA under Reagan. He makes a convincing argument here that we have no upside in staying in Iraq.

Also, poll after poll shows that the Iraqis want us to leave, and greater numbers feel this way over time. How can we introduce a democracy if they don't want us there in the first place?

Bohica22:

Q: "So we've got 500 expired chemical shells and some centrifuge component buried under a rose garden. Yes or no, is this justification for 3,200 soldiers and $500 billion?"

Your answer: Yes

I wish it was your job to announce troop deaths to family members: "Your son made a noble sacrifice. Through his death we were able to unearth centrifuge components from under a rose garden in Iraq. You can sleep well tonight."

I'm sure you can see that following this course we will destroy our army and go broke over the coming years: next up we have Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea to attack, because each of these is hostile to us and has far more nuclear capability than Saddam did.

CY:

From this poll of Iraqis:
-----------------------------------
17. There can be differences between the way government is set up in a country, called political systems. From the three options I am going to read to you, which one do you think would be best for Iraq now?

Strong leader: a govt headed by one man for life
2005: 26%
2007: 35%

Islamic state: where politicians rule according to religious principles:
2005: 14%
2007: 22%

Democracy: a govt with a chance for the leader(s) to be replaced from time to time:
2005: 57%
2007: 43%

18. And which of these systems will be best for Iraq in five years time?

Strong leader: a govt headed by one man for life
2005: 18%
2007: 26%

Islamic state: where politicians rule according to religious principles:
2005: 12%
2007: 22%

Democracy: a govt with a chance for the leader(s) to be replaced from time to time:
2005: 64%
2007: 53%

28. Overall, do you think the presence of US forces in Iraq is making security in our country better, worse, or having no effect on the security situation?

3/5/07:
Better 21%
Worse 69%
No effect 10%

30. Thinking about the political action of other people, do you find each of these items to be acceptable or not acceptable?

Attacks on coalition forces
Acceptable 51%
Not acceptable 49%

-----------------------------------
We're four years, 3,200 soldiers, and $500 billion dollars in, and fewer Iraqis support democracy than did two years ago, and more support an Islamic state or a dictator. Perhaps worst of all, 51% of Iraqis think it's acceptable to harm US troops.

I just don't see any upside.

Dear mr Landeck,
I wish to address a couple of points yu brought up in your letter. You asked why your sonn was not allowed to conduct patrols at night to find terrorists who were planting bombs. Do you recall a speech made by a Democratic Senator named John Kerry in which he painted an image of American troops kicking in doors and terrorising the citizens? There is part of your answer.
In talking about why his men could not shoot at a speeding vehicle in self defense do you remember another Democratic Senator John Murtha who made much of this matter and we now have 8 Marines pending trial for doing just that.
Have you heard of Lt Pantino? He did just such a thing and was also put on trial.
Your anger is misdirected. It is others who through their constant crictism of how we conduct war that have caused such restrictive rules onto our fighting men and women. It is those who constantly manage to get their soundbites on the news that are critical of America and her forces thereby giving the enemy the hope that they will win.
The terrorists know exactly how to beat America and it isn't on the battlefield but rather by shaping and twisting public opinion.

Lex:

As far as your poll results are concerned, interesting that you focus only on a particular date and ignore previous results that would contradict your point of view. Or, were you pro-invasion in November of '05? At least then you'd be consistent. Polls are cyclical and, there is no reason to expect that they will not go up again as the security situation improves again.

You claim: "Saddam was a brutal tyrant, not a jihadist."

Stalin was a brutal Communist tyrant, not a Nazi. Then he signed a non-aggresion pact with Hitler that paved the way for the partition of Poland. You're whistling past the graveyard, dude. Fortunately, for your sake, there were clearer heads in charge when the time came to take action.

Jon: Yeah, we've created legions of new terrorists like the ones who in the 90's hit us at the Khobar Towers, Dar es Salaam, and Nairobi, assassinated CIA employees in Northern Virgina, attemped to blow up LAX, bombed the USS Cole, bombed the WTC the first time, and eventually took down the WTC on 9/11/2001. Why, in the last five years we've been hit... well, I'm sure we've had a building or two blown up and hundreds of civilians killed. We must have, because otherwise, you'd have to be full of sh__.

And, Lex, I can't help but make one more, undoubtedly futile, effort to penetrate that thick skull surrounding your pea-sized brain, because my point appears to have sailed right over your pointy head.

Saddam had everything to do with Al Qaeda attacking the US because AQ's primary grievance against us was the mistreatment of the Iraqis under the sanctions and the presence of US troops in the region enforcing the UN mandates.

And, they were right.

It was a horrible situation and it had to end, but not in a way that left Saddam victorious, in power, and free to rebuild his WMD capability and launch new aggressions.

Did I get even a blip of mental activity there? Anything? Bueller?

bart, i feel your frustration--must SUCK to have bush of all people saying saddam had nothing to do with 9-11 when you are so convinced that he did! @&^%$# bush! folk like you just *know* hussein had something to do with it--if only the prez could see what you see!!

and the various intelligence agencies like the NSA and CIA and DIA--how can they be so stooopid to not see that the 90s were, like, way worse than the last 5.5 years!!! who gives a sh_t about jakarta, bali, madrid, london, beslan--look that one up--as well as the usual spate in israel, baghdad, and afghanistan: those weren't in america and don't count!! those spooks don't know like our bart-boy knows or they wouldn't draft a NIE that COMPLETELY contradicts him! mofos!!

you see, i *do* feel your pain, being at war with both the prez AND the intelligence aparatus of the US...

(btw--i never did hear where i called hussein "nice"...)

Bart:

"As far as your poll results are concerned, interesting that you focus only on a particular date and ignore previous results that would contradict your point of view."

Not at all. I reported the one and only poll of the sort that I'm aware of. I notice you didn't address the substance of the poll whatsoever.

"Or, were you pro-invasion in November of '05? At least then you'd be consistent. Polls are cyclical and, there is no reason to expect that they will not go up again as the security situation improves again."

Polls are cyclical only insofar as the underlying attitudes are. Either way it's beyond flaccid as an argument. Was I pro-invasion in '05? I haven't a clue what you're getting at.

"Stalin was a brutal Communist tyrant, not a Nazi..."

So? What light does it shed on Saddam? You are blathering.

"Saddam had everything to do with Al Qaeda attacking the US"

Not according to Bush they didn't. Re-read the quotation above.

Your latest arguments are hardly worth replying to they are so weak.

"that thick skull surrounding your pea-sized brain"

That's your true colors right there: when losing an argument, act like a jerk.

Lex: flatlining.

Jon: wetting his pants.

Pitiful.