How do you feel about Iraq?

[Art Sandusky 0]

That's stupid even for you, Kotz.

 

Some long-winded speech by Iraq's Parliament Speaker does not equate to a referendum voted on by the citizens or a resolution drafted by their government. And you know that.

You can ignore it all you want, but this should really be taken as a strong sign. I'm sorry, is the free and democratic government we wanted to exist not agreeing with us like it was supposed to?

 

EDIT: And oh, you right-wingers sure are touchy. Always with the "you're stupid"s and so-and-so "is an idiot" and all that jazz if you don't like something. I wonder how many people here (on all sides) would be able to express their beliefs without insulting hyperbole attached to it.

[NoCalMike 0]

It wasn't think, we had information (whether false or not, that's a different story) that said they had WMD's. Put that together with our prior encounter in the Gulf War and it was plain to see that the conflict was eminent.

 

We also had inspectors on the ground in Iraq that weren't finding any WMDs. Bush PULLED THE INSPECTORS out so he could start the War.

[NoCalMike 0]

EDIT: Moved to correct thread.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

But Sean Hannity says we've been finding WMDs!

 

[snuffbox 0]

Getting the news from Sean Hannity is like cheating on a test by looking at the special ed kid's paper.

[Spicy McHaggis 0]

That's stupid even for you, Kotz.

 

Some long-winded speech by Iraq's Parliament Speaker does not equate to a referendum voted on by the citizens or a resolution drafted by their government. And you know that.

You can ignore it all you want, but this should really be taken as a strong sign. I'm sorry, is the free and democratic government we wanted to exist not agreeing with us like it was supposed to?

 

EDIT: And oh, you right-wingers sure are touchy. Always with the "you're stupid"s and so-and-so "is an idiot" and all that jazz if you don't like something. I wonder how many people here (on all sides) would be able to express their beliefs without insulting hyperbole attached to it.

1. I am no right-winger. Watch those assumptions.

 

2. Quotes from you in this very thread:

...

 

I do give the administration credit for terrifying and taking advantage of such a stupid country though.

 

...

 

If you pull your head out of your ass and look at it in an honest, objective way...

[NoCalMike 0]

But Sean Hannity says we've been finding WMDs!

 

 

 

Yeah so has Rick Sanitorum, who recently set up a booth at a Nascar event hoping to wow locals......he was promptly IGNORED.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

But Sean Hannity says we've been finding WMDs!

 

 

 

Yeah so has Rick Sanitorum, who recently set up a booth at a Nascar event hoping to wow locals......he was promptly IGNORED.

 

Neither will ever be as crazy as Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA):

 

[Dave] Gaubatz, who lives in Dallas, is a former Air Force special investigator who served as a civilian employee in Iraq for a number of months in 2003.

While in Iraq, he acquired what he considered reliable information on the existence of WMD caches in four locations - not old stuff dating from the pre-Gulf War days, but recently produced gas and chemical weapons.

 

He never could get U.S. military officials to look into the matter. They apparently viewed it as too speculative and too much of a drain on personnel who were, after all, engaged in combat.

 

But he has persisted - even as evidence mounted that there were no WMDs to be found in Iraq.

 

Gaubatz said he first contacted Weldon and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R., Mich.), head of the House Intelligence Committee, to share his info and get them to prod the Defense Department and intelligence agencies to do the WMD searches in the locales.

 

Instead, Gaubatz said, Weldon latched onto the idea as a "personal political venture" and discussed a Hoekstra-Weldon trip to Iraq, under the guise of visiting the troops, that would detour to Nasiriyah.

 

Once there, Gaubatz said, the congressmen planned to persuade the U.S. military commander to lend them the equipment and men to go digging by the Euphrates for the cache Gaubatz believed to be there.

 

He said that Weldon made it clear he didn't want word leaked to the Pentagon, to intelligence officials, or to Democratic congressmen.

 

As Gaubatz told me: "They even worked out how it would go. If there was nothing there, nothing would be said. If the site had been [scavenged], nothing would be said. But, if it was still there, they would bring the press corps out."

 

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/lo...ia/14916463.htm

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

But Sean Hannity says we've been finding WMDs!

 

 

 

Yeah so has Rick Sanitorum, who recently set up a booth at a Nascar event hoping to wow locals......he was promptly IGNORED.

 

Neither will ever be as crazy as Curt Weldon (R-PA)

 

[Dave] Gaubatz, who lives in Dallas, is a former Air Force special investigator who served as a civilian employee in Iraq for a number of months in 2003.

While in Iraq, he acquired what he considered reliable information on the existence of WMD caches in four locations - not old stuff dating from the pre-Gulf War days, but recently produced gas and chemical weapons.

 

He never could get U.S. military officials to look into the matter. They apparently viewed it as too speculative and too much of a drain on personnel who were, after all, engaged in combat.

 

But he has persisted - even as evidence mounted that there were no WMDs to be found in Iraq.

 

Gaubatz said he first contacted Weldon and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R., Mich.), head of the House Intelligence Committee, to share his info and get them to prod the Defense Department and intelligence agencies to do the WMD searches in the locales.

 

Instead, Gaubatz said, Weldon latched onto the idea as a "personal political venture" and discussed a Hoekstra-Weldon trip to Iraq, under the guise of visiting the troops, that would detour to Nasiriyah.

 

Once there, Gaubatz said, the congressmen planned to persuade the U.S. military commander to lend them the equipment and men to go digging by the Euphrates for the cache Gaubatz believed to be there.

 

He said that Weldon made it clear he didn't want word leaked to the Pentagon, to intelligence officials, or to Democratic congressmen.

 

As Gaubatz told me: "They even worked out how it would go. If there was nothing there, nothing would be said. If the site had been [scavenged], nothing would be said. But, if it was still there, they would bring the press corps out."

 

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/lo...ia/14916463.htm

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Hey! Remember this war?

 

2/12/03

 

Back in Washington, US officials who are quietly - and gingerly - making plans for postwar Iraq dismiss comparisons to the imperial MacArthur. The last thing they want to emulate in Iraq is the seven-year occupation of Japan. In fact, some officials at the Pentagon and State Department tell NEWSWEEK they hope to be able to withdraw US troops in as little as 30 to 90 days after President Saddam Hussein's ouster - if Iraq's military can be swiftly purged of his henchmen and turned into a pro-Western security force. That, they admit, is optimistic; more "realistically," says a Pentagon official, the talk is of a maximum five- to six-month occupation. "The plan is to get it done as quickly as possible and get out," says Lt. Col. Michael Humm, a spokesman for the Pentagon's chief planner, Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith.

 

http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/Ed...TableRow=1.1.10

[Dr. Zaius 0]

I posted this link in the Lieberman thread, but thought it belonged here as well.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/09/iraq.poll/index.html

 

Poll: 60 percent of Americans oppose Iraq war

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sixty percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest number since polling on the subject began with the commencement of the war in March 2003, according to poll results and trends released Wednesday.

 

And a majority of poll respondents said they would support the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops by the end of the year, according to results from the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last week on behalf of CNN. The corporation polled 1,047 adult Americans by telephone.

 

According to trends, the number of poll respondents who said they did not support the Iraq war has steadily risen as the war stretched into a second and then a third year. In the most recent poll, 36 percent said they were in favor of the war -- half of the peak of 72 percent who said they were in favor of the war as it began.

 

Sixty-one percent, however, said they believed at least some U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year. Of those, 26 percent said they would favor the withdrawal of all troops, while 35 percent said not all troops should be withdrawn. Another 34 percent said they believed the current level of troops in Iraq should be maintained.

 

Asked about a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq, 57 percent of poll respondents said they supported the setting of such a timetable, while 40 percent did not and 4 percent had no opinion. Only half the sample, or about 524 people, was asked the timetable question.

 

The Bush administration has maintained that setting a timetable or deadline for withdrawal would only help terrorists.

 

Americans were nearly evenly split on whether the U.S. would win the war in Iraq. Forty-seven percent of poll respondents either said the United States would "definitely win" or "probably win." Another 48 percent either said the United States could not win, or could win -- but will not win.

 

The poll was conducted August 2 and 3. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points, and plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for questions asked of half-samples.

[snuffbox 0]

Holy Shit! America is now 60% terrorists.

[Omar20003000 0]

Holy Shit! America is now 60% terrorists.

Well, get out the Patriot Act because we have a lot of terrorist to imprison

[Guest Felonies!]

The Bush administration has maintained that setting a timetable or deadline for withdrawal would only help terrorists.

Maybe we shouldn't have maintained the Bush administration. Oh well.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I do think all the calls for "a timetable for withdrawal" are completely unrealistic, and would just be bad strategy. Did the Allies announce a timetable for pulling out of Europe during World War II? No, of course not. These calls for a timetable are just a political effort by the Democrats to make the president look bad.

 

That said, I think the administration needs to explain what exactly we're trying to accomplish at this point, and what goals need to be achieved before the US exits Iraq. Saddam is gone, there were no WMDs found in Iraq, etc. How much hand holding can we do for the new Iraq before we go? At some point, the new Iraqi government will have to stand on its own, or fall by its own.

[Art Sandusky 0]

How often are there elections for the Iraqi parliament? If it's within the next couple of years, what the hell do we do if there's a concerted political movement by the Iraqis to get us to leave? I hate to say it but we won't be out by 2007-8, so there's a hell of a lot of time for the locals to become restless.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

I do think all the calls for "a timetable for withdrawal" are completely unrealistic, and would just be bad strategy. Did the Allies announce a timetable for pulling out of Europe during World War II? No, of course not. These calls for a timetable are just a political effort by the Democrats to make the president look bad.

 

That said, I think the administration needs to explain what exactly we're trying to accomplish at this point, and what goals need to be achieved before the US exits Iraq. Saddam is gone, there were no WMDs found in Iraq, etc. How much hand holding can we do for the new Iraq before we go? At some point, the new Iraqi government will have to stand on its own, or fall by its own.

 

 

So if it is just a ploy to make Bush look bad... why does it? Don't you think if they had goals they would explain it? Could those goals be something that might make them "look bad"?

 

Perhaps that is the reason they don't really say much anymore.

[Dr. Zaius 0]

I do think all the calls for "a timetable for withdrawal" are completely unrealistic, and would just be bad strategy. Did the Allies announce a timetable for pulling out of Europe during World War II? No, of course not. These calls for a timetable are just a political effort by the Democrats to make the president look bad.

 

That said, I think the administration needs to explain what exactly we're trying to accomplish at this point, and what goals need to be achieved before the US exits Iraq. Saddam is gone, there were no WMDs found in Iraq, etc. How much hand holding can we do for the new Iraq before we go? At some point, the new Iraqi government will have to stand on its own, or fall by its own.

 

But did we have a timetable for toppling Hitler's regime? I think we probably did, but that's beside the point. If Iraq were really analgous to World War II, then the German people would have resisted the Marshall Plan and we'd have been fighting Nazi insurgents until at least 1948.

 

The rest of what you said made a lot of sense to me, though. When we went to Iraq, our goal was to overthrow Saddam, dismantle his WMD program, and install a democracy. I think we've done everything we can to accomplish all three goals. We're not cutting and running, since we've already done what we set out to do.

[Dr. Zaius 0]

This is awesome...

 

Bush disputes Iraq in civil war, says Iraqis want peace

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A day after a Pentagon report described spreading sectarian violence and increasingly complex security problems in Iraq, President Bush painted a rosier picture.

 

"Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country."

 

The president acknowledged "a bloody campaign of sectarian violence" and the "difficult and dangerous" work of trying to end it. (Watch Iraqis meander amid the aftermath of rocket and mortar attacks -- 5:15)

 

On Friday, the Pentagon reported that death squads increasingly targeting mainly Iraqi civilians heighten the risk of civil war. The report, the latest in a series required by Congress, also said the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable."

 

"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months," the report said.

 

A growing number of members of Congress are calling for either a shift in the Bush administration's Iraq strategy or a timetable for beginning a substantial withdrawal of American forces.

 

But Bush, repeating nearly word-for-word the message of a speech earlier this week in Salt Lake City, Utah, said: "The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq, so America will not leave until victory is achieved."

 

He added, "The path to victory will be uphill and uneven, and it will require more patience and sacrifice from our nation."

 

New White House campaign for support

The president's radio remarks are part of a new White House offensive to build support for the Iraq war and for Republicans in the fall elections. This series of speeches was launched Thursday, with an address before an American Legion convention, and is to culminate September 19 with remarks before the U.N. General Assembly.

 

The next speech is set for Tuesday, when the White House is bringing representatives from countries that have suffered terrorist attacks to populate the audience and emphasize the global nature of the enemy.

 

Bush often ticks off a list of recent attacks to demonstrate that the world should be united against Islamic militants who share a purpose, if not a common network.

 

He often says various factions of terrorists -- such as Sunnis who swear allegiance to al Qaeda, Shiites who support groups such as Hezbollah, and "homegrown" terrorists with local grievances -- belong under the same umbrella, even though many terrorism experts disagree.

 

The president plans to expand on this description Tuesday before the Military Officers Association of America, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. Bush will describe how Islamic militants think, what they have said about their aims and why the world should take them seriously, Perino said.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/02/Bus...o.ap/index.html

[snuffbox 0]

Bush is trying to capture some of that old magical Delusional Reagan vibe.

[snuffbox 0]

Does anyone doubt that Wesley Clark could probably handle a situation such as this far better than Bush etc?

 

Edit - Rick Santorum sounded pretty weak explaining the weapons he found in Iraq on Meet the Press today.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Bush disputed evolution so it doesn't surprise me in the least that he'd question the validity of civil war in Iraq.

[Dr. Zaius 0]

Pentagon: Cold-blooded carnage soaring in Iraq

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Death squads and terrorists have ramped up attacks on civilians in Iraq, killing more than 1,600 people in cold-blooded "execution-style" slayings in July alone, a Pentagon report said Friday.

 

Increasing violence is affecting "all other measures of stability, reconstruction and transition," according to the report, which examined the situation in June, July and August.

 

But the report concluded the "current violence is not a civil war, and movement toward civil war can be prevented."

 

"Sectarian tensions increased over the past quarter manifested in an increasing number of execution-style killings, kidnappings and attacks on civilians," said the report which is required by Congress.

 

The number of executions reached a new high in July, the Pentagon said, blaming the killings on al Qaeda in Iraq and death squads who are accused of targeting members of various communities to increase sectarian tension.

 

"The Baghdad coroner's office reported 1,600 bodies arrived in June and more than 1,800 in July, 90 percent of which were assessed to be the result of executions."

 

The report said the quarter had seen a 51 percent increase in Iraqi casualties and a 15 percent increase in the number of attacks.

 

The report's release came after a wave of apparent sectarian violence Thursday claimed at least 46 lives across the Iraqi capital.

 

Neighborhoods targeted

Forty-four people died and at least 255 others were wounded in five attacks using Katyusha rockets in mostly Shiite neighborhoods of southeastern and northern Baghdad, the Iraqi Health Ministry said.

 

The blasts destroyed six residential buildings in five neighborhoods and are under investigation, said an Iraqi Interior Ministry official.

 

A car bomb also killed two people and wounded 13 near a gas station in the southeastern Baghdad neighborhood of Mashtal, police said.

 

Thursday's violence followed a string of insurgent bombings Wednesday in Baghdad and the nearby provinces of Diyala and Babil, killing at least 47 people and wounding more than 100 others, emergency officials said.

 

The attacks hit as Iraqi and U.S. security forces engage in an extensive security crackdown in the capital.

 

Amid flagging support domestically for the war in the United States, President Bush launched a new series of domestic speeches Thursday, again asserting that the battle for Iraq is the "central front in our fight against terrorism."

 

Bush told an audience at the American Legion convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, that the effort was akin to World War II and the Cold War and warned that failure to persevere will lead terrorists to take their battle to U.S. shores.

 

Also on Thursday, Congressional Democrats sharpened their attacks on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, with one senator proposing a resolution that would call on President Bush to sack the outspoken Pentagon chief.

 

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California said that she wants to attach the measure to the defense appropriation bill coming to the Senate floor after lawmakers' August recess.

 

Many Democrats have disputed Bush's view that the Iraq war is essential to the fight against terrorism. In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called for "beginning the redeployment of troops from Iraq, refocusing our efforts on the war on terror and protecting Americans from terrorism here at home."

 

Other developments

 

U.S. troops transferred security responsibilities Friday in most of the key northern province of Tameem to two Iraqi army battalions. Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division made the transfer during a ceremony at an Iraqi military base outside Kirkuk. That oil-rich city and Hawija will remain under U.S.-led coalition control.

 

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday said Iraqi security forces soon will assume leadership responsibility in the southern province of Thiqar. Iraqis recently took control of security in Muthanna province from the British.

 

A U.S. Marine and soldier died Wednesday "due to enemy action" during operations in Anbar province, west of Baghdad. Since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, there have been 2,633 U.S. military fatalities. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/01/...main/index.html

[snuffbox 0]

We had another coming-home party for a friend back from Iraq over the weekend. He gets a big thirty day leave then he will be right back in Iraq. Fortunately, everyone I know has gotten a coming-home party so far.

 

Too bad everyone else couldn't just take the old Cheney method of 'supporting the war but having better things to do than fight it'.

[SuperJerk 0]

Has anyone proposed the idea to divide Iraq up into separate countries according to ethnic group?

 

It would probably involve more of an investment there than we're already making, but it'd be better than the current model of trying to unite them just so they can have a full-blown Civil War the second we leave.

 

I still think leaving Iraq's a bad idea, but what we're doing now has no chance of working. These people have no desire to get along with each other. Why continue to force them into being a united democracy?

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Has anyone proposed the idea to divide Iraq up into separate countries according to ethnic group?

 

It would probably involve more of an investment there than we're already making, but it'd be better than the current model of trying to unite them just so they can have a full-blown Civil War the second we leave.

 

I still think leaving Iraq's a bad idea, but what we're doing now has no chance of working. These people have no desire to get along with each other. Why continue to force them into being a united democracy?

 

That would probably be the solution in an ideal world, but wouldn't get much support from the Middle East as a whole. Turkey (one of our biggest allies) will never approve of a separate Kurdish state in Northern Iraq, because Turkey's own Kurdish population would want to separate from Turkey as well. Iran would probably absorb or effectively control any sort of Iraqi Shiite state, which wouldn't be in our interests, either.

 

The whole thing is just a mess. We're trying to make a democracy out of people who have never had freedom or press or freedom to vote (fairly) before. They didn't even ask to be freed. Yes, many of them hated Saddam, but I wonder how much of the Iraqi population would have simply allowed another strongman to take over, simply for the relative safety and security a dictator or one party system would provide. After all, it's all they've ever known...and if the trains run on time and the nation is relatively at peace, with good medical care and literacy rate, how much more can they want?

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Has anyone proposed the idea to divide Iraq up into separate countries according to ethnic group?

 

It would probably involve more of an investment there than we're already making, but it'd be better than the current model of trying to unite them just so they can have a full-blown Civil War the second we leave.

 

I still think leaving Iraq's a bad idea, but what we're doing now has no chance of working. These people have no desire to get along with each other. Why continue to force them into being a united democracy?

 

That would probably be the solution in an ideal world, but wouldn't get much support from the Middle East as a whole. Turkey (one of our biggest allies) will never approve of a separate Kurdish state in Northern Iraq, because Turkey's own Kurdish population would want to separate from Turkey as well. Iran would probably absorb or effectively control any sort of Iraqi Shiite state, which wouldn't be in our interests, either.

 

The whole thing is just a mess. We're trying to make a democracy out of people who have never had freedom or press or freedom to vote (fairly) before. They didn't even ask to be freed. Yes, many of them hated Saddam, but I wonder how much of the Iraqi population would have simply allowed another strongman to take over, simply for the relative safety and security a dictator or one party system would provide. After all, it's all they've ever known...and if the trains run on time and the nation is relatively at peace, with good medical care and literacy rate, how much more can they want?

For larger nations to stop meddling in their affairs.

[Guest Felonies!]

The Kurds are probably the most stable group of this troika, what with the Sunnis and Shi'ites battling. Just let them govern themselves.

[snuffbox 0]

Where will the American military bases fit into the future Iraq?

[Lil' Bitch 0]

I had no problem with Iraq being invaded (face it, Saddam being taken care of was a problem that had waited too long to be fixed), but seriously its time to go. Unfortunately, its going to be Vietnam all over again, we're going to be there for X amount of years with an astronomical numbers of unnecessary U.S. fatalities.