The Iraq thread

[David Bailey]

From the "Harry" thread, I wonder if the time's appropriate to discuss the whole "Iraq war" (or conflict)?

Do people think it was initially justified?

Do people think it's still justified?

Where should we go from here?

Discuss...

[Trouble]

I thought we had discussed this already but i can not find the thread. Im sure it has been touched on though. Anyway, here are my thoughts.

1. It was never justified at the beginning or at anytime.
2. We should not be in Iraq now, there is no reason for it and its causing more harm than good.
3. Iran will be next, the Americans are chomping at the bit to find an excuse to bomb them.
4. Where will it stop.
5. Who are we /Americans to dictate to other countries and tell them how to run the show.

Thats just for starters.

[Double Trouble]

But if they pull out our troops, wont it be even worse murderous chaos there and more innocent civilians being killed?

[Gav]

Originally Posted by Double Trouble

But if they pull out our troops, wont it be even worse murderous chaos there and more innocent civilians being killed?

Exactly. If our governments had told the truth and said we were going there to get rid of a murderous dictator, most people would've been OK with that.
But no, they had to make up silly stories about weapons of mass destruction that they had no proof of.
Result, we all know our governments are full of sh1t and the militant Iraqis have more excuses to fight us.

We're there as a police force now and we're stuck with it. It's bad enough that we got it wrong in the first place, but if we walk away now, the world will hold us responsible for every atrocity that happens in Iraq thereafter.

[MartinHarper]

My local MP mailed me to ask for my opinions recently. I replied with a brief note stating that as he had voted for the Iraq war, and voted against investigating the Iraq war, he would never ever receive my vote, so he may as well stop bothering me.

You can find out how your local MP voted on Iraq here:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

[Jhutch]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Do people think it was initially justified?

Not on the terms used, as Gav has already said. Of course, WMD not being found does not mean that we were wrong to act on what intelligence there was. However, i did wonder at the time why someone with hardly any army, in a nation that was possibly the most watched in the world, would want to start building WMD just as the west would have most backing to intervene TBH i was surprised that they found nothing at all - i wonder how many countries do have illegal weapons or are doing research in a dodgy field?

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Do people think it's still justified?

Not really. I did think before the war that if they went in, got rid of Saddam and had a really good plan thereafter then it might be judged as a success although there were always going to be casualties. However, it turned out that there was little thought to what to do afterwards. Whether this was just naivety or whether those in charge really don't care that much about the aftermath i don't know. In terms of getting rid of WMD, well, there weren't any there so i guess we can all stop worrying about whether those weapons pose a threat to us or not and pay more attention to the other threats (some of which come as a result of it).

One of the other reasons that was given was that it would help get rid of terrorism. Although Blair may say that it hasn't affected terrorism, countries have been targetted that haven't been involved, etc, i think that it is quite clear that some people see it as an attack on Islam and feel compelled to respond.

So, for the reasons originally given then it is a no.

Iraq is not a natural state, containing people of different ethnic groups. Some countries can exist like this but one where one group have been the reigning power will be even less of a natural state. Therefore, there were always going to be problems when Saddam and/or his regime were dismantled. Given this, i have wondered why the 'allies' wanted to there when it happened as they would be held responsible for the events in some people's minds. I have wondered whether they were hoping that they could control the break-up and stop Iran trying to grab the Sunni part of Iraq? I can't help wondering if there is a geo-political objective that has been hidden or is it all really a case of money/oil?

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Where should we go from here?

Try to get out as quickly as possible while leaving behind a nation in a fairly stable state. How to do this is something that i have no idea whatsoever though. TBH, it shames me to say it, but i don't really take that much notice of Iraq anymore. Just seems a great almighty mess where there the main course of action seems to be to carry on trying to reconstruct the nation - more bombings will occur before this happens though

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by Jhutch

Not on the terms used, as Gav has already said. Of course, WMD not being found does not mean that we were wrong to act on what intelligence there was. However, i did wonder at the time why someone with hardly any army, in a nation that was possibly the most watched in the world, would want to start building WMD just as the west would have most backing to intervene TBH i was surprised that they found nothing at all - i wonder how many countries do have illegal weapons or are doing research in a dodgy field?

Jhutch, please don't try to perpetuate the mythology of "faulty intelligence" which Blair etc. continue to hide behind. The Downing Street Memo proves that the public, etc were deceived. It's all in that single phrase "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." The policy (i.e. of invading Iraq) existed before any intelligence that was presented to either the UN, Parliament, or the public.

All the hand-wringing since, about "faulty" intelligence is a lie built on that deception. And the number of corpses created by that lie keeps on growing - not as fast as the defence companies' profits, perhaps, but they still grow.

[Stuart M]

Just to clarify, I don't think Jhutch is deliberately peddling the "faulty intelligence" line - it's just that it's become so prevalent in the mainstream media that a lot of people have forgotten the implications of the Downing Street Memo.

The only "faults" in existing intelligence were introduced by spin-doctors, like the ludicrous "45 minutes" claim.

[David Bailey]

Answering my own questions:

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Do people think it was initially justified?

At the time, I was 50-50.

I knew the WMD stuff was rubbish, and that Blair was just going along with what Bush and the neocons (remember them?) wanted to do.

On the other hand, I knew Hussein and his sons / minion were just nasty, and I thought that getting rid of him would be generally a Good Thing anyway. (which I suspect was Blair's motivation).

In hindsight, I was wrong - Blair had a good run of relative military successes (Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, etc.), so I gave him too much benefit-of-the-doubt.

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Do people think it's still justified?

On balance, no.

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Where should we go from here?

Pull out, right now. The longer we leave it the more people (our soldiers and Iraqi civilians) will die. We've messed up the lives of the Iraqis enough already.

[Jhutch]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

Just to clarify, I don't think Jhutch is deliberately peddling the "faulty intelligence" line - it's just that it's become so prevalent in the mainstream media that a lot of people have forgotten the implications of the Downing Street Memo.

The only "faults" in existing intelligence were introduced by spin-doctors, like the ludicrous "45 minutes" claim.

I think that some of the newspaper headlines actually proclaimed that rather than it being directly due to Blair and the spin doctors?

Its ok, i sort of assumed that everyone knew the intelligence was being manipulated. I just meant that getting an accurate picture of exactly what was happening was going to be difficult and it is easy with hindsight to blame all the intelligence. I was just saying that i didn't see much logic behind what they were claiming at the time.

[Gav]

The thing that really stands out for me, is that Bush and Blair have deposed a Dictator and imposed a democracy.
When you impose a system of government upon a country whether they like it or not, doesn't that make you a Dictator?

[Ronde!]

Here in Australia, we were given three reasons for sending our troops to Iraq:

• The prime reason was to counter the threat of global terrorism
• To counter the alleged research into, and building of, weapons of mass destruction, and
• To liberate the people of Iraq from the clutches of its evil dictator.

It always struck me as odd that the main reason given for going to war with Iraq, to counter the threat of global terrorism, was completely swallowed by most people - without even challenging whether or not there was even a link between terrorism and Iraq. Linking the "war on terror" to Iraq was one of the slipperiest bits of political maneuvring I've ever seen.

At the time war on Iraq was declared, I was unimpressed with the aerial photos of what could have been completely ordinary buildings, labelled as "missile silos" or "chemical weapons factories" when the United Nations inspectors had reported absolutely no chemical or biological weapons in Iraq.

However, I admit, I was no fan of Saddam Hussien's acts of genocide on minority ethnic groups within Iraq.

If I was upset and incredulous at how the war began, however, I am now outraged and disgusted at how it has been conducted. No tangible link between international terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda and Iraq has yet been found; no weapons of mass destruction were found, and most disturbingly, the "Coalition of the Willing" (and the USA in particular) is making Saddam look more and more benign with every passing day that Iraqi civilians go without basic human needs, Iraqi civilian casualties are added to the list of at least 70,000 dead (the minimum estimate, with many figures several times as large), and coalition-detained prisoners languish in internment facilities around the world, untried, abused and tortured.

Most people are familiar with the Guantanemo Bay detention facility; but fewer are aware that it is only the tip of the iceberg; the USA has set up a number of such facilities around the world which are not publicised and whose thousands of prisoners are unknown, and whose human rights are not fought for as they are in Camp X-Ray. Camp X-Ray is just the poster-child of the US detention facilities; other facilities have been set up in secret, in countries where human torture is permitted, and where journalists have never been admitted.

I wasn't aware of this until I joined Amnesty International, but they've verified and documented this disturbing trend. Also documented are the laws signed into effect at the end of last year, which effectively do away with the doctrine of habeus corpus in these military camps, and allow hearsay evidence and evidence obtained by torture to be allowed in court. How can such "trials" provide any true justice? And tarnished with this lowered level of accountability, and whether or not those tried are truly guilty, can I ever have faith in the verditcs of these trials?

With that kind of appalling conduct officially sanctioned - indeed, instituted - by the leading country of this "coalition of the willing," I feel that any moral high ground this coalition may have claimed has been lost, along with the credibility of the campaign. This "war on terror" has become a war of terror.

As for what I think should be done? It is time to tell the US that they have gone too far. If you had a friend who was doing the wrong thing, would you continue to support and encourage them to, say, beat people up, with your "unconditional" friendship? Or would you act? Would you try to guide your friend to become a better person, and a better citizen?

Withdrawing our troops from the coalition would provide the the USA with a clear message that we do not approve of how this war has been initiated or waged. The USA has a massive force in the region, and the capability to redeploy their own troops - for example, the latest troop increase of over 20,000 US troops is three times the size of the combined UK and Australian forces. Even if UK and Australia and the UK pulled out completely, there would be US personnel enough to cover the shortfall and prevent increases in bloodshed.

Furthermore, if US atrocities continue, the international community has to be prepared to stand up for the true values of humanity. If the United Nations was not the USA's puppet, it would surely have sent an independant peacekeeping force to oversee the military action in Iraq and prevent human rights abuses by both sides. Those who have facilitated or permitted the sanctioning of military prisons where torture is employed, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of people, some now for over 5 years, should be held accountable as war criminals.

Finally, we, as individuals, can do something. Make yourself heard. Write letters to the press or to your MP. Join Amnesty International. Its 1.8 million members have the freedom to choose how active they are, but membership will help give you the facts you need if you want to make a difference.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Ronde!

Finally, we, as individuals, can do something. Make yourself heard. Write letters to the press or to your MP. Join Amnesty International. Its 1.8 million members have the freedom to choose how active they are, but membership will help give you the facts you need if you want to make a difference.

Whilst I agree with everything you said, and respect you greatly for the work you're doing, I have to say that the current UK government is monumentally uninterested in demonstrations (or, as recently demonstrated, in petitions - see the "Road tax" thread).

Over 1 million people marched against the war in 2003 - to no effect. Blair still stubbornly refuses to admit it was a horrendously bad decision, both from a moral and a practical perspective.

Things may change when he slopes off in a few months - we can but hope.

[Ronde!]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Whilst I agree with everything you said, and respect you greatly for the work you're doing, I have to say that the current UK government is monumentally uninterested in demonstrations (or, as recently demonstrated, in petitions - see the "Road tax" thread).

Over 1 million people marched against the war in 2003 - to no effect. Blair still stubbornly refuses to admit it was a horrendously bad decision, both from a moral and a practical perspective.

Things may change when he slopes off in a few months - we can but hope.

Indeed, David, things may well change - and are changing. Tony Blair's announcement of a reduction of the UK military presence in Iraq has added to mounting pressure here in Australia to reduce our presence as well, and helped to raise awareness of related issues such as the continuing detention of thousands of people in US-run facilities without charge. Our current Prime Minister has given the USA too many concessions for too long, and has slumped in the polls to a point where he may not even be able to keep his own seat in the next election. His opponent, Kevin Rudd, is the most popular opposition leader for over 30 years, with a public approval rating of 67%.

In the face of such mounting public pressure and increasing public awareness of the follies of the war, continuing protests, petitions, and letters to newspapers will eventually draw the same response in parliament in the UK that they have gained here in Australia, where, in the first few sessions of the reconvened parliament, several members of the Prime Minister's own party have broken party lines, calling for the release of prisoners, and a reduction of Australia's military presence.

It is never too late to correct the mistakes of the past; and never too soon. The more voices that are heard, the faster we can bring our brave men and women home; and the sooner, we pray, those prisoners who cannot be charged with any crime, or found guilty by just and fair legal process, who are currently unlawfully detained in US facilities, will also be able to return to their homes and families.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Ronde!

Indeed, David, things may well change - and are changing. Tony Blair's announcement of a reduction of the UK military presence in Iraq has added to mounting pressure here in Australia to reduce our presence as well, and helped to raise awareness of related issues such as the continuing detention of thousands of people in US-run facilities without charge. Our current Prime Minister has given the USA too many concessions for too long, and has slumped in the polls to a point where he may not even be able to keep his own seat in the next election. His opponent, Kevin Rudd, is the most popular opposition leader for over 30 years, with a public approval rating of 67%.

Blair took a big hit in the 2005 elections - 100 seats lost - and a large part of that was due to Iraq. But I suspect it's now turning into old news over here; the next election will be (as usual) much more domestic-oriented.

As for the reduced military presence, the extra 1,500 troops we're sending into Afghanistan shows that Our Tony hasn't lost his taste for foreign adventures.

[Jhutch]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

As for the reduced military presence, the extra 1,500 troops we're sending into Afghanistan shows that Our Tony hasn't lost his taste for foreign adventures.

Was watching something on the news last night where they reckoned that military commanders think that the troops will do more good in Afghanistan than in Iraq - hence the redeployment - apparently the number of British troops in Iraq has reduced a lot. They also think that it could take ten years before the war against the Taliban is 'won.'

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Jhutch

Was watching something on the news last night where they reckoned that military commanders think that the troops will do more good in Afghanistan than in Iraq

Well, possibly. They're actually harmful in Iraq, they may be merely useless in Afghanistan.

100,000 Soviets couldn't pacify the country with a puppet regime, what makes us think 1,500 UK troops can?

Originally Posted by Jhutch

- hence the redeployment - apparently the number of British troops in Iraq has reduced a lot.

Yep - it was 45,000 at the time of the invasion.

Originally Posted by Jhutch

They also think that it could take ten years before the war against the Taliban is 'won.'

Classic "round numbers" quote - translated, that means "We don't have a clue what we're doing, but we'll give a number because we're asked, and make it big enough so that no one will call us on it when we miss it".

Armies can't "win" counter-insurgency actions; you'd have hoped the UK government could at least have learned that from N.I.

[Jhutch]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Well, possibly. They're actually harmful in Iraq, they may be merely useless in Afghanistan.

100,000 Soviets couldn't pacify the country with a puppet regime, what makes us think 1,500 UK troops can?


Classic "round numbers" quote - translated, that means "We don't have a clue what we're doing, but we'll give a number because we're asked, and make it big enough so that no one will call us on it when we miss it".

I largely agree I think that in Afghanistan they are coming under direct fire more against a more direct enemy so they feel they need extra support. Whether this will help to put down the people who don't support the Afghani government i dont know - it could act to escalate things I don't think we should look back at what the Russians did and say that something is impossible but then it is not just the russians who have failed in Afghanistan. A very difficult task but maybe Bush, Blair and NATO have the right ideas this time? (although their present form is not encouraging).

I deliberately put win in brackets as i don't know how you measure this - and, yes, 10 years is a ball-park figure - it means that they think it will take a long time and not be a case of 1 or 2 years.

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Armies can't "win" counter-insurgency actions; you'd have hoped the UK government could at least have learned that from N.I.

Not by themselves but if the right political action is there too then it could be achieved