Iraq: 6 year Anniversary - where are we now?

[LoungeMachine]

6 years later, progress and doubts are legacy of Iraq warStory Highlights
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003

Six years later, fledgling democracy taking hold, security situation improving

But U.S. lost more than 4,000 troops; at least 128,000 Iraqis have died

Polls show many Americans more focused on economy than lingering Iraq war

6 years later, progress and doubts are legacy of Iraq war - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/19/iraq.anniversary/)
(CNN) -- Six years ago Thursday, then-President George W. Bush appeared on television screens across America and somberly addressed the nation.




"My fellow citizens," he began his four-minute speech, "at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger."

Six years later, the conflict in Iraq drags on -- with war-fatigued Americans shoving the military operation to the deep recesses of their psyches as they grapple with an economic crisis at home.

Only 10 percent of voters questioned in exit polls during the November presidential elections picked the war as their top issue. Sixty-two percent said the economy was.

"This is already one of the longest wars in American history. There's nothing new in Iraq," said Steven Roberts, a professor of media studies at the George Washington University. "We've read the stories of instability in the government a hundred times. Every single possible story has been told, and so there is enormous fatigue about Iraq."

Against that backdrop, the United States has accomplished much of what it set out to do when it invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was deposed, captured, tried and hanged for a brutal and deadly crackdown against his opponents during his regime.


A surge of 30,000 additional troops in 2007 is credited for security gains the country has made. iReport.com: Share your salute to troops

And a fledgling democracy is taking hold, as President Obama announced that all U.S troops will be withdrawn by the end of 2011.

But America has had to pay a steep price -- literally and figuratively -- to achieve its aims, analysts say.

Taking into account operations for fiscal 2010, the conflict has racked up an $800 billion price tag since it began, the Congressional Budget Office said.

By Wednesday, 4,261 Americans had been killed in the war, according to CNN's tally. The Iraqi casualty count, while harder to ascertain because of the lack of formal record-keeping, has reached at least 128,000, by CNN's tally.

And leaked images of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison and America's programs of detention and torture have tarred the United States' image internationally.

"From the first step until now, they destroyed our country," said Sheikh Moffaq Qaraghuli, a Baghdad resident. "Smashed. Not destroyed. Smashed."

As the battles rage on, researchers are still trying to gauge the damage the war has done to troops.

"I still have the nightmares and wake up and find myself downstairs and I don't know how I got there," said Chris Tucker, who did three tours of duty in Iraq. "Faces. Kids' faces. People that you have engaged or you have had contact with. ... You see your colleagues blown up. Things like that."

"I thought we would get there quick and handle our business and we'd be out," he said. "At least that's what we were told anyway."

Tucker received a medical discharge from the army last year and is now a police officer in Savannah, Georgia.

Many in Iraq also are trying to move on, amid the constant fear of suicide attacks in their ruined cities.

The Shahbander cafe, one of Baghdad's oldest, is a favorite haunt of the city's intellectuals. Inside, photographs of five young men hang on the wall. Watch Shahbander Cafe patrons talk about the war »

All were sons of the cafe owner, Mohammed al-Khishali -- killed in a car bombing that ripped apart the cafe in 2007.

A month later, al-Khishali lost his grief-stricken wife. For almost two years, he could not bear to reopen the cafe, he said.

"I remember the tragedies every day," he said, as his eyes welled with tears. "But then I decided to take a hard decision to reopen this cafe for the sake of my people, my culture."

Many of the customers who gather there are critical of the U.S. invasion but are equally concerned about a potential withdrawal.

"Iran has ambitions toward Iraq," said Amer Naji, a cafe regular and a former Iraqi diplomat. "With the Americans, they are afraid to do something aggressive against Iraq. But ... when you withdraw, that will be very dangerous."

Iraq and Iran fought a war in the 1980s that spanned eight years and killed at least a half-million people, by some estimates. The U.S. and Iraqi governments think Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard has been training militias and providing weapons, such as roadside bombs, to insurgents operating in Iraq.


So, though many Iraqis agree that 2009 is better than 2008, they worry about 2011 when the United States pulls out.

"We are hopeless," Qaraghuli said. "We are hopeless."

[Va Beach VH Fan]

So, though many Iraqis agree that 2009 is better than 2008, they worry about 2011 when the United States pulls out.

You got that right, what a clusterfuck that's going to be....

[Kristy]

U.S. lost more than 4,000 troops; at least 128,000 Iraqis have died

I'm sure those numbers are a bit off on the Iraqi side but as to where we are?

Fucked. The world isn't safer, Islam more radical and the global economy about to put a gun to its head. Plus no WMD's were ever found to date, and the needless suffering loss of life incalculable.

Did Bush ever get his grubby hands on those oil fields hoping to find Haliburton derricks robbing the Iraqi people of their resources like we did in Nigeria? Instead we devastated a populace and ruined their county all under the bullshit moniker of terrorism. I personally don't know one single person from Iraq but at the same time never had a beef with one either but I'm more than sure most Iraqis can't say the same about me.

If the numbers are true and over 132,000 people have died in this pointless war then Bush and his pirate profiteers can shove their failure of a war right up their collective asses and I hope it festers in there giving them all inoperable painful cancer.

[LoungeMachine]

You got that right, what a clusterfuck that's going to be....

As opposed to....?

Name a succesful occupation in that part of the world.

:gulp:

[Seshmeister]

Palestine???

[LoungeMachine]

Palestine???

Right.

No clusterfuck there.

:gulp:

[Nickdfresh]

U.S. lost more than 4,000 troops; at least 128,000 Iraqis have died

I'm sure those numbers are a bit off on the Iraqi side but as to where we are?

Fucked. The world isn't safer, Islam more radical and the global economy about to put a gun to its head. Plus no WMD's were ever found to date, and the needless suffering loss of life incalculable.

Did Bush ever get his grubby hands on those oil fields hoping to find Haliburton derricks robbing the Iraqi people of their resources like we did in Nigeria? Instead we devastated a populace and ruined their county all under the bullshit moniker of terrorism. I personally don't know one single person from Iraq but at the same time never had a beef with one either but I'm more than sure most Iraqis can't say the same about me.

If the numbers are true and over 132,000 people have died in this pointless war then Bush and his pirate profiteers can shove their failure of a war right up their collective asses and I hope it festers in there giving them all inoperable painful cancer.


Probably more like 600,000++ Iraqis have died...Not killed by Americans necessarily, but many died in the ensuing Civil War and complete societal meltdown after the US undermanned occupation...

[binnie]

This won't be fully sorted in any of our lifetime's....

[LoungeMachine]

Probably more like 600,000++ Iraqis have died...Not killed by Americans necessarily, but many died in the ensuing Civil War and complete societal meltdown after the US undermanned occupation...

Yep.

And think about the 100's of thousands maimed, orphaned, and left homeless.

And as far as the US casualties, let's not forget the 10's of thousands disfigured and handicapped for life, and mentally damaged without help and support from the VA.

The cost of this unneeded war is staggering, in human suffering, and dollars.

All for the ego and greed of a handful of people.

:mad2:

[binnie]

And all in our name. That really makes me pissed.

The manipulation of 'democracy' and the rhetoric of liberty to horrific ends.

[Nickdfresh]

original airdate March 10, 2009

Journalist Thomas Ricks is often called the "dean" of America's military correspondents. He's been on two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national reporting—with The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal—and is a contributing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He's also a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank. Ricks is a best-selling author, with titles that include Fiasco and The Gamble. The Massachusetts native grew up in New York and Afghanistan and is a Yale grad.

Tavis: ...I'm pleased to be joined by the long-time military affairs correspondent for "The Washington Post," Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Ricks. His bestseller about the Iraq war, "Fiasco," is well-known to viewers of this program, but he's out now with a follow-up to that book called "The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006 to 2008."

He joins us tonight from Washington. Tom Ricks, nice to have you back on the program, sir.

Thomas Ricks: Glad to be back, thank you.

Tavis: Let me start by asking specifically about the subtitle. You refer to our engagement in Iraq as an adventure. I assume you chose that word deliberately and carefully. Why an adventure?

Ricks: Well, I think the whole thing is a misadventure, really. The subtitle of "Fiasco" was also about a military adventure. I think that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was probably the biggest mistake in the history of American foreign policy, and so while I'm very admiring of what Petraeus and Odierno and the troops did over the last couple of years, I still think it's all fruit of the poison tree - that is, nothing really good can come of this.

So it kind of leads to where I'm at now in Iraq - I think that leaving Iraq is immoral, I think that staying in Iraq is immoral. I don't think there are any good moral solutions left. The question for us is what's the least bad, what's the least immoral thing we can do.

Tavis: You regard this as the worst adventure or misadventure we've ever had, militarily. I assume that means, if you call it the worst, that means you're saying it's worse than Vietnam.

Ricks: Oh, absolutely. Vietnam was fairly easy for us to get out of. At the end of the day, it was at the periphery of American interest. I think we're going to find it a lot harder to get out of Iraq than people understand or imagine right now.

People back here think the war is over in Iraq. The war is not over. It has changed several times from an invasion to an occupation to an insurgency to an American counteroffensive. But just because it changed doesn't mean it's over.

I worry that President Obama, talking about getting out of Iraq quickly, is not departing from President Bush but repeating the mistake Bush made of being over-optimistic. So Obama says he'll end the combat mission by next summer - August of 2010 - but Bush didn't invade Iraq saying, "I've got a great idea - let's go get stuck somewhere for 10 years."

Bush also thought he could get out quickly, and I don't think that Bush was right in thinking he could get out quickly, and I don't think President Obama is going to be able to get out half as quickly as he thinks.

Tavis: He ran a campaign that was based upon getting out of Iraq and getting out quickly. There are millions of Americans who voted for him precisely because of that pledge. There are many of us who believe that promises made ought to be promises kept, but that's another issue.

To your point now about it not being as easy as he thought it was going to be, what, then, will happen to those millions of Americans who will feel disenfranchised, disappointed, let down - some maybe even lied to - if he can't get out, to your point, as quickly as he promised he would?

Ricks: Well first of all, he's already broken a promise because he said he was going to get out one combat brigade a month over the course of many months. Well, now he's stopped that. He's going to keep the troop levels more or less the same. By the end of this year, he'll be down to maybe 130,000 troops, which is we're we've been, in rough average, for the last five years.

So he's planning on making his big troop withdrawals next year. Whether that happens or not, we'll see. But after that, he said after August 2010 it'll stop being a combat mission. Well, the war doesn't end because one president hangs "mission accomplished" up on an aircraft carrier. It doesn't end because the president says the combat's over. Our war ends when American troops stop dying there.

After President Obama gave his Iraq speech a while ago, I was at the White House that day and I said to a military official, "Will American troops stop dying in Iraq in August, 2010?" And he said, "No, they will continue to die then." So I think the war goes on, probably for many more years.

In fact, the last line of my book is a quite from Ambassador Crocker, who is our top diplomat out there over the last couple of years. He says, "The events for which the Iraq War will be remembered have not yet happened."

Tavis: So forget what Thomas Ricks, Pulitzer Prize-winning, number one "New York Times" best-selling author has to say. "I'm going to pull these troops out because I told the American people I would. I want to run for reelection and I know I can't run for reelection if I'm not going to be accountable to what I said I was going to do, so I'm going to pull them out anyway." And then what happens?

Ricks: I don't think that's going to happen, first of all, because Obama has also promised Iraqis he will not abandon Iraq. I think he will get the troop numbers down, probably close to 50,000 sometime in 2010, but I think he's going to find that it's much harder to actually get the last 50,000 troops out. That Iraqis are going to say, "We all want you to leave, but not yet."

And I think he'll say, "We can't abandon Iraq and so we're going to have to continue this mission a while longer than I hoped."

Tavis: During the president campaigns, since we're talking about presidential politics, for the moment, at least, John McCain - Senator John McCain, in every debate, you'll recall, kept chiding Senator Obama for not being willing to say that the surge was successful.

He kept chiding him for not being able to say that the American troops have done their job; that the surge worked. McCain's point, of course, that I am better suited to be commander-in-chief because I told y'all this surge was going to work. It has worked and Obama won't acknowledge that. Here comes Thomas Ricks in "The Gamble," saying the surge failed.

Ricks: Well, you have to judge the surge on its own terms. What was the surge about? The president said it will be to improve security in such a way as to lead to a political breakthrough. Well, that didn't happen. Yes, it improved security, but that doesn't mean the surge worked because its purpose was that larger purpose.

All the questions that vexed Iraq before the surge were still there after the surge ended, most notably how did they divide up oil revenue? What's the relationship between Suni Kurd and Shia? Whether the government's going to be a strong central government or be a loose confederation. What's the role of Iran?

All these questions have led to violence before; all could lead to violence again. None were solved by the surge. So in that sense, McCain is dead wrong - the surge, yes, it improved security, but the surge failed in its purpose.

Tavis: Immoral to stay there, immoral to leave; no good choices, by your own admission. So what to do?

Ricks: Well, my worry is that if you do leave - I think it's more immoral to leave because the risks are great. We have gone in and created a situation that if we walk away from now could lead to a civil war, could lead to a regional war.

So while I don't think that we're going to like, eventually, what happens in Iraq, I think the risks are huge. And I think you have an obligation if you go in and create a problem to try to deal with that problem.

I know a lot of Americans want to get out of Iraq. I want to get out of Iraq. Everybody wants to get out of Iraq. The question is, when and how? People who say, "Let's leave now, I don't care, let's just forget about it" - it seems to me that's like someone who gets drunk, drives a car down the highway at 150 miles an hour, clips a few, crosses the median, hits a few more, and then smashes into the front window of a business, hops out, and says, "Man, I wish I could help you out here, but I'm bored and out of money, so I can't help you. Bye."

Tavis: I want to go back now, because you've written not one but two "New York Times" bestsellers around the issue of Iraq - how we got in, why we're there, how we're going to get out, et cetera.

I want to talk about accountability here. What could the American people have done on the issue of accountability to have stopped this, if anything? What could the American media have done to raise better questions, to ask more intelligent and deeper questions?

I'm just trying to figure out - I know what the White House did, I know how the Congress got rolled by the president. I'm asking now specifically about the American people and the media. Of course, two different questions - what could we have done, if anything, to have kept them better in check so we wouldn't be in this mess now?

Ricks: I think we all panicked after 9/11. Nine-eleven was horrible, it was a tragedy, but it was not a threat to the core of this nation. As President Obama said in his inaugural address, this nation has faced bigger problems before than 9/11 and didn't abandon the Constitution, didn't start panicking in the way we dealt with other countries, didn't drag this country's name through the mud of torture.

I think we all got knocked off-balance. I think we have recovered our balance and now we're kind of all waking up and saying, "What did we do?" Well, what we did in the last seven years is create a lot of problems that we're going to have to pay for, for the rest of our lifetimes. George Bush's invasion of Iraq is a gift that's going to keep on giving, whether we like it or not.

Tavis: And the media?

Ricks: I think the media actually did a pretty good job in raising the right questions.

Tavis: You think so?

Ricks: Yeah. The problem was nobody wanted to listen. Nobody - we wrote all these stories about all the problems that might lead - might be the consequence of an invasion of Iraq. People kind of shrugged - "So what? It's going to happen."

So while yes, "The New York Times" did screw up with its coverage of weapons of mass destruction, that was not the media in general. That was one city's newspaper that got it wrong, that was very influential in getting it wrong. But I think the American people had the information available, but the people didn't want to hear it, the Congress didn't want to hear it, and so the invasion of Iraq happened and now we all regret it.

Tavis: Here's the exit question, Thomas. If the president doesn't find an honorable way, whatever that is, of extricating us from the drama that we are now engaged in in Iraq, it's not just a promise broken to the American people, it's letting down many countries on the world stage, billions of people, millions of people who were excited about his election as Americans were domestically, of course.

What would happen then? What happens to our reputation around the globe if after all the enthusiasm, excitement, and euphoria around his election he can't find an honorable way to exit us from this situation?

Ricks: I trust Obama strategically. He strikes me as a good strategic thinker. I think he will try to find as honorable a way as possible to handle it, and how people react I think will turn on not just what he does, but how he does it.

I've been very impressed by the way he handles problems. I think he and his people are going around dealing with the Afghanistan-Pakistan war in the right way - first of all by talking about it as a regional war, as a regional problem.

So I think Obama might surprise us in how he handles it, but I think Iraq is also going to surprise him in proving to be a far more difficult problem than the way he talked about it on the campaign trail.

Tavis: And nobody's writing better about it these days than Thomas Ricks, the number one "New York Times" best-selling author of "Fiasco," winner of the Pulitzer Prize, back now with the follow-up, "The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006 to 2008." Thomas Ricks, as always, an honor to have you on the program. Thanks for your insight, sir.

Ricks: You're welcome.

Full audio at pbs.org. (http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200903/20090310_ricks.html)

[Va Beach VH Fan]

As opposed to....?

Name a succesful occupation in that part of the world.

:gulp:

Well, allow me to rephrase, it'll be a regional clusterfuck...

Better ??

[FORD]

Remember

Friday 20 March 2009

by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Columnist

http://www.truthout.org/files/images/Jnarrow.jpg
A man looks at a cross set up for a soldier killed in Iraq. The cross is set up every Sunday at the beach in Santa Monica by Veterans for Peace as part of what they call "Arlington West." (Photo: Margaret Molloy Photography)

Six years ago, the United States of America began the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Since then, 4,259 American soldiers have been killed and tens of thousands more have been wounded. There is no accurate accounting of Iraqi dead and wounded, because as we were told, we do not do body counts. Because the Bush administration left its Iraq expenditures off the budget, and because of the tremendous amount of war-profiteering, graft and theft that has been involved, we do not know exactly how much we have spent.

For the record, 2,192 days later, this is how we got here:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From the Press
9/6/2002

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

- Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Adviser
CNN Late Edition
9/8/2002

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech to the UN General Assembly
9/12/2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

- George W. Bush, President
Radio Address
10/5/2002

"The Iraqi regime ... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"After 11 years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand."

- John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
Speech to the Hudson Institute
11/1/2002

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists ... The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Denver, Address to the Air National Guard
12/1/2002

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
12/2/2002

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From the Press
12/4/2002

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
1/9/2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to the UN Security Council
2/5/2003

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Address to the UN Security Council
2/5/2003

"In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world - and we will not allow it."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech to the American Enterprise Institute
2/26/2003

"If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us ... But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Interview With Radio France International
2/28/2003

"So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to the UN Security Council
3/7/2003

"Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that based on intelligence, that has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
"Meet the Press"
3/16/2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

- George W. Bush, President
Address to the Nation
3/17/2003

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly ... all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
3/21/2003

"One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites."

- Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman
Press Briefing
3/22/2003

"I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."

- Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board Member
Washington Post, p. A27
3/23/2003

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
ABC Interview
3/30/2003

"We still need to find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders so we can prevent the flow of weapons of mass destruction materials and senior regime officials out of the country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"You bet we're concerned about it. And one of the reasons it's important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction ... and terrorist groups - networks - is a critical link. And the thought that ... some of those materials could leave the country and in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn't happen."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"But make no mistake - as I said earlier - we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"Were not going to find anything until we find people who tell us where the things are. And we have that very high on our priority list, to find the people who know. And when we do, then well learn precisely where things were and what was done."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
"Meet the Press"
4/13/2003

"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."

- George W. Bush, President
NBC Interview
4/24/2003

"There are people who in large measure have information that we need ... so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Briefing
4/25/2003

"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."

- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/3/2003

"I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to Reporters
5/4/2003

"We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Fox News Interview
5/4/2003

"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein - because he had a weapons program."

- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/6/2003

"U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction."

- Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Adviser
Reuters Interview
5/12/2003

"We said all along that we will never get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and searching specific sites, that you'd have to be able to get people who know about the programs to talk to you."

- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Interview With Australian Broadcasting
5/13/2003

"It's going to take time to find them, but we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech at a Weapons Factory in Ohio
5/25/2003

"They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations
5/27/2003

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Vanity Fair Interview
5/28/2003

"The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that's borne out by the fact that, just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the bio trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That's proof-perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
5/29/2003

"We have teams of people that are out looking. They've investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Infinity Radio Interview
5/30/2003

"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

- George W. Bush, President
Interview With TVP Poland
5/30/2003

"You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ... They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two ... And we'll find more weapons as time goes on."

- George W. Bush, President
Press Briefing
5/30/2003

"This wasn't material I was making up, it came from the intelligence community."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Press Briefing
6/2/2003

"We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. This is the man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than me he's got a big country in which to hide them. We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth."

- George W. Bush, President
Camp Sayliya, Qatar
6/5/2003

"I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, 'Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?' Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Fox News Interview
6/8/2003

"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored."

- Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Adviser
"Meet the Press"
6/8/2003

"What the president has said is because it's been the long-standing view of numerous people, not only in this country, not only in this administration, but around the world, including at the United Nations, who came to those conclusions ... And the president is not going to engage in the rewriting of history that others may be trying to engage in."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From the Press
6/9/2003

"Iraq had a weapons program ... Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program."

- George W. Bush, President
Comment to Reporters
6/9/2003

"The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Associated Press Interview
6/12/2003

"My personal view is that their intelligence has been, I'm sure, imperfect, but good. In other words, I think the intelligence was correct in general, and that you always will find out precisely what it was once you get on the ground and have a chance to talk to people and explore it, and I think that will happen."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Briefing
6/18/2003

"I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons, programs, that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time ... It's now less than eight weeks since the end of major combat in Iraq and I believe that patience will prove to be a virtue."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Pentagon Media Briefing
6/24/2003

MS. BLOCK: There were no toxins found in those trailers.

SECRETARY POWELL: Which could mean one of several things: one, they hadn't been used yet to develop toxins; or, secondly, they had been sterilized so thoroughly that there is no residual left. It may well be that they hadn't been used yet.

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
"All Things Considered" Interview
6/27/2003

"That was the concern we had with Saddam Hussein. Not only did he have weapons - and we'll uncover not only his weapons but all of his weapons programs - he never lost the intent to have these kinds of weapons."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
"All Things Considered" Interview
6/27/2003

"I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
7/9/2003

»

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.

[FORD]

Every one of the preceding quotes was a treasonous LIE brought to you by the BCE. We must never allow those criminals to return to power again. :mad:

[Seshmeister]

Maybe.

But there is a small chance that these were based loosely on faulty intel. The worst and most unacceptable blatant knowing lies were pretending it was about 9-11 and terrorism.

That was a fucking direct piece of total shit which they completely knew yet repeated 100s of times. It's also the lie that was most influential in getting public support and getting a lot of not so politically aware people to sign up for this war.

[thome]

Yep.

And think about the 100's of thousands maimed, orphaned, and left homeless.

And as far as the US casualties, let's not forget the 10's of thousands disfigured and handicapped for life, and mentally damaged without help and support from the VA.

The cost of this unneeded war is staggering, in human suffering, and dollars.

All for the ego and greed of a handful of people.

:mad2:

HEY, how about this FUKK'EM!

If you conduct yourself as if you -NEED- a spanking sooner or later you will get one.

I doubt you actually give 6 Fukks about those suffering bags of sh!t.

Except as a talking point angle to prove your point.

Perhaps, you could pay a dollar "per body dissapeared and found".. by our troops ...courtesy of -Your- better way -Saddam- in the mass graves all over Iraq.

2 million pine boxes can't be out of your buget..?

CALIFORNIA YANKEE: Saddam Is Dead (http://cayankee.blogs.com/cayankee/2006/12/saddam_is_dead.html)

[thome]

Maybe.

But there is a small chance that these were based loosely on faulty intel. The worst and most unacceptable blatant knowing lies were pretending it was about 9-11 and terrorism.

That was a fucking direct piece of total shit which they completely knew yet repeated 100s of times. It's also the lie that was most influential in getting public support and getting a lot of not so politically aware people to sign up for this war.

DUDE WTF ?................................................. ....YOU.......????

Open your eyes.

Or don't, as long as your happy and this gives you peace of mind ....?


Who else on this board thinks we went to war EVER for sh!ts and MF'ing Giggles...#####

Gloves are on bitchez bring it......

[thome]

Every one of the preceding quotes was a treasonous LIE brought to you by the BCE. We must never allow those criminals to return to power again. :mad:


Every on of those quotes is the absolute truth, taken out of, context of time.

WEAK!

We are prosecuting this MF sh!t exactly in thier MF living room.....

Perhaps we need another film of Bush..."-THE BCE-" holding the joystick of the CRUISE MISSLE that flew into the Pentagon....:fufu:

I guess actually Osama is a eskimo and the headquarters for world hate is in
a secret base on Mars......

And don't tell me the terrorists with 911 were from Saudi....

That doesn't mean dikk.

[thome]

Well, allow me to rephrase, it'll be a regional clusterfuck...

Better ??


We aren't "THERE" to "OCCUPY " lets see what "THEY" do with this new "OPPORTUNITY" to join the rest of the world.

If "THEY" "CHOOSE" to go back to bieng occupied by thier own personal daddy baby doc... "Dictator".

Perhaps, we should put a fence around the "AREAS" in the mid east where people cannot think for themselves ..three hots and a cot, and a MF bell to wake them up, and a guard to tell them where the lunchroom is, every fukk'n day.

Some seem to dig opression, perhaps they could see if thier wife can walk 5 steps behind them for 50 generations....

[thome]

Berkely Cali....

The United States Marine Corps Officer Selection Office in downtown Berkeley came under attack once again Wednesday night when a group of vandals broke the building’s windows with sledgehammers and splashed them with red paint.

Officers at the recruiting center at 64 Shattuck Square were not able to say whether the incident was related to protests taking place throughout the rest of the country on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war.

Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Officer Andrew Frankel said the police received a call at 8:54 p.m. Wednesday from an eyewitness who reported that three suspects were breaking the Marine Corps office’s plate-glass windows and splashing them with red paint.

Eyewitnesses saw the suspects leave the scene immediately after the crime, Frankel said. Berkeley police officers combed the neighborhood for suspects and talked to eyewitnesses but were unable to find the culprits...

I guess we know why The Front Forum leaders were not logged on this day....

They were out taking an Gaddamn baseball bat to a fukking brick building....

Just think if they had thier own country, in..????/ th.....the.....mid ..?? wha.......The ......???Middle East???????????


.........yeah...(pause,....... wait for it) kind...ah.... by the Per....Pers..ian ...Gulf...?????

[thome]

annd....they got some cash ....and ......to....took ...flying ...lessons...sssss

These protesters could ....perhaps .....find a building......... somewhere??????///.....

To better prove thier point that OCCUPATION!!!! WILL NOT BE TOLLERATED AND WE KNOW WHAT THE DEFFINITION OF RIGHT IS!!!!!

[thome]

Journalist Thomas Ricks is often called the "dean" of America's military correspondents. He's been on two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national reporting—with The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal—and is a contributing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He's also a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan think tank. Ricks is a best-selling author, with titles that include Fiasco and The Gamble. The Massachusetts native grew up in New York and Afghanistan and is a Yale grad.

no offendie salam m al linca...most humble of all...is he God...??????

BFD

[Nickdfresh]

Journalist Thomas Ricks....

no offendie salam m al linca...most humble of all...is he God...??????

BFD

Right! This from the "hand worker" that just shat out a string of like five self-important posts of incomprehensible shit...

[LoungeMachine]

Guess what thome.

No one will care enough to read all that crap, let alone "bring it"

You're like an unfunny Tourrettes Guy.

:gulp:

[thome]

Good Times.

[Nickdfresh]

Analysis: The sixth war in Iraq
After five stages in the conflict — the next is America’s exit strategy
ANALYSIS
By Richard Engel
Chief Foreign Correspondent
updated 7:15 p.m. ET, Fri., March. 20, 2009

Six years ago today I thought there was a good chance I was going to die. With a helmet crooked on my head and a flak jacket over my shoulders, I sat on a tiny generator on a balcony of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel.

From this dark and uncomfortable perch — I turned the lights out in my room so I couldn’t be seen from the streets — I watched American bombs and cruise missiles explode into orange fireballs. I watched Iraqi anti-aircraft guns — big, loud, violent-looking Russian-made guns — shoot showers of metal into the air. I could hear the anti-aircraft guns’ rat-tat-tat and see their ribbons of red tracer fire racing up, hopelessly trying to knock down American fighter jets tearing invisibly through the night sky. They flew super fast, super loud; helluva machine.

There was no moon out six years ago tonight, but the sky was bright with stars, TV satellites and the glow of the Iraqi prime minister’s office. From my dark balcony, I watched the office burn across the Tigris River. Visually speaking — if you forgot what was going on — it was beautiful. The stars and flames and ribbons of red tracer rounds popping like fireworks. It was beautiful like a forest fire might be beautiful — perhaps even smelling of fresh toasted pine — if your house happens to be far away.

During the invasion I was kept alive for three simple reasons.

1. Nothing explosive or heavy fell on me from the sky. I was lucky.

2. Saddam Hussein’s government didn’t turn on foreign journalists, even Americans, despite what we all feared.

3. I had my fixer, driver and friend Ali keeping me fed and hidden from angry Iraqis and rogue security agents.

I spoke with Ali today. He’s in Sweden now. A refugee. Back then, he was a shy university student. Now he works in a grocery store. I doubt anyone knows the young man bagging groceries lost his father in the war and was kidnapped and tortured by radical militiamen. They hung him upside down and beat him with a rod for eight hours, accusing him of being a spy because he worked for American media. Ali misses Iraq, despite what happened. He misses his mother. Over a bad cell phone connection we reminisced.

The five wars in Iraq
I believe there have been five different wars in Iraq and that the sixth war is under way — America’s exit strategy.

War One: Shock and awe
March-April 2003
The first war was the ferocious 21-day drive to Baghdad. It was the “left hook” as U.S. troops crossed the berm in Kuwait, swerved into Baghdad and seized the airport. U.S. troops pushed into the center of Baghdad, and Saddam’s government simply was no more.

War Two: Nation-building
2003-2004
For a year Iraqis waited while the new U.S. administration in Baghdad tried to rebuild Iraqi society, purging Saddam’s Baath Party and dissolving the army.

It was a peaceful time, but it was disastrously mismanaged.

The United States proved it knew how to destroy Iraq’s army and bureaucracy but clearly had no plan to replace it. It was also a time of radical social change.

The Americans — both the White House and the U.S. administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer — promised Iraqis democracy, and Shiites, the majority, took them at their word.

For Shiites, democracy meant majority rule. Within days of the fall of Saddam’s government, Shiite political parties and militias began to overrun Sunni mosques and rename streets in Baghdad after Shiite heroes. Religious Shiites resumed mass pilgrimages banned under Saddam to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Iran, the world’s greatest Shiite power, started to pump in hundreds of millions of dollars to empower Iraqi Shiites and win influence. The second war, the war of nation-building, was peaceful, but the ground was set for conflict.

War Three: Insurgency
2004-2005
Iraqi Sunnis, the backbone of Saddam’s regime and security services, lashed out in the spring of 2004.

Sunnis had waited peacefully for a year – confused but seething in quiet — as the U.S. administration in Baghdad bungled its attempts at nation-building. By the spring of 2004, many Sunnis decided they’d had enough.

Sunnis, especially members of Saddam’s previous government and army, felt betrayed by their American “liberators.” They were out of jobs and humiliated. They were also terrified by the growing power of Shiites and Iran. Many Sunnis grew up fighting Iran and had a state-fueled paranoia about their Persian Shiite neighbor. Now Iraqi Sunnis were watching Iran and Iraqi Shiites take over.

Some disenfranchised Sunnis decided to reached out for help. Al-Qaida, the world’s most radical Sunni movement, was waiting with open arms. Iraqi Sunnis formed alliances with al-Qaida militants, including the brutally effective Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Sunni militants began attacking U.S. troops and Shiites, whom they considered American-empowered Iranian stooges. The third war, the war of the Sunni insurgency, lasted about two years.

War Four: Civil war
2006-2007
After two years of abuse from Sunni radicals, Iraqi Shiites started to fight back. From 2004 through the end of 2005, many Shiites sat quietly as Sunni radicals killed Shiite religious leaders, bombed Shiite pilgrimages and husseiniyat (small Shiite mosques) and carried out suicide massacres in Shiite neighborhoods.

But in February 2006, Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq went too far. The radical group destroyed the Shiite “Golden Mosque” in Samarra. The mosque is linked to the Shiite savior, the Mahdi. It is the place where many Shiites expect the Mahdi to emerge from his Divine Occultation and redeem the world in a similar way that many Christians see the Second Coming of Christ.

Shiites reacted to the destruction of their holy shrine in Samarra with an explosion of fury and hate. Shiite militias led by the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ignored calls for restraint by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and began to attack Sunni civilians and evict them from their homes.

Sunni and Shiite militant groups were soon in open war, killing each other in the streets. Morgues filled with bodies. Reporters were killed in the crossfire. Iraq became the most dangerous conflict for journalists in recorded history. Sunni and Shiite radicals killed anyone who got between them, including American troops.

The civil war, the fourth war, lasted from February 2006 to the summer of 2007, 16 months of grinding carnage.

War Five: The surge
2007-2008
Sometime in mid-2006, the Bush administration decided to change course. Despite public assurances from the White House that the war was going well — and attacks on journalists who claimed otherwise — President Bush and several of his military and political advisers came to the conclusion that more troops were needed, along with a new strategy under a new commanding general, David Petraeus.

In February 2007, Gen. Petraeus (then Lt. Gen. Petraeus) took command in Iraq and implemented what came to be known as “the surge.”

Reinforced with 30,000 extra troops, Petraeus pushed soldiers off big bases on the outskirts of Baghdad and positioned them with Iraqi troops in police stations, abandoned buildings and even shopping malls. It was a fundamental change. Soldiers no longer “commuted” to work. They lived in the battle zone 24/7 and were able to hold territory once they cleared it.

Petraeus also started to pay and arm Sunni tribal leaders to fight with the Americans. The deal was simple: Fight with U.S. forces against al-Qaida and, in exchange, the United States will provide money, power, autonomy and most important, the respect Sunnis felt they’d been denied. Sunnis quickly welcomed the deal. They were losing the civil war to the Shiites and needed an ally.

The Shiite-led government initially rejected the U.S.-Sunni alliance, but later publicly expressed support for the deal as Iraqis welcomed the calm it brought.

War Six: The exit
2009-2011
President Barack Obama set a course to end the war in Iraq. Elected with a promise to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months, Obama modified a plan worked out at the end of the Bush administration.

The plan calls for U.S. troops to pull back to bases after June 2009. U.S. troops are then to remain in Iraq to safeguard Iraqi elections in December 2009 and the subsequent seating of a new government. After there is a new government in place — expected in the winter or spring of 2010 — most U.S. troops can leave.

Obama said all U.S. combat brigades would be out of Iraq by August 2010, leaving behind a “residual force” of around 50,000 troops until December 2011.

After December 2011, all U.S. troops are supposed to mbe gone. It’s a complicated plan, but has some logic.

December 2009: Iraq elections

Winter/spring 2010: Iraqi government is seated

Summer 2010: U.S. combat troops withdraw

All of 2011: Residual force remains

End of 2011: Final U.S. troops leave.

It’s roughly a three-year withdrawal plan with one basic goal: To protect the Iraqi transition of power and then leave slowly.

The plan has been welcomed by U.S. military commanders in Iraq, but criticized by some American lawmakers as too slow an exit from a costly war.

So what did the U.S. accomplish?

It took six years and a trillion dollars to replace Saddam’s dictatorship with a somewhat stable government.

Iraq was a dictatorship. Now Iraq has a “kleptocracy,” a government that exists to steal.

Larry Kaplow, an old friend from Newsweek who’d been doing excellent reporting in Iraq for years, recently told me there’s a new expression to describe what Baghdad had become: “Iraqi good enough.” Mediocrity, he said, is the accepted norm. His analysis seems about right to me.

It’s become acceptable, both to American officials in Baghdad and many Iraqis themselves, that Iraqi security forces beat detainees and politicians steal from government coffers; it’s “Iraqi good enough.”

Iraq isn’t stable, but it’s not in a civil war anymore; it’s “Iraqi good enough.”

Doctors and intellectuals, who fled the civil war, are no longer leaving the country, but aren’t coming back either; it’s “Iraqi good enough.”

Is “Iraqi good enough,” good enough?

Time will tell, or maybe it won’t.


© 2009 MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29798556/page/2/)

[thome]

Guess what thome.

No one will care enough to read all that crap, let alone "bring it"

You're like an unfunny Tourrettes Guy.

:gulp:


LINK...??:baaa: