WE HAD TO ACT DECISIVELY

We had to neutralize the WMD threat to Israel or Israel was going to attack Saddam with nuclear weapons.


WE HAD TO INVADE

Our overall goals were to:

• Prevent Israel from starting a Nuclear Holy War.
• Safeguard the oil deliveries from disruption.
• Prevent Iran from taking over Iraq.

Saddam had learned how to hide nuclear weapons plants so they could avoid detection and destruction from the air. A bombing campaign wasn't guaranteed to work. The Israelis had no invasion force and to protect themselves from possible annihilation would have been forced to go nuclear.

No Allied bombing campaign was going to prevent dedicated assault teams, who had been trained in al Qaeda or Hezbollah or other Jihadist camps, from attacking the oil facilities or the oil tankers. We had to have large numbers of skilled and equipped Allied forces on the ground, at the docks and on the offshore drilling platforms to repulse and prevent attacks by ground, maritime and possible 9/11 type airborne threats.

After the WMD threat was neutralized we could not have left Iraq there to be taken over by Iran, which has been trying to take over Iraq for at least 20 years. Remember, that's why we supported Saddam in the first place...to stand in the way of Iran's aggression and attempts to expand the extremist's territory toward the goals of regional domination and then global domination.


WE WERE FORCED TO USE A SMALLER INVASION FORCE

Unlike the effort to reverse Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, this military campaign to invade Iraq was seen much differently...more skeptically by the world and by the Arab world.

At a time when the USA still had an incomplete understanding of how to fight in the Middle East (vis a vis the mindsets of the Iraqi and other indigenous peoples) we expected/hoped to be greeted as liberators and the goal was to fight as much as possible to achieve tactical success and not trigger fears that we were there as conquerors or occupiers.

In light of smaller defense budgets during the Clinton administration Rumsfeld was trying to prove the concept of smaller, faster armies rather than larger overwhelming armies.


MY OPINION

We had to act. We could not wait. We had to invade. We had no anger toward the Iraqi people in general. We were forced to invade. We were forced by lack of worldwide enthusiasm from having a larger invasion force. And because fewer nations, ESPECIALLY MIDDLE EAST NATIONS, supported the invasion it was feared a suitably large invasion force would be resisted as an occupier. For that reason and because our own military had been 'downsized' in the 1990's our own invasion force was necessarily smaller.

History has shown that even though no WMD's were found, the threat of them could not be underestimated. Since the invasion there have been steady numbers of attacks on the oil fields and facilities in Iraq. We know that had we failed to secure the oil deliveries and supplies some of these attacks would have been successful and there would have been oil disruptions to Western nations which would have significantly impacted Western economies. And we have seen what Iran has done to take advantage of instability in Iraq even with our military presence in Iraq. If we had not invaded and established a presence Iraq would have been annexed by Iran and it would have taken a virtual Holy War to reverse that kind of action because Iran has the backing of all of Islam where Saddam generally did not.

Where we could have acted differently was to have had the FULL support of the State Department before going in.

After the muscle of the Pentagon was used to militarily achieve the goals of avoiding Holy War, neutralizing WMD's, dethroning Saddam and preventing Iranian aggression there was no coherent, coordinated and enthusiastic State Department personnel swooping in to establish a new order to replace the old order that had just been destroyed.

The ball was dropped.

And by the time the ball was attempted to be picked up again it was too late.

We lost about a year.

I fault the Bush Administration for not forcing the State Department to get along with the Pentagon in the planning stages to make this work.

I MAY be over generalizing here, but it's my impression the State Department was (is?) occupied, primarily, by liberals and Democrats. And it's my belief that their combined unofficial but institutionally felt mindset was that GWB wasn't the 'rightful' occupant of the Oval Office and their pique was worsened by the decision to invade. They didn't understand it. They didn't like it. They thought he was wrong to be there in the first place and they thought he was wrong to invade. So they were certainly NOT enthusiastic collaborators in the plans for what would happen after major combat operations had ceased in Iraq..."MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."

The State Department liberal establishment allowed their personal feelings to affect the conduct of the post war occupation. And they KNEW this was going to happen yet they allowed it to happen nonetheless as a big, to Rumsfeld, to Cheney and to GWB.

In my humble opinion that was the glaring fault of Iraq. That the President was unable to force the Pentagon and State Dept. to work to reach accord on this before the war began. And that because of his generous and forgiving nature and his desire to not drive right wing vs left wing ideological wedge between the government departments he did not make people pay for their mistakes. He tried to be Lincolnesque in forgiving those who had opposed the best interests of the people.

And his failure to speak openly of this matter reflects not only his desire to prevent any further ideological divisions from being exasperated in this country but also to avoid further personal criticism for allowing his management style to adversely affect the conduct of the war.

Still, the people in the State Dept. who might have intentionally stood by and let Iraq descend into chaos and insurgency are but a symbol of the same kind of political cynicism that exists in Congress today. People who are eager to use the war as a political football and put the troops' lives (not to mention the innocent Iraqi lives) in danger because they had a political score to settle or they wanted to express their displeasure with the POTUS or his administration or policies or to gain political office or power.

That is inexcusable.

The war will be seen by history as being absolutely necessary but having a deeply flawed conception thanks to the President's inexperience and perhaps Christian willingness to forgive those in govt. who failed to do their jobs and those who DIDN'T DO THEIR JOBS. People who forgot they worked NOT for the State Dept. and NOT for the Democratic Party, but for the American people. And because they were ignorant to the other aspects of the big picture of govt. (secrets they weren't privvy to) and understandings of Jihad and the Middle East, which many STILL don't yet understand, they believed they could play Judge Judy and impose their verdict on the War and the President.

They were wrong. They deserve to be outed. They deserve to be disciplined.

It was a failure of government to the highest degree.

The War was necessary. The invasion was necessary. The chaos afterwards was unnecessary. And some of the blame goes to the President but the majority of it belongs to the liberals in the State Department.