If you knew then what we know now, would you support the invasion of Iraq all over again?

o No invasion.
o Yes to invasion. Nothing changed.
o Yes, but the Goal of the war would be different. (Please elaborate...)
o Yes, but I would change ____ (Please elaborate...)

If you knew then what we know now, would you support the invasion of Iraq all over again?

Answer: Yes but No invasion!....I would never have used ground troops! Let's face it..Saddam had to go and I do not see this as a "New War"..I see it as a continuation of Desert Storm! I would have wrecked havoc upon Iraq for their violation of the no-fly zone and failure to permit unhindered inspections.I never liked the WMD excuse when we already had sufficient reason to pound the hell out of Saddam's tyrannical regime.I would have bombed them into submission with little concern for collateral damage..

__________________
"Destiny must be shaped and not left to mere chance."..Spencer Collins

I chose the last option (Yes, but I would change ____ (Please elaborate...))...

My "elaboration"...

This is WAR...you don't play sensitivity games and fight by Queensbury rules...

If there's an enemy on the block, you destroy the block...You don't go out of your way because the international community might hem and haw about someone's rose garden getting messed up...

You completely annihilate the enemy and anyone unfortunate enough to be in a 5 mile radius...

Then you turn to the rest of the agitators and say "Who wants to dance"?...

I know that SOUNDS like the typical cowboy routine, but it's long-term effects work much better...

I'd rather kill 30,000 ONCE, than have to go for this tit-for-tat 10K-a-year for 6 (or more) years...And there is no third option, so skip the hippy let's-all-sing-CSN-songs-down-by-the-fire routine...

You end up saving lives in the long run and the enemy knows you have no intention of kowtowing as was done with the 1st WTC bombing, the USS Cole, and the embassy bombing in Africa...

__________________
"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Could not agree more,if a decision has been made to use troops,use them to annihilate the enemy! We worry too dam much about collateral damage..

__________________
"Destiny must be shaped and not left to mere chance."..Spencer Collins

Yup..

That's called "appeasement"...:

There's no such thing as a "humane war"...

You get in, you kill everything that moves, then you leave...

__________________
"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

I don't understand how you can talk about getting rid of Saddam, but no invasion.
Unless you're willing to assassinate him and plunge the country into anarchy.

Perhaps a few well placed bombs could have been effective at getting Saddam compliance. But if the goal were to be larger than that, you'll need to actually place troops on the ground.


Just out of curiousity, what enemy are we annihilating?
And how are we differentiating between them and those that are "greeting us as liberators"?
Or is that a facade that just needs to be abandoned?

And what the heck are we holding back on?
Is there a report that the U.S. has information as to where the resistance elements are who use IEDs and the like? And we just don't do anything about it?

I'm talking about getting rid of his regime trough attrician,if we would have taken Saddam out,it would have been a bonus! The use of ground troops or by way of tactical bombardment, would cause the country to fall into anarchy no matter what method was used! In hindsite..what "method" would you have used? Please don't say "containment"..


Yes..but it would take more than a "few" well placed bombs! I'm talking about a Dresden campaighn,submit or die..annihilation not containment! I would only use a few ground troops to ascertain the devastation and report back. If we go to war,go all out conventionaly,harvest the wheat and the chaff together or don't go to war..


Saddam's regime is the enemy and no..we don't differentiate between them and their supporters! THAT is WHY we are not winning these battles,if we are more concerned with "collateral" damage,we have already been defeated..

Because we have become entangled with nation building,something I have opposed in many political forums,we hold back in some cases for political reasons.As I have stated before,I would have preferred no ground troops be used.I would annihilate the enemy from the air,destroying the wheat and the chaff "together"...I don't care for "containment"..we tried that and it was a failure. Saddam violated his own agreements again and again,he did not fear the reaper! I would have destroyed EVERY strategic target not just "some" of them.If his regime placed non combatants in these strategic locations,I would destroy them as well...

If this be war,then destroy the enemy,don't appease them..

__________________
"Destiny must be shaped and not left to mere chance."..Spencer Collins

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.

I think that I am one of the few liberals who will agree that going into Iraq was needed. I think Saddam had weapons that he shouldn't have had. I think that we provided some of these weapons or at minimum were complacent in their production. Iraq was the enemy of Iran and we disliked Iran. It made sense (in our juvenile way of thinking) to make friends with the enemy of our enemy.

Far be it from me to agree with bhkad on anything, but he is dead-on on a few issues.

1. The use of ground forces were an absolute necessity.
2. We didn't understand fully the actions we needed to take and the repercussions of those actions.
3. We have a responsibility to prevent Iran from taking over Iraq.

I hold the POTUS accountable for several different things.

1. His inability to sell his actions to our allies. I think that building a coalition to go in and take care of business is superior to unilateral action.
2. His failure to maintain in-step relations with key allies in the region. We have allies in the region that the President could/should have developed a closer relationship with before invading. We could have learned much more about what we were getting into.
3. Mission Accomplished? Come on Mr. President. I understand that you want to maintain support for your war, but there is no sense in misleading the people. Our mission is still far from accomplished.

I think that the State Department has a role that is about getting along with others. While the President may support 'cowboy diplomacy', the grown-ups of the world rely on the State Department to advise on diplomatic relations. To expect the State Department to do a good job of selling the war is like asking the Fred Phelps to condone homosexuality. It's contrary to the nature of the organization.

Building a democracy in the Middle East seems to have been the desire of every Republican since 1980. While I might agree that it's a good idea on paper, reality is a much different thing. If we weren't so concerned with building a democracy, we could have been more focused on a stable government. If stability were our primary concern, we wouldn't be pushing democracy to a nation who has never had anything like it.

I think that the majority of the blame goes to the President and his Administration for their planning (or lack there of).

I think most of us can agree that we had to take action and the reasons are legion. Again...I see this as a continuation of Desert Storm and not as a new war! Saddam had "agreed" to conditions that lead to our withdrawal and then violated these agreements. Containment was not working very well and a return to Iraq was therefore inevitable.What was not inevitable was our failure to properly address the chaos that occurred. While some chaos is to be expected,some confused this chaos with celebration.Certainly some of the chaos contained elements of a victory celebration but there were many who took advantage of the situation.

In conclusion,we were justified in our "return" to Iraq. Mistakes were made and to some extent,this is to be expected. I still believe we could have tried heavy bombardment of all strategic targets before returning ground troops to the region. This bombardment would not resemble what would normally be viewed as more containment. It would have been severely punitive and destructive,with no concern for nation building.Would this have been effective? We shall never know! What I do know is this,the American people grow weary of these "conflicts" and can little afford the nation building that follows. When ground troops are used the goal should be clearly defined and an exit strategy must be part of the overall plan.Some say.."We broke Iraq and now we have to fix it"...I say bullshit..Saddam and his evil regime broke Iraq and as in any war,you've got to want to succede.Policing the world is a noble and lofty goal but it's a very big job and cannot be acheived without the "sustained" cooperation of all who hold peace and democracy so dear.Some pay lip service to these ideals and it's time for them to stand up or shut-up!

__________________
"Destiny must be shaped and not left to mere chance."..Spencer Collins