Sorry this is a *long* reply, as I've tried to include links to back up some of what I say, and have included excerpts of some relevant parts...
From: "ritu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Bryon Daly wrote:
Well, I am not sure that this is a misperception. Neither is the US State department, at least not going by the recent changes in their travel advisory on Iraq. On Friday, it changed the description of conditions from "dangerous" to "extremely dangerous" and said attacks on occupation forces and civilian targets occur throughout the day. The warning also added that: "Hotels, restaurants and locations with expatriate staff are being targeted." Where the previous warning reported attacks on civilian and military convoys on Iraqi roads, the new one says: "All vehicular travel in Iraq is extremely dangerous."
When Dan Rather says things are peaceful in some areas in Iraq, I am guessing that he means 'relatively peaceful'. Let's see, there is guerilla warfare in Tigris and Euphrates valleys, problems in the Shia regions [especially now that the Sadr brigade is widening its support base in the tribal areas], riots, sabotage, banditry, revenge killings....is 'shambles' really a misperception?
I wasn't basing my statement on just Dan Rather's comment. I just thought it interesting he felt compelled to tone down/qualify the previous report.
Here are some recent articles about Iraq that show it isn't all bad in Iraq. For some reason, these type stories don't seem to get much/any coverage from mainstream media.
Some links, with some excerpts:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1056138,00.html ********** "In the summer I spent more than a month in Iraq. What I found did not correspond to what was being reported - most crucially, that the liberators were already widely denounced as occupiers. As a rule, that simply wasn't true." **********
http://nationaljournal.com/rauch.htm
**********
"Consistently, however, observers -- including some I know personally and trust
-- return from Iraq reporting that the picture up close is better than the
images in the media. Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution military analyst
who is no pushover for the Bush administration, recently came back saying that
the quality of the work being done in Iraq by American forces is "stunning."
If the future in Iraq looks dismal, someone forgot to tell the Iraqis. A poll
by the Gallup Organization found Iraqis saying, by a 2-to-1 ratio, that Saddam
Hussein's ouster was worth the subsequent hardships. A plurality told Gallup (a
month ago, when the poll was taken) that Iraq was worse off than before the
invasion, but two-thirds expected Iraq to be better off in five years than
before the invasion, and only 8 percent expected it to be worse off.
The Bush administration reports that "virtually all" major Iraqi hospitals and
universities have been reopened, and hundreds of schools have been rebuilt. As
of late September, American fatalities (just over 300), although too numerous,
were still only slightly higher than the 293 lost in the 1991 Persian Gulf
War.
The bad reasons for viewing this mixed but by no means disastrous situation as
a nightmare, a quagmire, or a failure have to do with the fact that a lot of
people -- some Europeans, some doves, some partisans -- want President Bush or
America or both to fail. Partly that is a result of rancor and opportunism, but
it also inheres in a pre-emptive engagement. A war to prevent war is bound to
be controversial, and this one created a constituency against itself."
**********
http://www.statesman.com/nation/content/auto/epaper/editions/saturday/news_f3e717ef1296707d002b.html
http://makeashorterlink.com/?P17462226
**********
"Lewis Lucke had heard from his wife, Joy, and their friends in Texas that the
news media's view of events in Iraq was bleak.
But the 52-year-old foreign service officer, who is directing the
multibillion-dollar reconstruction of Iraq, wasn't really prepared for just how
bleak when he returned home to Austin this week for a five-day visit, his first
since May.
"There's just an incredible amount of productive stuff going on over there,
with a lot of Iraqi participation," he said. "To come here and see it portrayed
as a failure in the making -- it's very superficial and inaccurate."
It's Lucke's job to get the lights on, the water clean and running, the phones
working, the trash picked up, roads and bridges repaired, and schools and
hospitals fully operating. He has a staff of 90 in a second-floor office in the
Baghdad Convention Center, 500 independent contractors such as Save the
Children spread around the country, and a preliminary budget of more than $1
billion.
He said the job certainly isn't finished after only five months of effort, but
much more of it is progressing than many Americans realize.
"Seven-eighths of the country is calm," he said. "Certainly functional. I've
traveled all over. We don't see chaos around us, but a tremendous amount of
change, with a large number of Iraqis doing a lot of the work and the
planning. We try to use Iraqi firms to create employment and put money in the
economy." "
**********
http://www.ajc.com/monday/content/epaper/editions/monday/opinion_f3e6393975d4906b00ea.html
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y24441226
This article, by Democrat US Rep Jim Marshall, makes my point. He believes the
media is only portraying the bad and ignoring the good, which hurts the US's
goals to reconstruct Iraq:
**********
"But there will be more Blumbergs killed in action, many more. So it is worth
doing only if we have a reasonable chance of success. And we do, but I'm afraid
the news media are hurting our chances. They are dwelling upon the mistakes,
the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded, the Blumbergs. Fair enough. But
it is not balancing this bad news with "the rest of the story," the progress
made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national
resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy.
During the conventional part of this conflict, embedded journalists reported
the good, the bad and the ugly. Where are the embeds now that we are in the
difficult part of the war, now that fair and balanced reporting is critically
important to our chances of success? At the height of the conventional
conflict, Fox News alone had 27 journalists embedded with U.S. troops (out of a
total of 774 from all Western media). Today there are only 27 embedded
journalists from all media combined.
Throughout Iraq, American soldiers with their typical "can do" attitude and
ingenuity are engaging in thousands upon thousands of small reconstruction
projects, working with Iraqi contractors and citizens. Through decentralized
decision-making by unit commanders, the 101st Airborne Division alone has spent
nearly $23 million in just the past few months. This sum goes a very long way
in Iraq. Hundreds upon hundreds of schools are being renovated, repainted,
replumbed and reroofed. Imagine the effect that has on children and their
parents.
Zogby International recently released the results of an August poll showing
hope and progress. My own unscientific surveys told me the same thing. With
virtually no exceptions, hundreds of Iraqis enthusiastically waved back at me
as I sat in the open door of a helicopter traveling between Babylon and
Baghdad. And I received a similar reception as I worked my way alone, shaking
hands through a large crowd of refinery workers just to see their reaction."
**********
No one (especially not me) is saying things are perfect in Iraq, or even great,
but I do think that the perception that Iraq is an utter failure of chaos,
quagmire, and US resentment as some seem to be hoping it is, is false.
> Yes, that's what they should have said. The sloppy > generalization betrays > their bias.
I agree.
Thank you!
> >Um, if we remove words like 'evil' and 'hapless dupes', isn't that a > >fair summation of what actually happened? The Bush administration did > >make misleading statements [some of which have been retracted in the > >last few months], overhyped the threat from Iraq and the US > media didn't > >really seem to give too much space or time to the opposing > viewpoints. > >I could be mistaken, of course, but that did seem to be the case. > > I disagree. You're still assuming that only clueless people and those > that were tricked were pro-war.
I am not assuming that only the clueless/duped were pro-war. What I *am* assuming is that a vast majority of the pro-war group was *not* well-informed.
I see only a small difference in degree between what I said and what you said:
I said "only", you said "vast majority". I said "clueless/tricked", and you
said "*not* well-informed". Sounds pretty similar, to me. :-)
> I know many well-informed > pro-war people > who still believe it was for the best, even in retrospect of > not finding > the WMD's.
Do you know why they believe it was for the best?
Well, I'll put myself in the "they" category. I really don't want to get into
re-debating the whole war justification, post-facto, as I really don't have the
time, energy, or desire to do that, but I'll supply my opinion since you
asked...
Why I think the war on Iraq is a net positive thing:
1) Saddam Hussein's regime was responsible for killing and torturing thousands
and thousands of his own people. I've seen reports that he's responsible for
a million Iraqi deaths - if so, that averages out to around 3600 deaths per
month over his 23 or so years in power. If we assume, say 200,000 Iraqis
killed by him, that averages to 724 per month.
2) For those that think the continued sanctions were the best course: According
to UN estimates that I've seen, the sanctions against Iraq (and Saddam's
uncooperation) were responsible for the death of 5000-6000 children per month.
3) Given 1&2, I think that net, more Iraqis might be alive today than would be
without the invasion, and going forward that will increasingly be true.
4) According to David Kay, Iraqi *was* still working on WMD:
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/7396.htm
**********
"October 6, 2003 -- The head of the weapons hunt in Iraq yesterday said his
teams are hot on the trail of anthrax and Scud missiles, and he's "amazed" that
anyone could think the search so far is a failure.
David Kay also said, "We're going to find remarkable things" about Iraq's weapons program.
His teams have already found a vial of botulinum toxin - "one of the most toxic
elements known" - in the refrigerator of an Iraqi scientist who'd hidden it
since 1993."
**********
Read the rest for more details.
5) I think that even if Saddam's nuke research program was on hold because of
sanctions and inspections, that it was only a matter of time before France,
Russia and the other anti-sanctions nations got the sanctions lifted, or began
cheating on them, and I think that as soon as the heat and scrutiny was off
Saddam, he'd have their nuke program back in full gear.
6) Saddam was *paying* the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to kill
Israelis in terrorist attacks. I think peace there can only happen through
reasoned compromise by both sides, and as long as Saddam was feeding terrorists
money, that wasn't going to happen.
7) I think that Al Queda and other middle eastern terrorist groups are largely
fed members by the disaffected poor of countries like Saudi Arabia, where a
tiny minority basks in vast wealth, while the vast majority live in poverty,
and are told that the US is to blame for their misery. If we can transform
Iraq into a stable democracy, it will provide a counter-example and put
pressure on the governments of Saudi, etc to provide reform.
8) I think we should have removed Saddam back in 1991; the US and Bush I
betrayed the Shi'ites and Kurds by urging them to rise up against Saddam after
Desert Storm, and then failing to back them when they did. So this was long
overdue, IMHO.
> >This is something I know very little about actually but my impression > >was that the debate/criticism in the US media started > *after* the major > >combat operations were over. Until then, the media, the > Congress and a > >vast majority of the US citizens seemed to be solidly behind Bush and > >his Iraq mission. > > I don't think there was ever as much concensus as you indicate.
Well, I seem to have been wrong about the media at least. Again, I could be wrong here but I seem to recall polls which indicated public support for the war as above 70%.
Yes, public support was that high, but I think the criticism and public debate
was always there, regardless.
> > > As it stands, the survey mainly shows that people watching > > > pro-war news are > > > more likely to have pro-war misperceptions. Wouldn't you > > > expect the inverse > > > to also follow? > > > >Oh certainly. I think the relevant question here might be > the amount of > >anti-war news available in the US before Bush's dramatic > landing on that > >carrier. > > I'm not sure how the carrier landing would affect the availability of > anti-war news.
Did I say it did? :) My statement above might make more sense if you remember my perception that anti-war news wasn't given much coverage in the US until after the war was declared over. The war was declared over after Bush landed on that carrier and said so. 'Twas all.
Ahh. I felt the war was essentially over, even before the carrier landing so I
didn't make the connection.
> Several points here: > > - Leading up to the war, a big criticism of Bush was that he > had given > several > different justifications for the war (ie: 1441, Iraqi > liberation, WMD's > Saddam > currently has, potential for Saddam to develop nukes in the > future, increase > middle east stability) and he kept shifting between them rather than > focusing > on one. I heard this repeatedly.
I don't think I said anything about it on this list, but yes, it *was* rather difficult to keep up with the all the many justifications which were offered for the war. The way it looked then was that they *wanted* to go to war and they kept on grasping around for whichever reason would 'sell' the war to the public. So there were visions of mushroom clouds over Merkin cities, links between Saddam and Al-qaeda, enforcing the UN resolutions in face of the opposition of the UN members, a dominoes theory for democratisation of the middle east.....frankly, I still don't know *why* this war was launched at the time it was, in the manner it was launched.
I think Bush did a crappy job selling the war to the American people, the UN,
and the world. I think part of it was that he felt it was the right thing to
do, already had Congress's OK (which was all he really needed), and didn't feel
compelled to really get better world buy-in, unfortunately. I also think that
all the assorted reasons they were giving had at least some level of validity
to them. I didn't really see a need to have only one single focus point
reason, but I agree that it did come across poorly. Lastly, I think Bush would
have been reluctant to spell out some of his reasoning, since it would put off
some arab nations we needed the cooperation of, like Qatar and UAE. I mean
things like my points 6 & 7 above. (To explain why 7 would anger arab nations:
if we had stated our goal as reducing terrorism in Israel, that would have
played very poorly to the arab world, where it would be "proof" that the US was
serving Israel's needs.)
> Now, suddenly the > perception is that the > war > was "sold" entirely on the basis of the WMD's Saddam was believed to > currently > possess, and since he apparently didn't really possess them, > the whole war > is > now unjustified.
Well, let's see, when people objected to the US's right/plan to unilaterally enforce the UN resolutions in face of world-wide opposition, USA's right to defend itself against the mushroom clouds Saddam was *just about* to unleash on US cities was given as the major reason for a unilateral action. Add to that the carefully crafted statements about Saddam and 9/11 and Wolfowitz's admission that WMDs were used only a bureaucratic tool to garner support....well, it appears to me that the war *was* sold to the American public on the basis of WMDs and Saddam-9/11 links. Since neither of these panned out [Kay did mention that no links were found to Al-qaeda], surely the matter needs to be looked into.
I'm not sure which carefully crafted Saddam/9-11 statements you refer to, but I
interpreted Wolfowitz's statement in terms of what I just said above: they had
assorted reasons for the war, some would be politically offensive to needed
allies, and WMD was the easiest to focus on. But did he really say WMDs were
*only* a bureaucratic tool? ... OK, I just went out and googled on this and
found the actual transcript of what Wolfowitz said. I'd say your description
of his statement is hardly fair. Here's the relevant part of the transcript,
plus a bit of extra surrounding stuff for context. (Wolfowitz is interrupted
by a phone call right after he says "but" after the part you (mis)quote, but keep
reading and you'll see his real intent of the statement):
**********
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html
"Q: And then the last question, you've been very patient and generous. That is
what's next? Where do we stand now in the campaign that you talked about right
after September 11th?
Wolfowitz: I think the two most important things next are the two most obvious.
One is getting post-Saddam Iraq right. Getting it right may take years, but
setting the conditions for getting it right in the next six months. The next
six months are going to be very important.
The other thing is trying to get some progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
I do think we have a better atmosphere for working on it now than we did before
in all kinds of ways. Whether that's enough to make a difference is not certain,
but I will be happy to go back and dig up the things I said a long time ago which
is, while it undoubtedly was true that if we could make progress on the Israeli-
Palestinian issue we would provide a better set of circumstances to deal with
Saddam Hussein, but that it was equally true the other way around that if we
could deal with Saddam Hussein it would provide a better set of circumstances
for dealing with the Arab-Israeli issue. That you had to move on both of them
as best you could when you could, but --
There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost
unnoticed--but it's huge--is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S.
and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi
Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous
difficulty for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al
Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the
presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think
just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other
positive things.
I don't want to speak in messianic terms. It's not going to change things overnight,
but it's a huge improvement.
Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that
Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship
between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that,
which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks,
that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much
into --
Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons
that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one
issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the
core reason, but -- hold on one second --
(Pause)
Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take
years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially
when it comes to --
Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of
mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal
treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth
overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.
Kellems: By the way, it's probably the longest uninterrupted phone conversation I've
witnessed, so --
Q: This is extraordinary.
Kellems: You had good timing.
Q: I'm really grateful.
Wolfowitz: To wrap it up.
The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but
it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we
did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's
the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees
that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent
go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to
this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.
Q: So this notion then that the strategic question was really a part of the equation,
that you were looking at Saudi Arabia --
Wolfowitz: I was. It's one of the reasons why I took a very different view of what
the argument that removing Saddam Hussein would destabilize the Middle East. I said
on the record, I don't understand how people can really believe that removing this huge
source of instability is going to be a cause of instability in the Middle East.
I understand what they're thinking about. I'm not blind to the uncertainties of this
situation, but they just seem to be blind to the instability that that son of a bitch
was causing. It's as though the fact that he was paying $25,000 per terrorist family
and issuing regular threats to most friendly governments in the region and the long
list of things was of no account and the only thing to think about was that there
might be some inter-communal violence if he were removed.
The implication of a lot of the argumentation against acting -- the implication was
that the only way to have the stability that we need in Iraq is to have a tyrant like
Saddam keeping everybody in check -- I know no one ever said it that way and if you
pointed it out that way they'd say that's not what I mean. But I believe that really
is where the logic was leading."
**********
So, I'd say my interpretation of his statement was pretty reasonable, more so than
yours, at least. Maybe those pollsters can ask that one next time too, and we can see
how many NPR listeners get it wrong.
As for the WMD hunt, read the full text of my link to the NY Post interview with Kay
above for some more comments from Kay about the WMD hunt. The situation is not as cut
and dried as you might think.
See, imo, this has nothing to do with the justifications for the war - those was accepted by a significant majority of the Americans. This has to do with whether the justifications offered were true or false, and if latter, was it a deliberate falsity?
That is a valid concern. I was addressing this when I talked about the two cases
below. It seems to me that most people's opinion on this is largely driven by
politics, though.
> - A case can be made that Bush knew there was no WMD's, and > yet deliberately > lied about them and intentionally misled everyone about their > presence. > Alternately, a case can be made that he honestly thought the > WMD's were > there, > (just as the rest of the UN/world did prior to the war, and > just as Clinton > did > in 1998), but was overconfidently certain. In other words, > deliberate > wrongdoing, > or forgivable mistake?
A few points here:
There is no way Bush could have *known* that there were no WMDs in Iraq. But similarly, he couldn't have *known* that they were there either. As for which way his suspicions were ranged, I guess only he would know. As for his public stance on the issue, this is the way it seems to me: that he *believed* he knew they were there and didn't seem willing to look at/consider any information which pointed in the opposite direction. I don't know if that can be called a forgivable mistake.
You say evidence in the opposite direction, but I don't think there was
any evidence that Iraq had *no* WMD. The facts still lead to the conclusion
they should: the inspectors *knew* as a certainty Iraq had WMDs in 1998 when
they were kicked out. What happened to them? Can we honestly believe Saddam
would have destroyed them on his own *after* kicking the weapons inspectors
out, and then would he have destroyed all evidence of his having destroyed
them?
The legitimate question as I see it is that Bush might have distorted certain
facts and overhyped certain intelligence, but in the overall big picture, it's
not a crushing expose that illegitimizes the whole war.
As for what the rest of the world/UN believed prior to the war, well, everyone was open to the idea that there *might* have been some WMDs but no one really considered it a serious enough threat to think war was a good idea at that particular moment. The widely accepted view was that containment was effective enough to ensure that Saddam wasn't a threat to anyone other than his own people.
Yes, but the rest of the world was not at the top of Saddam's enemies list.
And many of those same nations that were saying right before the war to
give containment a chance were the same ones that were trying to get the Iraq
sanctions reduced before the war talk started, so my guess is that if the US
backed down, withdrew its troops, and took the pressure off, the "sanctions
are killing millions of Iraqi babies" talk would start up again, and the
inspectors would get kicked out again, etc.
A few decades down the line, if and when the memoirs of the current US administration get published, we might actually find out just when and why the decision to invade Iraq was taken.
That would be interesting to read.
-bryon
Phew that took wayyyyy longer than I expected!
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