I'd broadly agree with what Bruce said, though I disagree on the note that chemical weapons have recently been found. Unless Bruce is referring to something of which I'm unaware, the weapons that are being talked about are all still pre-sanctions chemical weapons that were not even useful as chemical weapons in 2003 when we invaded. At that time, we also found some small stockpiles of weapons as well, all of the same vintage and unusable. What the US Admin was saying in the run up to the invasion was that Iraq had an ongoing program of producing chemical weapons that represented a threat. As far as I am aware, that is was untrue in 2003 and is still untrue today.
Cheers, Judah On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:30 AM, Bruce Sorge <[email protected]> wrote: > > Having fought in both Desert Storm and OIF, I'll say this: > > I fully supported Desert Storm, as did most of the world. To me it was a > just war for a good cause. Nuff said. > > Regarding OIF, I was all for it. I believed that there were WMD's (proof > was finally discovered recently), and I believed that Saddam should not > have stayed in power. However, I completely am against how the war was > executed almost from the beginning. With Rumsfeld supporting a much smaller > invasion force, to the complete dismantling of the Iraqi Army (IA). There > were several mistakes made in the opening of the war. One of the biggest > ones was assuming that Turkey would be OK with the 4th Infantry Division > launching their part of the invasion from their country. Of course this > never happened, so we ended up invading Iraq from only the South, not the > North and South as was originally planned. That left an entire Mechanized > Infantry division with nothing to do but float around the ocean until they > could reach a Southern port to move in. > > Dismantling the IA did nothing more than produce home grown insurgents > since the Army was the only source of income for these men. And then trying > to rebuild the IA didn't work out well either as they had neither the > inclination to learn our tactics nor did they have any motivation to > actually try and fight the insurgents since 1). The IA, like the Afghan > Army were infiltrated with Taliban, and 2). As long as coalition forces > were there, they knew that we'd do most of the fighting. The result is > unfolding in that country now. An Army that was otherwise well equipped, > but soldiers that are lazy and cowardly. > > I'm completely against an further action from our servicemen and women > today beyond protecting the Embassy and the personnel assigned to work > there. No advise and assist teams should step foot into that country. They > had the opportunity to have us stay longer to continue training their sorry > ass soldiers, but Maliki didn't want to sign a Status of Forces Agreement > (SOFA), so we cut bait and left. Now that the shit has hit the fan, Maliki > is all for a SOFA. I say tough shit. You got what you wanted - Coalition > forces out of your country. Now deal with the consequences on your own. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:371080 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
