This is How I Remember It

Iraq War, How I see It

October 17th, 2008

In a nut shell, we went into Iraq not for revenge of 9-11 but because the UN had passed numerous resolutions which the Iraqi government ignored and violated. This occurred over a 10 year period of time until a final resolution was passed basically stating, comply with the resolutions and let arms inspectors into your country to finish the job or we will enter with force.

The Iraqi government decided they would ignore that resolution too, so a coalition of UN forces lead by the US entered into Iraq.

After a few months into the Iraq War Al Queda (AQ) started to expend resources in Iraq to disrupt the UN activities – I think our failures can be attributed to the fact we did not realize the impact this move by AQ would have. It wasn’t until the surge that we started in earnest to drive them out.

I see a real benefit to AQs move into the Iraqi theater the depletion of their assets that were to be used towards their goal of interfering with world trade by concentrating activities at the worlds five “choke points” of commerce. Terrorist activity has markedly slowed around the Philippines as an example.

Did we do the right thing by entering into Iraq? In my opinion, yes. A rouge government who had demonstrated unprovoked aggression towards their own people and neighboring countries was not following the rest of the worlds condition of surrender. The United Nations worked with the criminal state for a decade making military action necessary. “Convicted” criminals don’t get the luxury of calling their own shots – until punishment or conditions of release are met. In my opinion of course.

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3 Comments »

  • I’d agree with you but I wish our leaders had used the 10 years of ignoring and flaunting the UN as the reason to go in. Instead we used WMDs and that became a point that liberals beat the Administration over the head with.

    Had we said, “We signed a peace treaty with Iraq at the end of the war with conditions in it. They’re not meeting those conditions, therefore we are still at a state of war with them.” I think we would have been much better off.

    The mid game so to speak was where we failed miserably. We thought it would be a piece of cake to occupy and obviously it wasn’t. I believe that’s where the failures occurred but they seem to have been largely corrected with the surge.

    Comment by Skitzzo (1 comments.) — October 18, 2008 @ 12:19 pm

  • Most of the resolutions dealt with the identification, cataloging and destruction of WMD. Iraq at the time basically said, we had those weapons, we destroyed them and we are not going to let you check to your satisfaction. At that point UN resolution 1441 and others were sited as justification for military action.

    I liken it to a felon locked in a house (you could argue with hostages – Kurds) – the felon was seen brandishing the weapon and even fired it a few times. The community decided they wanted this felon to have his weapon disposed of to feel safer. Law enforcement went to the house with a court order/warrant to search the entire premises, but was only allowed to check the garage and not allowed to see the known weapon, law enforcement investigators were kicked out of the house by the felon and told, OK, I destroyed the gun now leave me alone…

    In the end it was about the reasonable belief WMD were in Iraq and still posed a threat to the region and the people of Iraq not politically aligned with Hussein.

    Comment by Ouch — October 18, 2008 @ 1:13 pm

  • I too agree with you, but I think the problem the American people have with the “war” in Iraq now is not so much with initial justification, but concerns more with the rules of engagement, and the high casualty counts that have occurred out of those rules, not to mention the Administration’s ignorance of the fact that the Muslim religion seems to have no end to followers willing to blow themselves up in the name of Allah. Bush, and to a large extent McCain, keep talking about “victory” in Iraq, but how is that term defined? I do not believe violence in Muslim countries will ever end… so long as there are Shia’s and Sunni’s left anyway, but at what point do we pull our troops out of a “peacekeeping” mission that in and of itself is set up for failure, not through the fault of our brave military personnel, but rather, through the fault of politicians of all stripes who have created rules of engagement largely for political purposes, and not out of concern for pure military objectives and protection of those personnel, and who fail to recognize the realities of radical Islam and its connection to violence as a way of religious life. It would appear to me now, that perhaps the “war” in Iraq should shift from a large troop presence, to more of a clandestine “special operations” type war, targeting the organized terrorist elements in and around Iraq, much like the raid in Syria. To the extent larger troop concentrations may be necessary for certain tasks/raids/offensives, why not station them offshore in the Navy LP’s, where they can be safe when not in actual combat, and get them out of the “sitting duck” situation they are largely in right now. Time to let Iraq take control of its own day-to-day security situation. I’m not promoting an all out withdrawal like the Democrats desire for political gain, but I do think we need a substantial change in the way we are approaching the Iraq security situation (and Afghanistan for that matter too).

    Comment by Richard (1 comments.) — October 29, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

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