bird chest

I am sorry, but I am not willing to admit yet that the intelligence about Iraq has failed. Their are jsut to many things that could have occured to hide or move the wmd's. But this is not my main point my main point is what a waist of money it seems to me to go back and find out why are info went bad. What needs to happen is the government needs to go back and analyze what happened see what they can learn from it for the future. But they are not going back to do this. I feel it is also a political stunt to get Bush back in office.

One more thing why is everyone blameing the CIA and other intelligence services yes they messed up, possibly, have you not messed up, and this is not a math equation it does not always work out and this is not a machine where you can press a button and good intelligence will come out. This takes long and hard hours of work and includes putting men in danger. What needs to happen is instead of telling the guy that heads the cia to step down as a scape goat we need to have faith in him and we need to give more money to intelligence even if it means cutting spending in other military areas.

Falstaff

there are intelligence faliures, that is an absolute fact, now whether it was poor brinksmanship by Saddam remains to be seen. He did create programs, whether they bore fruit is a matter for the inspectors and the apologists. Either way, history may be cruel to both Bush, Blair and Saddam. IMO the reason the coalition fell apart was because of the potentiol presence of WMD and the inability of the European powers to pursue a course of action that might ultimately end in a greater catastrophe. It was the evil of two lessers if you pardon the pun, to invade immediately or invade later. Ironically, all the powers agreed that Saddam needed to be stopped eventually

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bluelight

Nobody else than the Bush government is blaiming the Cia.They now need the Cia to cover up for what they said in the UN before the invasion.

Im pretty confident that the Cia knows what they are doing.

The whole thing could be solved very easily.

Bush stands up and says :Yes we over exaggerated the threat.We were wrong in doing so.

The only thing that would come out of such a statement is MORE support for Bush since the necessity of invading Iraq still stands and it would actually show that he is human and nlt a machine.It would also to a great extent repair relations between Usa´government and others who claimed the threat were not as big as Bush said.


The fact that he had no WMD´s was more or less 100 percent known at the time.Ask people like Scott Ritter who has spent more than 15 years on the issue both in service of the US miltary,the Cia and as as leader with the UN weapon inspectors



Bluelight

digerati

But I thought the president's accusations of the WMD's were based on CIA reports and intelligence?

Al_Vampyre

Looks suspiciciously like another political ploy to me, its an attempt to appease and therefore win back the votes of all those people that were unhappy that we were going to war on spurious evidence.

__________________
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad" - Brian O'Driscoll - Ireland Rugby Team 2009 Grand Slam winning Captain.

bluelight

I dont know what they based their judgements on.They CLAIM they judged them on Ã*ntelligence given to them by CIA.So does Blair.He claims he has been informed by Usa (CIA) and Mi 5.

The funny thing is that the UN weaponinspectors , including US weaponinspectors like Scott Ritter who first served during Gulf war 1 with destroying WMD´s for the Us military and also worked in preventing WMD´s from reaching their targets by interfearing with them after launch.He then moved on to become one of a few "Chief inspectors" under the UN.HE was before he were employed by the UN also connected to the CIA.And....he is and have always been a republican.

As such he led teams that destroyed and looked up the WMD´s that DID exists.He and his teams also found facilities where chemicals and biological WMD´s had been produced.
In the book partially written by him (interwiews) by him that i read he also claims that any biological or chemical substances produced by Saddam before....the UN inspections (after the first Gulf war)and then possibly hidden would by natural reasons have transformed to sludge both due to that most of these substances dont have unlimited "best before date" and that the Iraq Ã*s did not have good enough technique to produce them well.

None of this could have been unknown to neither the Cia or Mi 5.

The story about this is longer than this and includes a political plot where Saddams Moron´s obstructions were used by Usa to stop the weapon instructions.To make it possible to Bomb Bagdad which was also done.

The critical point in this was one special "inspection" that was specifically demanded by USA in an Iraq ´i intelligence building.

In this building it was claimed evidence existed.

Ritters team inspected..and there was nothing.He reported that there nothing BUT his boss (an aussie whos name i have forgot ...he held the sam position as Blix did later) ignored this and made things lokk like evidence had been found.Thus....Bagdad could be bombed since there were "proof" .

The conflict led to that the weapon inspectors were thrown out considered as spies (acting on US orders and not on UN orders).Which in this case was true.

It is clear and specially now that Saddams obstructions were nothing but a game between him and Usa in which he refused to have his pants doen to his knees.

Personally i believe it would have given better results if Blix ,Ritter etc would have been allowed to do their work without the interference of Usa.Usa also submitted people from Cia direct into the weaponinspectors league.

Something that the Iraq´ is understood at once ( They agreed to UN inspections not US inspections)...and of course it led them to continue their obstructions.

It is my belief that Iraq would have had to be invaded no matter what in the end.

But....had it been invaded by a UN force which was at least ON PAPER UN lead..the situation would today have been dramatically different in global politics and one thing is sure....had the inspections been allowed to be finished....then there would have been both German French and Russian troops.Even muslims nations would have had "alibi" and justfication to be part of the coalition since it woiuld have been an international UN led operation.The "actual military lead" would still have been American as it was the first time.

Sweden where i come from had most certanily sent troops being members of the UN.


And ..why didn´t this happen?

It didn´t happen because the Bush government has a clearly defined foreign policy that says "Multilateralism is something we no longer are intersted in "

We will in the future act as it pleases us .

So...the situation now....is a result of a politic agenda or....a total lack of diplomatic ability.

An ability that The current presidents father and his government ...did have.

Powell that has served under both presidents must have had a hard time.


Bluelight

The_Neon_Cowboy

Well ponder this if Clinton had fallowed through and did away with Sodom Hussein is dessert storm would this action ever have been necessary?

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bird chest

How do you propose that we had gotten the UN to come on our side?
A country like France is obviously going to veto any attempted to just because we are the USA. Russia who we have found links to selling weapons to the middle east and new that these weapons were in turn being sold to Iraq has no right to have a say. They are against just because they are making money off the situation and could give a crap about peoples lives.

BluntmaN

Waste of money? How much does it cost the US to occupy Iraq? How much did the Iraq war cost and how much is an investigation going to cost?
It is yet not certain (especialy in the UK) if the intelligence failed maybe the goverment lied? Maybe they overexagerated a threat cause they wanted the war on Iraq to be over by the time the re-election of Mr Bush was to take place.
Now the Inteligence can be wrong without mistakes in CIAs part but I am afraid saying that is not a good political move. But if the inteligence is wrong then you should look into the possibility that the CIA has some problems find them and correct them. I mean the CIA has failed you in the past in important issues if this is not an isolated phenomenon then there is something wrong with the CIA.
Pointing fingers is a very stupid game we all played when we were kids unfortunately I am afraid the politicians have not outgrown this habit.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

bluelight

No you are wrong.None of them made anymore money during the sanctions than Usa did.Usa imported 3 percent of its oil consumption from Iraq according to the oil for food program as late as 2002.

3 percent of your oil consumption which amounts to almost half of the globes makes a lot of oil...and a lot of money for those that make the deals.

Im saying that it would have been politically IMPOSSIBLE for France Russia etc etc..to refuse being part of the coalition IF Usa had allowed the inspections to finish.Not allowing the inspections to finish made it politically IMPOSSIBLE TO BE PART OF THE COALITION.Doing so meant that it would look as if they took orders from Usa.THis is of course especially difficult for muslim nations due to the opinions in their nations.

But......doing it in the name of the UN...is another thing.


Bush Sr managed to do this act of balance (because he wanted to do so) and also managed to get a coalition that cosisted even of Muslim nations ....nations that finally paid 80 percent of the costs for the first Gulf war.

Bluelight

bird chest

I was not talking about oil. Russia through a third party was selling weapons to Iraq and new it. They also sold uranium to Iran.

The first dessert storm is not even comparible to the current bush's war. So do not pull that bs. Iraq was invading other countries last time we went to war with them.

bird chest

So you call the current occupation of Iraq a waist of money? Maybe you are not for going in but don't tell me you do not believe some good has come of it. Cause a lot has.

I am not against them going in to find out what went wrong and learning from it if anything went wrong but let the CIA do it secretly and there is no need to air it on tv so people who do not understand start bitching about the cia. I also believe the cia is currently researching it so why are we organizing another team?

BluntmaN

I will not even go there cause I dont want to turn this into another war debate. What I meant was that since the costs of this war are so great how can you call an investigation in the pre-war inteligence a waste of money since it will cost only a tiny fraction of the overall cost of war.
Also the CIA secrets may be quite valuable. But the public must know what is going on with their own tax money.
The whole point of going to war was based on reports and inteligence. When a democratic society goes to war it has the right to know the facts and since all the judgments of the goverment about WMD seem to have been wrong the people have the right to find out why this happened and whos fault it is.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

bird chest

Here is the cost of the war http://www.costofwar.com/ and it in comparison to other things is not that much. For instance we spend over 300 billion a yearh on paying the money on our debt

bluelight

Dont ......pull.......that........bulllshit.



I suggest you lower your tone slightly.


Bluelight

bird chest

what are the similarities between a preemptive strike and the first dessert storm which was stopping Iraq from taking over another country?

Is that a better tone?

BluntmaN

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT MANY OTHER THINGS. I am talking about the cost of a single investigation into the inteligence FFS please understand what I am trying to say here.
Compare the cost of war to the cost of the investigation and do the math [number of people working on the case]*[money each of them is paid per hour]*[number of hours they ll work] + [number of workhours lost due to interviews]*[the average ammount they are paid per hour] + [the cost of the paper it will be printed on] + [the cost of the electricity they ll use] + [printer ink] + [misc such as snack food consumed while writing, packs of cigs they smoke while scratching their heads etc] = Total cost of the investigation. Now if you can seriously tell me that this will be more than 1% of the money the Iraqi war and occupation costs I ll blow my brains all over the f@cking wall.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

bird chest

This is not my point I do not care how much it is going to cost compared to the Iraq war it is still a waist of money. All it is is a political stunt and by doing so is kicking the legs out from underneath our intelligence. What if they know of something and they do not tell because they are worried of the backlash if they are wrong. We need to have faith in our intelligence and give them the room to do what they do best. The worst thing we could do is have the white house looming over them all the time.

BluntmaN

Well maybe your inteligence and UK's inteligence need a kick in the butt.
Maybe the two goverments lied to their own people and the UN about the reasons behind going to war.
Maybe you (personaly) dont really give a damn about the reasons and you only care about the fact that you won.

All these are maybes we need facts. Facts about the goverment, the inteligence communities and the reasoning behind the 622 coalition soldiers and 8.100(min) iraqi deaths.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

bluelight

Read my post again.Its there.

The post is about the non willingness (for conservative nationalist political reasons) to act multilateral showed by Bush JR ´s government.'


Something NOT shared by his fathers previoius government. He created a coalition BECAUSE HE WANTED TO CREAT ONE.


The current government has actually PENNED DOWN ON PAPER that they will NOT BOTHER with the UN or any other multilateral solutions.This was done...BEFORE the invasion of Iraq in the security politics document written by Paul Wolfwitz.


Im not discussing any differences between "pre emptive strikes" or preventing invasions.IM discussing why this government does not build coalitions.

This government made DICTATES to the world while preparing the Iraq invasion.Of course no one responds positively to dictates so doing so MUST have been deliberate or else this government are complete diplomatic morons.

Bluelight