>>Mod Warning<< Thoughts on the War in Iraq

More trolling.

 

The surge took care of AQI. The few remaining fled to Syria.

Debathification took place in 2003 - 2004. Sunnis were partly of the Iraq government after the surge. Against all historical and current advice Obama gave all this away.

 

More reality. Do your homework.

 

Maliki does not get to decide Iraq's fate on his own, just like Obama can't unilaterally tell Iraq they must accept US troops. What Maliki wanted is pointless. He wouldn't have been able to muster support within his parliament for troops to stay.

 

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The Truth About the Status of Forces Agreement | Flopping Aces
http://www.floppingaces.net/2015/05...he-status-of-forces-agreement/#comment-550215
May 18, 2015 · ... President Bush gave in 2007 made its ... to blame Bush for Obama’s decision to not renew the SOFA, ... subdue al-Qaeda into Iraq’s army, Maliki

"Panetta writes that he warned Obama of the danger of withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq: “My fear, as I voiced to the President and others was that if the country split apart or slid back into the violence that we’d seen in the years immediately following the U.S. invasion, it could become a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the U.S.” But when he and Obama’s military commanders recommended keeping 24,000 troops, “the President’s team at the White House pushed back, and the differences occasionally became heated.” The White House, Panetta says, was “so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.” Now, “the ISIS offensive in 2014 greatly increases the risk that Iraq will become al-Qaeda’s next safe haven. That is exactly what it had in Afghanistan pre-9/11.”"
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...91da079cb8a_story.html?utm_term=.78c9ae24086e

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Leon Panetta’s Worthy Fights, page 392-4: [https://www.amazon.com/Worthy-Fights-Memoir-Leadership-Peace/dp/0143127802]
When President Obama announced the end of our combat mission in August 2010, he’d acknowledged that we would maintain troops for a while. As he put it, “Going forward, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain in Iraq with a different mission: advising and assisting Iraq’s security forces; supporting Iraqi troops in targeted counter terrorism missions; and protecting our civilians. Consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year.” Now that the deadline was upon us, however, it was clear to me- and many others- that withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability then barely holding Iraq together.
We had leverage.
My fear, as I voiced to the president and others, was that if the country split apart or slid back into the pervasive violence that we’d experienced in the years immediately following the U.S. invasion,it could become a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the United States. Iraqi’s stability thus, in my view, was not only in Iraq's interest but ours. With that in mind, I privately and publicly advocated leaving behind a residual force that could provide training and security for Iraq’s military.

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Obviously you and Leon Panetta differ in opinions, although he was there and you were Not.

 

The war helped him forget...

 

Approval of the Iraqi Parliament was not necessary for Maliki to renew the SOFA. It was Obama who wanted out and manufactured that requirement to justify leaving. Obama's action went against the historical record and the advice of all US military and governance advisors.

 

No, the Iraqi civil war was sectarian. There was no significant Sunni participation on the side that was slaughtering Sunnis.

 

I completely agree with Panetta as well as Gates. I've read both of their books.

 

That's ridiculous. The murder rate in Iraq after the surge was less than that of Brazil which hosted the summer Olympics a few years ago. There was no slaughtering going on.

 

Not that it matters, but the past participle of drink is drunk - appropriately enough, maybe.

 

I've pointed out before that during the "awakening" (when we had finally figured out that Sunnis weren't the enemy) we did better.

It was still deadly, though. Family members could still get murdered by taking their dead to the morgue if the morgue was run by the opposite side or if the opposite side were laying in wait. Plus, the morgues weren't efficient enough to handle more bodies - which was a problem given Islamic law in time periods for internment.

Thus, we had a serious underestimate of civilian body count pretty much throughout the war.

 

All of that preceded the surge.

The civilians were killed by AQI. Sadam killed hundreds of thousands of political opponents.

 

Well Obama admitted in his book, he took drugs. Is he still a druggy? Remember he wouldn't release his medical records or allow reporters to talk to his doctor. He only released a one page note from his doctor that said he was fit to serve.

 

The PNAC neocons, under the Dubya Bush regime, attained the power to indulge their previously stated (Rebuilding America's Defenses) desire to establish a "permanent US military presence in the Persian Gulf region."

It was not unreasonable to expect to such a permanent presence to follow the invasion and victory since that had been the typical pattern in US wars. The strategic significance of such US bases would be a serious impediment to Iran's hegemonic ambitions.

" [T]he United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein"​

The unrelated terrorist attack on 9/11/01 by al Qaeda provided them with the excuse, as they continually contrived to link the disparate bin Laden and Hussein, hype concerning non-existent stockpiles of wmd becoming the primary pretext. Rumsfeld had called for going after Hussein who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on the same day they occurred.

Did Dubya wish to depose a brutal dictator? That certainly seems likely, but the multi-trillion dollar, middle-east-destabilizing fiasco was not what he had in mind, nor was Dub's admirable sentiment the primary concern of the PNAC collaborators.

In the end, the corrupt Malaki got Bush to sign onto a Status of Forces Agreement that specified a complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraqi territory by December 31, 2011.

The neocons' fantasy of a "permanent US military presence" fizzled.

 

You misspelled Bush

 

Take your pick of which one you want to believe Tom. You'll probably pick the last one.CNN, one who says Obama is bombing so much they are running out of bombs
US Pilots Confirm: Obama Admin Blocks 75% of ISIS Strikes
freebeacon.com/.../us-pilots-confirm-obama-admin-blocks-75-percent-of-isis-strikes/
Nov 20, 2015 - U.S. Pilots Confirm: Obama Admin Blocks 75 Percent of Islamic State Strikes ... "You went 12 full months while ISIS was on the march without the U.S. using that air power and now as the pilots come back to talk to us they say three-quarters of our ordnance we can't drop, we can't get clearance even when ...
Until recently, pilots didn't use a weapon against ISIS in 75% of sorties ...
www.politifact.com/florida/.../10/.../until-recently-pilots-didnt-use-weapon-against-isi/
Dec 10, 2015 - That 75-percent rate was accurate until this summer, when sorties against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria saw an uptick, so Bush is right to qualify his statement. Experts said the Obama administration did want to avoid civilian casualties, but fighting an unconventional force like ISIS has made airstrikes ...
U.S. pilots: Obama blocks 75% of ISIS strikes - WND.com
www.wnd.com/2015/11/u-s-pilots-obama-blocks-75-of-isis-strikes/
Nov 20, 2015 - President Obama has given U.S. military pilots an impossible task: Wage a successful air war against an enemy hiding among civilians – without killing a single civilian. Pilots who have returned from deployments say Obama refuses to permit airstrikes 75 percent of the time against the Islamic State group.
Obama \'blocks 75% of U.S. airstrikes on ISIS targets\'; pilots say they ...
https://www.christiantoday.com/.../obama-blocks-75...airstrikes...isis...pilots-say.../712...
Nov 22, 2015 - President Barack Obama has been giving U.S. Air Force pilots impossible missions: Conduct airstrikes on Islamic State (ISIS) positions in populated areas without killing even a single civilian.
Obama Blocks 75 Percent of Terror Targets From Bombing | Newsmax ...
https://www.newsmax.com/headline/obama-blocks-terror-targets/2015/11/.../702993/
Nov 20, 2015 - Due to an Obama administration policy that is aimed to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, U.S. military pilots who have returned home from the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq have definitively stated they were unable to obtain clearance to launch strikes and in turn were blocked from ...
Pilots Claim Obama Blocked Strikes Against ISIS - The Federalist Papers
https://thefederalistpapers.org/.../military-pilots-claim-obama-blocked-75-of-strikes-ag...
Nov 20, 2015 - Several military pilots have claimed that the Obama administration blocked 75% of potential strikes against ISIS. ... “You went 12 full months while ISIS was on the march without the U.S. using that air power, and now as the pilots come back to talk to us, they say three-quarters of our ordnance we can't drop, ...
US military pilots complain hands tied in 'frustrating' fight against ISIS ...
www.foxnews.com/.../us-military-pilots-complain-hands-tied-in-frustrating-fight-agai...
May 28, 2015 - U.S. military pilots carrying out the air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are voicing growing discontent over what they say are ... Sources close to the air war against ISIS told Fox News that strike missions take, on average, just under an hour, from a pilot requesting permission to strike an ISIS ...
Obama Blocking 75 Percent of Air Strikes Against ISIS | Truth Revolt
https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/obama-blocking-75-percent-air-strikes-against-isis
Nov 20, 2015 - The Washington Free Beacon is reporting that U.S. military pilots fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their ordnance on terror targets because the Obama administration would not give clearance to launch a strike.
US pilots confirm Obama Admin BLOCKS 75 percent of ISIS air strikes ...
www.bizpacreview.com/.../us-pilots-confirm-obama-admin-blocks-75-percent-of-isis-...
Nov 20, 2015 - The Obama administration has blocked 75 percent of military strikes against the Islamic State group, according to the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif. Pilots returning from the battlefield said that the targets are often blocked by the administration for fear of collateral ...
The U.S. is running out of bombs to drop on ISIS - CNNPolitics
https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/politics/air-force-20000-bombs...isis/index.html
Dec 7, 2015 - The U.S. Air Force has fired off more than 20000 missiles and bombs since the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS began 15 months ago, according to the Air ... The Air Force says it is dropping bombs 'faster than we can replenish them' in fight against ISIS; More than 20,000 bombs and missile have been ...

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I think reality has left you.
It was signed, sealed, and delivered, before Obama was in office.

 

Obama gave Iraq away.

US military bases in Europe, Japan, and Korea. Those forces were and still are the reason for the economic success and security of those regions. Sadly Obama took that opportunity away from Iraq.

 

You make several false assumptions in your OP. The biggest is that Bush is of high moral character.

Men of high moral character do not torture other humans. Men of high moral character in leadership positions do not take their country to war under false pretenses.

Your second error is assuming that there was no deception regarding the first Gulf War by Bush 41. With the testimony before Congress of April Glaspie, the US Ambassador to Iraq, it became clear that the US misled Hussein by delivering to him the message from her superiors that should Iraq invade Kuwait (Hussein's question to her weeks before), the US would consider it a matter of inter-arab affairs. Thereby, they set Hussein up.

 

If, for partisan or other purposes, you need to deny the documented reality that Bush signed onto a Status of Forces Agreement that specified a complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraqi territory by December 31, 2011, that is what you will do.

Negotiations of leaving a residual force broke down when the Iraqi Parliament refused immunizing US troops against Iraqi prosecution. The US administration and Congress would not accept an agreement that didn’t protect our troops.

 

"Your second error is assuming that there was no deception regarding the first Gulf War by Bush 41."

????

I didn't make that assumption.

 

These are the simple facts. And they lay at the feet of Bush

 

The Bush-signed SOFA specifying the date of total withdrawal of troops from Iraq is indisputable, and the unacceptability of a residual force that would be subject to Iraqi prosecution such as their parliament insisted upon was an American bipartisan position with the full support of the Pentagon.

Desperate attempts to blame Obama are irrational.

 

The right wing is clueless what even the SOFA means......Why do you think they constantly vote against what helps them!................Pure ignorance!