Future Lies About Iraq

[andyfox]

In an article entitled ’68 Redux in today’s Wall Street Journal, Robert McFarlane is setting the stage for Iraq War apologists to lie about the war. The tag lines for the article are:

An improving counterinsurgency plan.

An oblivious press corps.

Iraq is looking more like Vietnam.

I agree with McFarlane that Iraq is looking more like Vietnam. Just as the liars who ran that war blamed the press for subverting their folly, today’s liars follow in their footsteps. McFarlane admits it. He says: [In Vietnam] the early mistakes and distortions of reality by both U.S. politicians and military commanders had so undermined their credibility with the press . . . as to make it all but impossible for the administration to secure funding for the war. Sound familiar?”

Indeed it does sound familiar. Those of us who live in the real world don’t call lies “distortions of reality.” I suppose only those who have pled guilty to four counts of withholding information from Congress do that.

The current administration claims things are going swimmingly in Iraq, then, when it’s political party loses a midterm election, fires the Secretary of Defense—despite the fact that he is lauded as the greatest ever—and then admits the policy has been one of slow failure. Ignoring the advice of both governmental and private sector groups that warned of all the troubles that would ensue during the occupation, its lackeys now are planting the seeds for Blame the Press First. Just, as McFarlane points out, like Vietnam.

Even more incredibly, McFarlane claims that the policy that was “working” in Vietnam could work in Iraq: “Despite the obvious success of the counterinsurgency tactics adopted late in the war, when it was over that nascent doctrine was expunged from our field manuals and the leadership of our military re-oriented our focus toward grand-scale land warfare in Europe. As a result, there were precious few in the senior or enlisted ranks of the U.S. military capable of leading or carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq.”

Leaving aside the incredible assertion that the tactics that were “succeeding” in 1968 Vietnam could be successfully applied to 2007 Iraq, one wonders why such a doctrine, left in our field manuals, would have any relevance at all, since the administration claimed for years that the trouble in Iraq was not insurgency but outside interference by Al Qaeda.

Lies, hubris, incompetence, ignorance, and blame everybody but yourself.

Iraq was Vietnam Redux from the very beginning.

[Woolygimp]

Casualties in Iraq are 15% of what they were in Vietnam.

Besides, Bush didn't lie about the WMD's as two high ranking Iraqi generals have confirmed that they were moved to Syria in 2002.

[DVaut1]

Instead of "Future Lies About Iraq", maybe we could call this thread "baseless right-wing conspiracy narratives straight off the pages of FreeRepublic":

[ QUOTE ]
Besides, Bush didn't lie about the WMD's as two high ranking Iraqi generals have confirmed that they were moved to Syria in 2002.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's see what the Bush Administration's hand-picked weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has to say on this:

Arms Move to Syria 'Unlikely,' Report Says

"The Bush administration's senior weapons inspector said in a report released last night that it was "unlikely" that Saddam Hussein's forces moved weapons to Syria."

"On Syria, the report said that "no information gleaned from questioning Iraqis supported the possibility" that weapons were moved out of the country before the invasion, which was one theory about why no unconventional weapons were found."

[Woolygimp]

[ QUOTE ]

Arms Move to Syria 'Unlikely,' Report Says
By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: April 26, 2005

------------------------

Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says

By IRA STOLL
Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 26, 2006



[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, look at those dates. Isn't it interesting that [you] are trying to disprove an article written in 2006 by one written from 2005?

Let me go find an article from 1938 that states that Germany has no plans for war and then use it to disprove that World War II even took place.

[iron81]

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't it interesting that [you] are trying to disprove an article written in 2006 by one written from 2005?

[/ QUOTE ]
What article?

[andyfox]

"Casualties in Iraq are 15% of what they were in Vietnam."

Good thing, then, that we're not following the "successful" counter-insurgency tactics we followed in Vietnam.

Immediately after 9/11 virtually nobody in America thought Saddam Hussein had any connection with it. On the eve of the invasion, a majority of Americans did. How did that happen?

Colin Powell, 2-24-01:
"He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

Powell, 5-15-01:
"The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems or to actually have these kinds of systems that is much beyond where they were 10 years ago."

Condoleezza Rice, 7-29-01:
"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

[John Kilduff]

[ QUOTE ]
"Casualties in Iraq are 15% of what they were in Vietnam."

Good thing, then, that we're not following the "successful" counter-insurgency tactics we followed in Vietnam.

Immediately after 9/11 virtually nobody in America thought Saddam Hussein had any connection with it. On the eve of the invasion, a majority of Americans did. How did that happen?

Colin Powell, 2-24-01:
"He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

Powell, 5-15-01:
"The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems or to actually have these kinds of systems that is much beyond where they were 10 years ago."

Condoleezza Rice, 7-29-01:
"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice find on the quotes [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I think this bolsters the contention that the administration actually lied instead of merely having applied a bit of spin when overselling the war.

[natedogg]

Fantastic post. Well done and I appreciate the insight from one who's seen both debacles go down. Your comparisons make sense to me. I haven't paid close attention to Iraq and wouldn't have caught this repetition of history. Thanks.

natedogg

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
Casualties in Iraq are 15% of what they were in Vietnam.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is a very misleading figure because injuries aren't taken into account. Thousands of soldiers are losing legs, arms, and getting permanent brain damage - worse than any other war. The injuries are more severe because soldiers now have Kevlar vests and greatly improved medical techniques and response times, which saves a lot of people with disfiguring injuries who would otherwise have died. But the damage of a lost leg, arm or a concussion lasts a lifetime. You rarely hear these statistics - they should be regularly reported with numbers of dead.

http://icasualties.org/oif/woundedchart.aspx (stats from the DOD)

Iraq injuries differ from past wars: More amputations, brain traumas: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...ver-side_x.htm
Brain injuries high http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=5445
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Sep4.html

[canis582]

Regardless of the number of lives and injuries in Iraq, it is draining our treasury at an alarming rate for very little reward. The ROI of the Iraq war is like -99 percent.