[Reuters] U.S. Prewar Intelligence Saw Possible Iraq Insurgency

Do you have any doubt that we could have decimated Fallujah a couple of months ago if we had really wanted to? We could do it now if we really wanted to?

The problem is political more than military.

Why in the world would some Iraqis prefer an insurgency which is knowingly slaughtering Iraqi citizens over the US-inspired democracy?

What makes you think that I think that casualties were not to be expected?

If, if, if.... precious hindsight.

 

Impossible, since our post 9/11 foreign policy has increased the number of Islamic "die hard fanatics" tenfold. You simply cannot win a war on an "ism" with sheer military force, and George W. Bush is too stupid to realize this truth. Yet another reason to vote him out.

 

Because the US Military has slaughtered more Iraqi civilians than the insurgents have.

 

Horsehockey! There was a honeymoon period-- even the writer of this article references it. That would have been just after this "slaughter" (as you call it) of Iraqi citizens during the major military action that took out Saddam, Uday, and Qusay..

Explain that. Can you?

 

I read a rather convincing article about this. It argued that things were fairly peaceful at first until Bremer laid off 400,000 Iraqis during the immediate privatization of industry. Further companies were stripped of jobs due to farming out labor, production, etc. to foreign companies. Then resistance started popping up. Pre-war Iraq was one of the world's biggest cement producers, now they are not even being used to build the giant defense walls around US occupied buildings. US companies are building them with imported cement for about 5-10 times the cost.

I think that is just one of a few reasons (another being that it took a while for terrorists from other countires to get in and start), but I found it convincing and stupid for the US.

 

So the article essentially blames the unrest on privatization and the outsourcing of jobs? I'm sorry, but this sounds like a direct pull from the liberals' domestic talking points agenda. Rimbo, do you have a link to the article? It sounds woefully superficial in its analysis. Please share the link.

 

Not really, just that it could explain part of it. The article was mostly about how the violence was hurting the US policies because companies are now much more hesitant to go into Iraq.

It included interviews with people who had worked or still "worked" at various factories where they expressed great resentment and felt they were being shamed. Again, I thought it did a decent job making this point.

I didn't read it online. And it is Rambo.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with this and I can understand Iraqi disappoinment. What makes them think that the religious tyrants will be better for them?

It's a sad day when the devil you don't know has some more appeal than the one you do know.

 

Because that's pretty much what you said earlier.

I agree though with you that this is very much a political problem. My own view is that if we had provided security and stopped most of the looting directly following Saddam's fall the negative feelings towards us from many Iraqis might not have existed to fuel the insurgency.

As far as "If If" true its too late now to go back and resolve things in Iraq but the fact that this Admin had been told by many people they needed to plan for the worst in regards to aftermath of the fall of Saddam and didn't do it should be held against them for this current election.

 

let's see what else the reports mentions as possibilities:

- sectarian violence
- seizure of the oil fields in the north by Kurds and in the South by Shiites
- a humanitarian and refugee crisis
- the possible use by Saddam of "chemical or biological weapons against his own people and coalition forces."
- suggests that the Iraqi police and regular army could be relied upon to provide order in Iraq after the invasion.

did any of these happen? and most egregiouslt, there's no mention in the report of Zarqawi, although it does say " rogue ex-regime elements could forge an alliance with existing terrorist organizations or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare against the new government or coalition forces."

whoops! i thought there were no terrorists in iRaq until we invaded!?!

 

The intel stated specifically that there would be insurgency, and quite possibility guerilla war there.

That is certainly specific enough to take action to be prepared for.

If you or a president is going to look at intel reports and say they are just possible scenarios so there isn't anything to be done with them, then why even have intel reports?

Certainly when the group put out the report that overestimated Iraq's WMD capacity Bush didn't dismiss it.

However when it warned of insurgency and guerilla war, it was ignored.

Now that the new report says the worst we can expect from Iraq and the BEST we can expect is chaos, Bush insulted the Intel community by saying they were just guessing.

These are not guesses. These reports made after studying situations, analyzing extensive e-mail etc.

This President's administration ignored the reports and sent troops in unprepared for what was to come.

It has nothing to do with being an armchair president, and everything to do with being prepared, and if the president fails to be prepared, then taking responsibility and holding those who make the mistakes that cost lives, and possibily the well being of a nation, accountable for their errors.

 

But they are all scenarios to be prepared for. They should have plans contingent on which scenario(s) come into play. This administration was not prepared.

 

Got a link?

 

one in five people around the world is favoring the out of bush administration, 33 of the 35 nations surveyed is favoring kerry...

while I don't know what's the stat before the Iraq war, I'd imagine countries like French or Germany or British wouldn't be so against U.S. at that time...


oh, more more thing, a couple dozen of chinese poster started a petition in a chinese forum to ask ppl to support Bush for one more term, and the petition was quite widely supported.



-- their reason? Let Mr. Bush running around mad with scissors and mess up more, so China can catch up!


talk about international distaste of the Bush administration...

 

sorry, four in five ppl is favoring the out of Bush admin. not the other way around.

 

Uh...ok...

How 'bout a link that says what RMTex asserts in the post that I quoted?

 

lol. that's RMTex's job.

I'm just trying to say that it should be pretty obvious that the Iraq war hasn't been viewed favourably in the international scene...

 

bfd

 

I'm voting for the first candidate who say this in the debate.

 

The article that I read included the following phrases:

"...could lead to rogue elements."

"... did not call them insurgents..."

"... it raised the possibility of guerilla warfare..."

" ... high degree of possible insurgency and unrest..."

You are far more certain of this than the author of this article. Why?

And worse, you depict the Americans as totally unprepared. That is simply not true. Total unpreparedness leads to getting routed. That has not happened.