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

I expected insurgency, didn't you. History certainly supports such a view. Allied forces fought insurgents in post-war Germany for years. If our government was so clueless that they didn't see this coming, well, that's scary.

On the otherhand, I keep getting reports from friends and friends of friends on the ground in Iraq who paint a completely different picture from what is reported in the U.S. media. They talk of going on shopping trips in Bagdad, sight seeing excursions around the city and so on. My military friends report much more Iraq security involvement, and being largely called to "hot spots" the Irag forces can't handle. Why would they be making all this up? I have had two Pakistanian students who claim to have witnessed American reporters paying street people to stage demonstrations,to burn flags, or yell at the cameras. Truth is always the first casualty of war.

Also, I always believed Islam to be a peaceful religion, where is outrage of the taking of civilian hostages and beheading them on video while screaming God is Great! Where is the outrage from Muslim leaders? Surely they do not condone such atrocities, or do they?

 

i think they just auto-default to

threatening israel

 

Are you really playing semantics with this? How can there be a high degree of insurgency without insurgents? I think that the author of the report makes the presumption that by reading about an insurgency, insurgents would be present. There doesn't need to be the actual word insurgents.

Americans were obviously unprepared for this, since Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney discussed the soldiers being treated as liberators, etc.

We weren't routed because we were prepared to take out the Saddam government. We also had a vastly superior army. Saddams army wasn't even half the strength it was for the first gulf war. But the real part that they weren't prepared for was after the fall of the regime.

The Americans weren't prepared or there wouldn't have been the looting of hospitals, the Americans would control more than just a small portion of the capital, they would have enough troops and a plan for providing security and services throughout Iraq. They would have had enough body armor, etc.

They weren't prepared for what they found, despite having been warned.

 

The outrage has been there. Even Hamas was asking for the release of some of the hostages. One of the execs at Al-Arabia television wrote the piece about all world terrorists being muslim, and how bad that was, there were numerous other articles and denunciations of these actions from Muslim leaders all discussed in the this bbs.

Muslim leaders in Iraq have spoken out against Al-Sadr, and the hostage takers as well.

These actions haven't received the same media attention that the beheading etc. have, but if people listen the condemnations are there.

 

That is encouraging and deserves more coverage; Islamic leaders need to get a voice in the media, the image of Islam is being greatly tarnished worldwide. It is difficult not stereotype with sooooooo many negative images.

 

pardon my unfamiliarity with the DoD and english abbreviations in general. anyone mind clarify what's bfd?

 

Big freaking deal....but most people use a word other than freaking...

 

Oh really? Is this a bfd??

According to Franks, Secretary of State Colin Powell contacted him directly, without going through the chain of command, to voice his concern that the U.S. was invading Iraq with a comparatively small, highly-mobile force, instead of the kind of overwhelming massive force such as Powell deployed when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War.

Franks said he considered Powell's views as from a different time and situation.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent..._080304,00.html


And we should pay more attention to... who? The Secretary of State? Or retired General Franks. Did Powell have an "agenda?" Was that agenda possibly an attempt to bring some realism to the planning process before the invasion of Iraq?

Want to know something? I think it's a good thing that Franks retired, because the man was either incompetent, or more interested in telling certain members of the Administration what he thought they wanted to hear.


Keep D&D Civil!!

 

I'm not playing semantics. The article is simple much more tentative than you have concluded it is-- even the title talks about "possible" insurgency. Bush indicates that the report indicated nothing about probabilities but rather just compiled a laundry list of possibilities.

At various times and places <b>then and now</b> we were treated as liberators and we are acting as liberators still.

 

Of course it mentioned possible insurgency. This was intel beforehand. How could there be insurgency before it even happened?

Yes it didn't list the probabilities, but if intel agents analyze the all of their vast network for gathering information, do the research, and their job and list the possibility of isurgency and guerilla war, and the President who is committing troops fails to prepare for that possibility, and invades without that preparation, he needs to take responsibility.

Again if Bush is only going to listen to reports that say what he wants such as the ones that talked about Iraq having WMD(of course that didn't list the probability either, but Bush believed that one.) and not believe or prepare for possibilities that are the fruits of professionals who spend their lives looking at and analyzing data, then why does he have intel services at all? That's not how intel works. They analyze the data and give the reports they almost never say this is 100% going to happen, or not happen. It's up to a wise leader in-tune with events to be able to analyze the data and use it effectively. Just because the report didn't put specific probabilities on their report doesn't excuse a commander in chief for marching in unprepaired.

Let's look at what Bush said in debates 4 years ago.

Bush speaking about commiting troops said the following:

"the force must be strong enough so that mission can be accomplished. And the exit strategy needs to be well defined."

Bush because he ignored the possibilities laid out for him by his intel officers did not have a force strong enough to accomplish the mission, and doesn't have a well defined exit strategy. By Bush's own criteria, he has failed. He won't even admit the mistake now.

 

Why are you trying to implicate that he ignored warnings and did nothing? We may have underestimated the opposition, but that is a far piece from doing nothing.

 

We weren't prepared despite having been warned of the possibilities we now face. Our leadership did not prepare. I didn't say the did nothing. Obviously they are still trying to handle the situation.

If the Rockets scouts warned the coaches that Miami might try and score through the middle using Shaq as their main weapon, and our coaching staff doesn't make any preparations for that, I think they need to be held accountable.

If our leadership was warned that there might be insurgents and guerilla war, and yet we still went into Iraq without a sufficient plan to deal that possibility, then our leadership needs to be held accountable.

It seems like the GOP is big on responsibility and accountability when it comes to people on welfare, but not when it comes to leadership.

 

lol. thanx for the explanation.


but... err... if how the world perceive us is just a bfd, why did we care to "liberate" iraq ppl in the first place? -- or, before that, serbia, or wherever US is involved in... come on, just yell out loud: WE WANT YOUR OIL!


or... I need some external target to avoid people criticising on the slow economy!

Well, poor Mr. Saddam...

 

yes, we bombed belgrade so we could get our greedy mits on that high quality balkan crude...

 

Read the article about General Franks in this thread if you haven't already.

The neocons, particularly Wolfowitz and Rummy, believed that we'd be greeted with open arms, the Iraqi army would switch sides and become part of the solutioninstead of the problem. That would become part of the "Domino Effect" where one prosperous democratic nation in the mideast acts as a beacon of freedom, hastening reform and change.

Though I pray it comes true, it's looking more and more like a fantasy.

You're saying "well duh" now, but if you are, you're the one looking with 20/20 hindsight. It' pretty clear that they didn't expect such a tenacious insurgency- one that wouldn't miss a beat even after the capture of Saddam.

 

How can you say this?

"So the **** what?"

So people are dying for his mistakes, that's what! Hundreds of our soldiers are dying, that's what! That's okay?

This war was planned based upon a best case scenario! When we had the "MISSOIN ACCOMPLISHED" press conference, and about 100 US soldiers were dead, do you think they really expected another 1000 to die in the next year from th insurgency? No, they didn't expect it! Why? Because they were unprepared for this scenario!

Who is dying for this unpreparedness? Who pays for it? Who's being held accountable?

Rummy ignored advice from numerous generals and top-level advisors.

Giddy- you say "It's war! It's messy and unpredictable!" but that's just it- the war wasn't even necessary in the first place! And even if it was, it would have been easy to do it better- build a stronger coalition, have more troops on the ground, at least get Turkey on our side so we can use their airspace and launch a double-front invasion.

You claim that it's easy to criticize in hindsight- these criticisms were present before the invasion! This is the part where we say "We TOLD you so!" And we're right! Wake up! Pull your heads out of the sand!

Okay, I have to ask- why did we go to war? Which of Bush's different stances are you going to give us? The guy has changed his stance so many times on this subject he could debate hiimself.

 

http://bbs2.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84356

 

Nolen, I quoted that part about Franks, and what he thought of Powell's attempt to get him to reconsider the pre-war strategy, from outlaw's posted article, bolded, because I thought it was pretty damning for Franks, and his superiors up the chain of command, to dismiss Powell's advice out of hand... apparently because it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

Reaction? Zero. I guess that's not what Bush's supporters here want to hear. Several members here, on both sides of the fence, and sitting on the fence, have expressed their admiration for Colin Powell. Some have even wished he were running for President today, for either party. And yet we have evidence of Powell doing what many have believed is the main reason he hasn't resigned over Administration policy, which is giving his advice, outside the public eye, in an attempt to influence actions by the Bush Administration with which he disagreed. Here, we have evidence of that, on what turned out to be a vital miscalculation by the Administration, and it's military advisors it chose to listen to, and Powell was just ignored as if irrelevant.

And it means nothing? I think not.


Keep D&D Civil!!