Been Done to Death? (Iraq War)

[Camelopard]

Ok, so the illegal war in Iraq has been debated to death on this forum, however I'm surprised that no-one has picked up on any of the testomonies coming out of the Chilcot Inquiry in the UK at the moment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10693001


The former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller is currently before the inquiry.

"Baroness Manningham-Buller said she had advised officials a year before the war that the threat posed by Iraq to the UK was "very limited", and she believed that assessment had "turned out to be the right judgement".
Describing the intelligence on Iraq's weapons threat as "fragmentary", she said: "If you are going to go to war, you need to have a pretty high threshold to decide on that."
In a previously secret document from 2002, Baroness Manningham-Buller wrote to the Home Office saying: "We assess that Saddam is only likely to order terrorist attacks if he perceives that the survival of his regime is threatened." "


"Our involvement in Iraq, for want of a better word, radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam," she said, before immediately correcting herself by adding "not a whole generation, a few among a generation".


"What Iraq did was produce fresh impetus on people prepared to engage in terrorism," she said, adding that she could produce evidence to back this up."

"The Iraq war heightened the extremist view that the West was trying to bring down Islam. We gave Bin Laden his jihad."


In a newly declassified document, published by the inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller told the senior civil servant at the Home Office in March 2002 that there was no evidence that Iraq had any involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
While there were reports of links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, there was no intelligence to suggest meaningful co-operation between the two.


http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/48051/letter-manninghambuller-gieve.pdf

[Hondo]

Why would you be surprised? Have you failed to notice anything is only wrong if the US does it? You, being amongst the anti-USA cheerleaders on here, should have realized that yourself. How can you blame Britain or any other country for deeds in Iraq or Afghanistan when it's obvious the USA duped or pressured the weak-minded fools into going along with it so the US could have all the world's oil? I mean, if you give an otherwise harmless mental retard a candy bar to throw a brick through a window and he does it, can you really blame the retard?

[Camelopard]

Geez, I should learn how to spell, damn 15 minute rule, didn't head honcho say some time ago that begrudgingly he would make it half an hour?
http://www.motorsportforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136751&highlight=timeout


ok, ok! I've increased it to 30 minutes. But if the post is edited after 15 minutes it will have "Edited" at the bottom.


Anyway, of course I meant "testimonies"!

OK back to the subject, please show me anywhere in the above where I have made a comment about the USA. I'm very even handed actually, I'll will take issue with anything, person or country that I disagree with....... Want to trawl through my posts, didn't think so, you probably have much more important stuff to do.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/20/iraq-inquiry-eliza-manningham-buller

"There was no evidence of any link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida – not even the CIA believed that – Manningham-Buller reminded the inquiry as she pointed to the alternative agenda-driven "intelligence service" set up at the Pentagon by Donald Rumsfeld."


"Arguably, she added, it was the US and Britain who, by invading Iraq, "gave Osama bin Laden the Iraqi jihad"."

[anthonyvop]

Ok, so the illegal war in Iraq has been debated to death on this forum,


It has?

First time I heard of a debate on an "Illegal War" in Iraq. I have heard of wars against the terrorism supporting, genocidal Iraq but never heard of any "Illegal War"

[Mark in Oshawa]

Illegal war? Gee, I thought the penalty of not following UN Sanctions ending the first Gulf War stated very clearly that it not followed, the Allies (US and UK among others ) had reserved to right to commence the war again...

Iraq may be in retrospect a bad idea, and god knows all the political weasels in the intelligence community in the UK seem to be very happy now to say it was wrong, but it was never illegal.

You want to state Iraq was a bad idea, Fine. Also state then the legality of it based on the UN resolutions ending the first Gulf War (where that nice Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait for fun and profit, and created a mess of enviromental damage much like the current mess in the Gulf for fun). The UN GAVE the USA and UK that latitude. At best, you could argue it is a gray area...but in no way would anyone reading those resolutions be confused about the reality that the ultimate green light was given to UN members who enforced the cease fire.

Iraq was a very expensive exercise in what not to do when dealing with a despot, not that I wish he was back ( I don't) ; but in the ultimate end game of what was created from it. The unintended consequences in how the war on terror evolved from Iraq came about however from Rumsfeld's stupidity in insisting he had a plan for the peace and he didn't. He botched it, gave the Islamic terrorist groups new life and new oxygen.

That said, all the critics who are fond of saying "see I told you so" were guessing their @sses off on a lot of what has happened in my opinion. The reality is Iraq's democracy is working to an extent, and after the Surge, control of the country has solidified. If all of this had been done, a lot may have been different.

A dumb war, improperly planned and cleaned up on afterwards, but not illegal.

[Dave B]

Our Deputy PM has a "long held personal belief" that the Iraq war is illegal:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10715629

[Camelopard]

Hmmm, notice that as yet no-one has refuted the claims made by the good lady baroness, so far most responses have concentrated on me, it was my anti US opinion that caused me to post this thread, then it was comments about my reference to the war being 'illegal'.

Ho hum, shoot the messenger! :)

Come on guys, forget about me, was the former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller incorrect in HER observations?


By the way who added (Iraq War) to the thread heading? It certainly wasn't me, seems there should be some sort of disclaimer put there to that effect.

[anthonyvop]

Hmmm, notice that as yet no-one has refuted the claims made by the good lady baroness, so far most responses have concentrated on me, it was my anti US opinion that caused me to post this thread, then it was comments about my reference to the war being 'illegal'.

Ho hum, shoot the messenger! :)

Come on guys, forget about me, was the former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller incorrect in HER observations?



OK.

Who cares what she thinks? The fact she uses the title of "baroness" is enough to not care what that self-promoting twit has to say.

BTW. Once the US congress approved action in Iraq it became legal.

So move on...No story here.

[Dave B]

OK.

Who cares what she thinks? The fact she uses the title of "baroness" is enough to not care what that self-promoting twit has to say.
The title was given to her, I don't know if she uses it in day-to-day business. Either way, that on its own hardly makes her opinion more or less worthy.


BTW. Once the US congress approved action in Iraq it became legal.

So move on...No story here.
Not necessarily. Not saying you're right or wrong, but Kofi Annan did say in 2004 that the war breached the UN Charter:


The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal.

Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish."
He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq

Annan's point of view has never been tested in court, but the point remains that just because the USA says it's legal it ain't necessarily so.

[Roamy]

Not necessarily. Not saying you're right or wrong, but Kofi Annan did say in 2004 that the war breached the UN Charter:

Ha Ha who cares what this cheating idiot has to say?

The UN claims it is illegal for people to bear firearms- F____ them and while you are at it move the headquarters to TIRE

[Dave B]

Who cares what she thinks? The fact she uses the title of "baroness" is enough to not care what that self-promoting twit has to say.


Ha Ha who cares what this cheating idiot has to say?


I must take a moment to veer off-topic and state for the public record how much admiration I have for your debating skills.



There.

[anthonyvop]

The title was given to her, I don't know if she uses it in day-to-day business. Either way, that on its own hardly makes her opinion more or less worthy.


Not necessarily. Not saying you're right or wrong, but Kofi Annan did say in 2004 that the war breached the UN Charter:



The UN? The UN can make all the rules it wants. We follow the ones we want and ignore those we don't.
Any rule made by the UN has no weight in the US justice system unless it is approved by Congress and signed into law by the President.
The UN isn't in any way, shape or form a governmental body that I or most Americans acknowledge. With good reason
The US is a sovereign nation and the thought that a country like Burkina Faso or Bhutan has a say in what we do is laughable at best and dangerous at worst.

[Eki]

The UN? The UN can make all the rules it wants. We follow the ones we want and ignore those we don't.

So do Iran and North Korea.

So why should the UN and the rest of the world take the US more seriously than we take Iran and North Korea? You're all just a bunch of assholes.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Who cares what she thinks? The fact she uses the title of "baroness" is enough to not care what that self-promoting twit has to say.
.

So I work with a girl who will gain the title of Baroness when she marries her fiancé. Does this mean her opinion all of a sudden becomes less valid. :rolleyes:

[anthonyvop]

So I work with a girl who will gain the title of Baroness when she marries her fiancé. Does this mean her opinion all of a sudden becomes less valid. :rolleyes:

If she uses it then......YES.

[anthonyvop]

So do Iran and North Korea.

So why should the UN and the rest of the world take the US more seriously than we take Iran and North Korea? You're all just a bunch of assholes.
I love jealous rants.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

If she uses it then......YES.

Do you want to explain your opinion?

Just bluntly saying that someone who gains a title through marriage is inferior to another person isn't very constructive.

[Tazio]

Ok, so the illegal war in Iraq has been debated to death on this forum, however I'm surprised that no-one has picked up on any of the testomonies coming out of the Chilcot Inquiry in the UK at the moment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10693001


The former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller is currently before the inquiry.

"Baroness Manningham-Buller said she had advised officials a year before the war that the threat posed by Iraq to the UK was "very limited", and she believed that assessment had "turned out to be the right judgement".
Describing the intelligence on Iraq's weapons threat as "fragmentary", she said: "If you are going to go to war, you need to have a pretty high threshold to decide on that."
In a previously secret document from 2002, Baroness Manningham-Buller wrote to the Home Office saying: "We assess that Saddam is only likely to order terrorist attacks if he perceives that the survival of his regime is threatened." "


"Our involvement in Iraq, for want of a better word, radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam," she said, before immediately correcting herself by adding "not a whole generation, a few among a generation".


"What Iraq did was produce fresh impetus on people prepared to engage in terrorism," she said, adding that she could produce evidence to back this up."

"The Iraq war heightened the extremist view that the West was trying to bring down Islam. We gave Bin Laden his jihad."


In a newly declassified document, published by the inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller told the senior civil servant at the Home Office in March 2002 that there was no evidence that Iraq had any involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
While there were reports of links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, there was no intelligence to suggest meaningful co-operation between the two.


http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/48051/letter-manninghambuller-gieve.pdf

I don't actually care if it was legal or illegal. It was Ill conceived, on faulty and fake intelligence. "The Coalition of the Willing" had domestic issues much more important than the day to day life of your average Iraqi!
As for the U.N. we made claims that were contested vigorously at the time!
and never propperly addressed, or considered untill they were fully justified.
But the top level of our government was hell bent on going to war.
As for the Brits involvement;
The only real responsibility that I consider meaningful is that your country drew the lines that separated the like peoples of Persia after WW1. They had proven that they were willing to fight for unification, and in my opinion did. However the U.S. had to step in on the side of Iraq and back a guy named Saddam Hussein in order to preserve that country’s sovereignty!
The rest is a mess that we need to let the people of Iraq sort out on their own. I've held this opinnion for a long time, and yes it's been done to death.
Just my two cents!

[Roamy]

One thing you TIRE's fail to remember in your incessant criticism of the war is that Saddam and family were offered free passage to Syria with billions of dollars in hand. In addition he could have waved the white flag the day after and got the same deal.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Hmmm, notice that as yet no-one has refuted the claims made by the good lady baroness, so far most responses have concentrated on me, it was my anti US opinion that caused me to post this thread, then it was comments about my reference to the war being 'illegal'.

Ho hum, shoot the messenger! :)

Come on guys, forget about me, was the former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller incorrect in HER observations?


By the way who added (Iraq War) to the thread heading? It certainly wasn't me, seems there should be some sort of disclaimer put there to that effect.

I am not refuting her claims. This topic has been beating to death. I took you to task only on claiming the war illegal. You note I think in retrospect that the war was badly bungled and likely was not worth the cost, but that is retrospect talking. The condition the world was in as of 2001 and 2002 indicated a lot of scary prospects that obviously scared Mr. Blair as well as George W. Bush. If the Labour party of that time didn't have the guts to bail out over this then, for them to be carping now and trying to discredit the decision just makes them armchair critics and cowards...

Where was their principles then? They held their noses and backed their leader....

[Mark in Oshawa]

One thing you TIRE's fail to remember in your incessant criticism of the war is that Saddam and family were offered free passage to Syria with billions of dollars in hand. In addition he could have waved the white flag the day after and got the same deal.
Oh don't bring that fact up. Or bring up the fact he could have let the UN and look at everything they wanted to look at an defused Bush's pretences for war too....

People keep forgetting the role Saddam's stubborness played in all of this. It is convenient to just make villians out of Blair and Bush, but it ignores the reality their ambition to take Saddam out is defused 100% if he does what you suggest, or had been more up front with the UN. IN short, as I have said before, he was playing poker and bluffing his head off when his opposition had 2 aces down and the flop in their favour....

[Camelopard]

I love jealous rants.

yep, in particular when they come from you, guess you would love to called baron or even baroness, it would very much suit your mental disorder. :p

whoops, done a fousto here, way off topic......

[Camelopard]

It is convenient to just make villians out of Blair and Bush,


and very convenient to to forget how much money the 'war machine' would make from all this thanks to guys like Cheney and companies like GE, boeing, hallibutrtom, kbr, blackwater et all.......



My shares are doing very nicely thanks! :)

[Tazio]

Those of us that were against the war in real time had very good reasons to doubt our governments judgment. Iraq was asked to make an accounting of its WMD's. They promptly turned over a document larger than 700 pages to which "We" said was incomplete in the period of less than 48 hours. Obviously we did not know what they had.
If I was in the position of a leader in a hostile environment like the Middle East, I would like to leave Iran, as well as the rest of the neighborhood thinking I had some form of serious deterrent to attack! It’s a poker hand Saddam played and we all lost. Before that the lobbing of a cruise missile into Iraq every once in a while was quite effective, after we had cut his balls off in the first Gulf War.

[Mark in Oshawa]

and very convenient to to forget how much money the 'war machine' would make from all this thanks to guys like Cheney and companies like GE, boeing, hallibutrtom, kbr, blackwater et all.......



My shares are doing very nicely thanks! :)

Of course it has never occured to you that Boeing makes their money off civilian airliners and those sales are driven down by terrorist acts? As for Halliburton, they are an oil services company. They are a legal company as well. I guess this war was for BP? OH" I know...George W. Bush did it all because he had shares in it all? Provide the proof? Show me a politician in the western world who hasn't taken money in political donations by lobbiests and big business.

I would have to say you want proof of how incestiously crooked all of this is, which Presidential candidate took the most money in the US last election from Wall St. Firms. A hint...it wasn't McCain. BP gave more money to Obama last election too.

Your assertions that this war was a war for money is utter left wing tripe that is trotted out all the time. I guess the chant this was a war for "Cheap" oil doesn't resonate anymore because the oil never was cheap through all of it...

The fact is it was a political decision made on faulty intelligence given to the leaders of the USA and UK by many sources all trying to curry favour to their political masters. In short, telling them what they either wanted to hear, or what they thought was convenient....

Funny, no one holds them to account for any of this. SDECE and the MI units of British intelligence, plus the CIA and a few other services ALL thought Saddam had a secret weapons program. He didn't as it turns out....but there was more than enough speculation.

[Eki]

One thing you TIRE's fail to remember in your incessant criticism of the war is that Saddam and family were offered free passage to Syria with billions of dollars in hand. In addition he could have waved the white flag the day after and got the same deal.
Do you think Bush would have folded and waved the white flag if he had been offered billions of dollars and a free trip to Canada?

[Roamy]

Do you think Bush would have folded and waved the white flag if he had been offered billions of dollars and a free trip to Canada?

pretty stupid EKI - Bush had the power to survive and you know
Saddam did not. The fact is that he was a F_____ idiot.

but I would have just had special ops pop him and his family and never spent the money on a war. I have said too many times we need to be out of the war business.

Now we may have to pop N. Korea. Never ending. But hopefully only by air - NO MORE BOOTS on The Ground.

I worry about Korea downing commercial airliners to. Maybe the can load up some Kia's with bombs and protect themselves in S. Korea.

[Eki]

pretty stupid EKI - Bush had the power to survive and you know
Saddam did not. The fact is that he was a F_____ idiot.


Maybe, but he obviously wasn't in the job for money alone. He liked power and didn't want to look "weak". He was a bit like anthonyvop in that. Well, vop probably would have taken the money.

[Rani]

Now we may have to pop N. Korea. Never ending. But hopefully only by air - NO MORE BOOTS on The Ground.

Too bad wars can't be won like that. After the initial strike (as effective as it may be) you're just moving rubble around.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Do you think Bush would have folded and waved the white flag if he had been offered billions of dollars and a free trip to Canada?
Who would offer him the money and what makes you think he was popular here?? lol

I take heat all the time from my fellow citizens who just believe what Jon Stewart told them about Bush....

Smart people realize he made some questionable calls, but he was not quite the idiot people want him to be either..