Who Would Have Thought Iraq Would Go to Hell in a Handbasket?
by Pamela LeaveyWho would have thought before the Iraq War started that Iraq would go to hell in a handbasket after the war? Well, evidently some folks did and that info has been kept well under wraps all this time. Surprised? Heck no… Nothing about the liars that gave us the Iraq War is surprising anymore!
Two intelligence assessments from January 2003 predicted that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq could lead to internal violence and provide a boost to Islamic extremists and terrorists in the region, according to congressional sources and former intelligence officials familiar with the prewar studies.
The two assessments, titled “Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq” and “Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq,” were produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and will be a major part of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s long-awaited Phase II report on prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq. The assessments were delivered to the White House and to congressional intelligence committees before the war started.
“Congressional sources,” Walter Pincus reports in the WaPo, “said the two NIC assessments are to be declassified and would be part of a portion of the Phase II report that could be released within the next week.”
The assessment on post-Hussein Iraq included judgments that while Iraq was unlikely to split apart, there was a significant chance that domestic groups would fight each other and that ex-regime military elements could merge with terrorist groups to battle any new government. It even talks of guerrilla warfare, according to congressional sources and former intelligence officials.
The second NIC assessment discussed “political Islam being boosted and the war being exploited by terrorists and extremists elsewhere in the region,” one former senior analyst said. It also suggested that fear of U.S. military dominance and occupation of a Middle East country — one sacred to Islam — would attract foreign Islamic fighters to the area.
According to a “former senior intelligence officer familiar” with the NIC assessments, speaking under “anonymity” (of course), they paint “a very sobering and, as it has turned out, mostly accurate picture of the aftermath of the invasion.”
The former senior official said that after the NIC papers were distributed to senior government officials, he was told by one CIA briefer that a senior Defense Department official had said they were “too negative” and that the papers “did not see the possibilities” the removal of Hussein would present.
A member of the Senate committee, without disclosing the contents of the studies, said recently that the release will raise more questions about the Bush administration’s lack of preparation for the war’s aftermath.
Meanwhile, as more of the truth about Bush’s War based on lies comes to the surface, “Bombings kill 7 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.”
Those deaths brought the number of American troops killed in Iraq since Friday to at least 15 — eight of them in Baghdad. So far, at least 71 U.S. forces have died in Iraq this month — most of them from bombs.
And, the “US surge is failing, says UK’s Iraq envoy.” No kidding… The Surge is failing…
The “troop surge” by American soldiers in Iraq is not working, one of Britain’s senior military officials in Baghdad has said.
In a pessimistic assessment of the strategy designed to pull Iraq back from all-out civil war, Alastair Campbell, the outgoing defence attaché at the British Embassy in Baghdad, claimed that extra US forces were not achieving the desired drop in violence.
Mr Campbell, whose remarks may cause embarrassment to Downing Street and anger in Washington, said that the casualty figures for April – in which 1,500 civilians are believed to have been killed – provided no “encouraging” evidence.
Bring the troops home.
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67-29 is like a flaky apple pie with ice cream topping. Millions of dollars more than the president requested plus the president gets to choose either to veto it or to waive it. All the wheeling and dealing are for a lost cause.
1) Where do the troops go for reployment?
2) What is the plan follws after the pullout?
3) If step one cannot be established, why can’t step two be set up anyway?
4) Even with step one stalls at the gate, shouldn’t step two be ready anyhow?
With everything sets up and ready, who would know what the Americans are up to, when and where the troops come and go? In 2004, two of the many issues JK ran on were ‘intelligence gathering’ and ‘target missions’. ‘No retreat no surrender’ was his song. The book “This Moment on Earth” as successful as it is, does open eyes to how some democrats still hold Kerry in confinement. Girlie men are nasty under their skin. They rather have republicans or anyone else than this fellow democrat on their shows. Truth has everything to do with the inevitable reality. Spin is for suckers of the willing. Wishful thinking before, during and little after Election 08 can be fanatic. But nothing will happen if good legislations are not being pushed forward now. Seriously Senator Kerry, you have a burden to live with. You do not act like a politican, you are the politican. So while waiting for the hugs which will never come, the terrorists are having fun turning Iraq into their www. 67-29 indicated sign of lost in direction. There is no solid and concrete case in place for them to vote otherwise. Proceed only one plan at a time is to change one vote at a time. And guess how long that will take. Partisan or not ain’t matter. What matters is that they are in or they are not in on fighting the American way or the terrorist way.
Dems Set War Bill Without Iraq Timeline
Word has it that “Democrats intend to draft an Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs.” Stuck in the midst of the legislation will be …
[...] Commitment in Iraq.” Perhaps they just don’t care that Iraq has gone to “hell in handbasket.” Someone really needs to figure out how to get us the hell out of there! [...]
I am under-impressed.
“Who would have thought…” Anyone who was not a barbarian. By which I mean any intelligent, educated and reasonably sane person with any knowledge of history (or EVEN WILLINGNESS TO RESEARCH BEFORE LEAPING HEADFIRST UPON SOMETHING). Which apparently counts out this White House.
The British have already done everything to the Iraqis we will think of:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,939608,00.html
“Who would have thought…” just rewrites history. There were literally millions of us protesting around the world before the invasion began who understood full well that this quagmire would be insanity. Don’t help people forget that. Don’t offer fools any quarter. This White House has to be hunted down to accept accountability for their war crimes driven by madness.
SMChris
“Who would have thought” was meant as a facetious statement. Sorry you missed that.
Post Viet Nam left 5,000,000 dead in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam. Post Iraq will leave the following: Kurds-500,000 dead, Sunni’s, 250,000 dead, Shia-700,000 dead. Palestinians-Lebanon-50,000 dead, Palestinians-Israel-50,000 dead.
Whether we like it or not, we can stop this genocide unlike what we allowed to happen in Southeast Asia following Viet Nam. I have not heard one Democratic Candidate nor one Republican Candidate speak openly of this. The military is left holding the political baggage again that men like Clinton and Bush created. Is there not a decent, stand up, take responsibility for what you have done and what you are about to do politician left on this planet. We need to protect the KURDS and the oil! Let the Sunni’s, Shia, Hamas and Fatah kill each other until their hearts are sick of their own blood. The REALITY is most AMERICANS could care less about doing the RIGHT THING. BENFRANKLIN1776
The Kurds have been at once villans and victims, making them no different than anyone else in the area. As for “the oil”, oil in the ground needs no protection. It’ll be fine where it is while things get sorted out, and we don’t need to be part of that process.
Your 5,000,000 number is interesting. Different from anything I’ve ever seen. And your other numbers can only be the rankest from of speculation, assuming you don’t get newspapers a year or two early.
With your reference to Southeast Asia, I assume that you subscribe to that theory that sometimes people have to be killed to save them. If we stay and people die that will be fine, but if we leave and people die that is somehow going to be worse? And if we stay 10 years, thousands of us and them die before we leave, and people die after we leave, will that then be fate?
But most interesting is how Bill Clinton got into this post. He inherited Iraq from Daddy Bush, worsened it not one whit, and passed it along in due course. How, exactly, do you manage to villify him for that?