155 posts tagged “iraq”

While the story about Iraq's yellowcake does not seem to be a very big deal since the UN has known about it following the first Gulf War, it does make me think about Saddam a bit more.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

Even if you don't think about the implications of such a stockpile with Iraq falling into the hands of Iran, think about this:

Would you trust Saddam in 5, 10, 15 years (if we didn't invade) with 550 metric tons of concentrated uranium?

I wonder if he was saving it for his sons and their future regimes?  Uday and Qusay?

I wonder if some of that yellowcake went to Syria for their program prior to Israeli attack?

Why didn't the UN remove this over the 10 year post-Gulf war period?  Was it too hard?  Were they too weak to do so?

The Nigeria yellowcake story it seemed to me was a big deal because of the thoughts and implications of such potential material in Saddam's hands.  Why didn't the U.S. push for the removal of all of the material he already had then?

It just reinforces, in my mind, the uselessness of the United Nations when it comes to dealing with aggressive regimes.  And it reinforces the uncertainty of what Saddam's intentions were with such material (from when he was originally trying to build nuclear capability back in the early 80s to what he might have done with it in the future).

This post makes a good point about Chamberlain in 1938.  The author posts about a Chris Matthews' interview with Kevin James.

MATTHEWS: You don't know what you're talking about. Your problem, Kevin, is, you don't know what you're talking about.

And the problem is, you don't understand there's a difference between talking to the enemy and appeasing. What Neville Chamberlain did wrong, most people would say, is not talking to Hitler, but giving him half of Czechoslovakia in '38. That's what he did wrong, not talking to somebody.

And maybe he has a point.  It is one thing to talk to your enemy, but it is another to give him something.  But what I think is not being spoken here is the true underlying text of Iraq.

If we leave Iraq and if we talk about making Iran/Syria take responsibility for the situation over there -- that is in fact a de facto appeasement, a land give in essence.  With the Iranians trying to subvert our strides in Iraq, they are making the case for not working with us.  And if we leave Iraq, with no real support, we are essentially giving the Iranians a puppet state. 

That is worse than out in the open appeasement.  It is essentially a under the table land deal.  By handing responsibility over to the Iranians -- we are basically holding up a middle finger to Iraq while giving the keys to Iran and saying we don't want to deal with this anymore.

You have to see that by letting Iran and Syria be the ones that create stability in the region, you have to figure their stability is different from what we want.  Their stability would entail a puppet regime running Iraq with them pulling the strings.  That is something we definitely don't want.

In 1938, I am sure the Czechoslovakians felt the deal was fair and just as other powers toyed with what was theirs.  Imagine what the Iraqis must feel with the political rhetoric being thrown around here.

Looks like the Iraqis are seeing major progress.

Here is the latest from the LA Times regarding the barbs being traded between McCain and Obama over Iraq:

Reacting Wednesday morning in Tyler, Texas, McCain taunted: "I have some news: Al Qaeda is in Iraq. . . . It's called 'Al Qaeda in Iraq.' " Some in the town-hall audience laughed.

"If we left . . . they wouldn't be establishing a base," the Arizona Republican said. "They'd be taking a country, and I'm not going to allow that to happen, my friends."

Obama responded at a rally in the sports arena at Ohio State University in Columbus. "I have some news for John McCain," the Illinois Democrat said, leaning into the crowd for emphasis. "There was no such thing as 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

Brilliant comeback.  How original.

The funny thing about this exchange is that to me McCain wins.  McCain is (and has always) been the one pointing to the Bush administration with regard to the foul ups they have presided over when it came to Iraq.  And when McCain points out the obvious with an invitation to tell the world what you are going to do about it -- Obama recoils to the old Bush got us into this mess line.  But what he isn't saying is that his position is to leave Iraq ASAP (which in turn will allow al Qaeda Iraq to get stronger, not weaker).

McCain's plan of supporting the surge is at least a constructive plan that is geared toward helping the Iraqis.

Al Qaeda is in Iraq and blaming why they are there doesn't amount to a hill of beans of how we are going to deal with them.

I am reminded of a scene from Apollo 13 where there is a heated exchange between the two crew members over what caused the explosion on the spacecraft and Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) has to intervene:

[after a dispute has broken out between Haise and Swigert]
Jim Lovell: All right, we're not doing this, gentlemen. We are *not* doing this. We're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes, 'cause we're just going to end up back here with the same problems! Try to figure out how to stay alive!

And that is how I feel about Iraq.  We need to solve the problem and the current surge is doing more to take on al Qaeda Iraq than what we were doing before.  The more we support the Iraqis, the more they will be able to take on al Qaeda by themselves.  But the damage is done, the oxygen tank has already exploded, and our *presence* in Iraq is all but assured for some time.

I would prefer for Obama to be straight with his supporters with respect to that obvious point; however, he doesn't choose to see the obvious and neither do his supporters.  And for that -- I cannot support such a candidate with regards to the Iraq issue.

Do you think it is as simple as pulling out all of our troops from Iraq?  Well guess what, nothing is ever that simple.

McCain is right about one thing and that is the Iraq issue will help or hinder him.  And as long as it continues to work and Petraeus works his plan -- the more I think Obama will lose in November.

People making arguments against scientists in the global warming skeptic camp because they are funded by big oil won't want to defend this study now as accurate?  Or is this study still defendable?

The Times Online had this story about that Lancet Iraq study:

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

There is no doubt that many Iraqis died as a result of the Iraq invasion.  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, trying to justify the war because there may be *less* dead Iraqis that previously assessed.  But I do find it interesting that Soros financially backed the Lancet study.  If there can be arguments against skeptical scientists who receive funding from oil companies, ergo their climate change conclusions are suspect, then I think the same can be said about this study with regard to Iraqi causalties.

Here is a wikipedia link discussing the Lancet study and here is a link to the NEJM UN/EC/WHO article.  Read them for yourself.  You decide.

Is this just a coincidental case where the science was flawed and it happened to be from a financial source that had political interest in inflated numbers?  Is it a situation where the money *helped* the statistical models?  Or is it still a legitimate estimate of the number of Iraqis that have died due to the invasion and the war?

We all know from a military perspective the surge is working.  But the intention behind the surge is designed to give the Iraqis time to sort out their political differences.  Well, Ed Morrissey talks about the Iraqi government's latest move, de-Baathification, that addresses another one of benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress.

This allows Sunnis to retake their jobs and join the Shi'ites and Kurds in administering government functions, especially in Sunni areas. It gives them a stake in the new, representative government instead of being shut out of it. Sunnis will now have every reason to support the central government in Baghdad rather than attempting to undermine it to get back what they lost in the fall of Saddam, and they won't need to again adopt the fascist Ba'ath principles to do so.

This looks like progress to me. It's progress that wouldn't have come without lowering the violence and removing the provocations and depredations of al-Qaeda in Iraq. That wouldn't have happened at all had we not ramped up our efforts and taken a much more aggressive posture against the terrorists -- and the Sunnis would not have cooperated if we hadn't signaled so strongly that we intended to beat AQI and stick it out.

The Iraqis are stepping up to the plate, albeit slowly.

As Urban Lenny puts it:

Let us remember that a reduction in violence in Iraq was not the goal of the "surge"; rather it was a means to the real goal of the troop escalation: political reconciliation between Iraq's religious and political factions that results in lasting peace and stability for the Iraqi people.

Well, I agree.  And I think you have to say this a continued move in the right direction.  Let us check off another one.

(ii) Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification.

Austin Bay's prediction.

John Batiste and Pete Hegseth via a Washington Post opinion article:

We are veterans of the Iraq war with vastly different experiences. Both of us commanded troops in Iraq. We, too, held seemingly entrenched, and incompatible, views upon our return. One of us spoke out against mismanagement of the war -- failed leadership, lack of strategy and misdirection. The other championed the cause of successfully completing our mission.

Our perspectives were different, yet not as stark as the "outspoken general" and "stay-the-course supporter" labels we received. Such labels are oversimplified and inaccurate, and we are united behind a greater purpose.

It's time to discuss the way forward rather than prosecute the past. Congress must do the same, for our nation and the troops.

The bandwagon is getting bigger and here is the kicker courtesy of Michael Goldfarb:

There are two stories here: 1) A formerly anti-war general flips on supporting the war, and now believes Petraeus has the right strategy; and 2) Batiste has left VoteVets.org, and the antiwar movement, and joined up with the pro-troop, pro-surge, pro-victory Vets for Freedom.

The antiwar movement has lost one of its most powerful voices today, and it will be interesting to see whether they turn on one of their own, or come around to the view, supported by a preponderance of evidence, that the surge is working.

I like those words -- the "preponderance of evidence."  I wonder what is like when those silly things called facts get into the way of arguments.  Maybe we should ask Harry Reid?  Or Murtha?

I guess when Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act supporting regime change and when he went with his little four day bombing campaign known as Operation Desert Fox, he wasn't seriously contemplating military options in removing Saddam Hussein.  They were just for show.  (And don't forget his continued support of the no fly zones during his presidential tenure.)

And let's not forget what Al Gore, his Vice President, had to say about Iraq when it was politically convenient to do so...

So hey, seeing a Clinton doing politically expedient things (like appeal to his base while stumping for his wife and say he didn't support the Iraq war from the beginning) shouldn't come as a surprise to any of us...  The question is do you want somebody like that in the White House?  I mean Hillary flip-flopped on her support for the war too...  (But I guess to Bill it isn't a flip flop if you try to correct the history from the beginning of the position)...

Look at Rudy, at least he can admit to his mistakes...

HH: All right. Yesterday on this program, Governor Romney brought up Bernie Kerik. Fair game or below the belt? 

RG: Of course, of course it’s fair game. It’s a mistake. I admit that it’s a mistake. 

HH: Okay.  

RG: I made a mistake. I should have checked him out much more carefully. Part of it came about because he had such excellent results as a corrections commissioner. He brought down violence in the New York City jails by 90%. There was a whole piece on 60 Minutes about it. And he brought down violence in New York City by 20-30%. And he was a hero on September 11, and one of the most decorated officers in New York City, in terms of as a police officer, saving other people’s lives. He had a whole aspect to his personal life that we didn’t know about. And it was my responsibility. We should have known about it, and not put him forward.

Choices are... politicians who can admit to their mistakes and politicians who can't.  I prefer the former...