Iraq - was it worth it?

[legov]

America isn't perfect but I'd rather live in a world where they are making the rules than China or the Russians, if you look at historical periods when the democracies were not ruling the roost it wasn't quite so rosy

Precisely, if things continue screwing up in America they won't be the ones making the rules in a few decades. That is worrying.

[Awol]

Sorry, I'm talking about the Bushes, sorry for the overgeneralisation.

No need to apologise mate, the Bush duo were continuing a trend of poor/average leaders that goes back to LBJ and I don't think the current incumbent is any better.

Not that we are in any position to talk, the last person who ran this place who did something truly amazing was Atlee (NHS), since then we've had a variety of idiotic leaders ranging from pseudo commies to right wing despots!

To think Queen Elizabeth II could have ruled excellently in the national interest for that entire time... *strokes cavalry sabre*...

Anyway back on topic, it's interesting to find both Bush and Blair lied over and over again about not having any record of civillian casualties in Iraq - although the true number must be far in excess of that if you factor in operations like Fallujah.

[legov]

No need to apologise mate, the Bush duo were continuing a trend of poor/average leaders that goes back to LBJ and I don't think the current incumbent is any better.

You include LBJ? Because looking at things from a more idealistic standpoint (civil rights et al) he was a great President.

Of course as you said, too often we, me included, make the error of defining America by its heads of state when really Congress and state governments have more power than the President in reality.

[peterms]

Here's a good piece, from someone who's clearly had a long involvement in trying to uncover some of the secrets of this and other conflicts.

Robert Fisk: The shaming of America

Our writer delivers a searing dispatch after the WikiLeaks revelations that expose in detail the brutality of the war in Iraq - and the astonishing, disgraceful deceit of the US

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who'd been tortured and you'd be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or "collateral damage", or a simple phrase: "We have nothing on that."

Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday's ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I've identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

It's always tempting to avoid a story by saying "nothing new". The "old story" idea is used by governments to dampen journalistic interest as it can be used by us to cover journalistic idleness. And it's true that reporters have seen some of this stuff before. The "evidence" of Iranian involvement in bomb-making in southern Iraq was farmed out to The New York Times's Michael Gordon by the Pentagon in February 2007. The raw material, which we can now read, is far more doubtful than the Pentagon-peddled version. Iranian military material was still lying around all over Iraq from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and most of the attacks on Americans were at that stage carried out by Sunni insurgents. The reports suggesting that Syria allowed insurgents to pass through their territory, by the way, are correct. I have spoken to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers whose sons made their way to Iraq from Lebanon via the Lebanese village of Majdal Aanjar and then via the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to attack the Americans.

But, written in bleak militarese as it may be, here is the evidence of America's shame. This is material that can be used by lawyers in courts. If 66,081 – I loved the "81" bit – is the highest American figure available for dead civilians, then the real civilian mortality score is infinitely higher since this records only those civilians the Americans knew of. Some of them were brought to the Baghdad mortuary in my presence, and it was the senior official there who told me that the Iraqi ministry of health had banned doctors from performing any post-mortems on dead civilians brought in by American troops. Now why should that be? Because some had been tortured to death by Iraqis working for the Americans? Did this hook up with the 1,300 independent US reports of torture in Iraqi police stations?

The Americans scored no better last time round. In Kuwait, US troops could hear Palestinians being tortured by Kuwaitis in police stations after the liberation of the city from Saddam Hussein's legions in 1991. A member of the Kuwaiti royal family was involved in the torture. US forces did not intervene. They just complained to the royal family. Soldiers are always being told not to intervene. After all, what was Lieutenant Avi Grabovsky of the Israeli army told when he reported to his officer in September 1982 that Israel's Phalangist allies had just murdered some women and children? "We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere," Grabovsky was told by his battalion commander. This was during the Sabra and Chatila refugee camp massacre.

The quotation comes from Israel's 1983 Kahan commission report – heaven knows what we could read if WikiLeaks got its hands on the barrels of military files in the Israeli defence ministry (or the Syrian version, for that matter). But, of course, back in those days, we didn't know how to use a computer, let alone how to write on it. And that, of course, is one of the important lessons of the whole WikiLeaks phenomenon.

Back in the First World War or the Second World War or Vietnam, you wrote your military reports on paper. They may have been typed in triplicate but you could number your copies, trace any spy and prevent the leaks. The Pentagon Papers was actually written on paper. You needed to find a mole to get them. But paper could always be destroyed, weeded, trashed, all copies destroyed. At the end of the 1914-18 war, for example, a British second lieutenant shot a Chinese man after Chinese workers had looted a French military train. The Chinese man had pulled a knife on the soldier. But during the 1930s, the British soldier's file was "weeded" three times and so no trace of the incident survives. A faint ghost of it remains only in a regimental war diary which records Chinese involvement in the looting of "French provision trains". The only reason I know of the killing is that my father was the British lieutenant and told me the story before he died. No WikiLeaks then.

But I do suspect this massive hoard of material from the Iraq war has serious implications for journalists as well as armies. What is the future of the Seymour Hershes and the old-style investigative journalism that The Sunday Times used to practise? What is the point of sending teams of reporters to examine war crimes and meet military "deep throats", if almost half a million secret military documents are going to float up in front of you on a screen?

We still haven't got to the bottom of the WikiLeaks story, and I rather suspect that there are more than just a few US soldiers involved in this latest revelation. Who knows if it doesn't go close to the top? In its investigations, for example, al-Jazeera found an extract from a run-of-the-mill Pentagon press conference in November 2005. Peter Pace, the uninspiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is briefing journalists on how soldiers should react to the cruel treatment of prisoners, pointing out proudly that an American soldier's duty is to intervene if he sees evidence of torture. Then the camera moves to the far more sinister figure of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who suddenly interrupts – almost in a mutter, and to Pace's consternation – "I don't think you mean they (American soldiers) have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it."

The significance of this remark – cryptically sadistic in its way – was lost on the journos, of course. But the secret Frago 242 memo now makes much more sense of the press conference. Presumably sent by General Ricardo Sanchez, this is the instruction that tells soldiers: "Provided the initial report confirms US forces were not involved in the detainee abuse, no further investigation will be conducted unless directed by HHQ [Higher Headquarters]." Abu Ghraib happened under Sanchez's watch in Iraq. It was also Sanchez, by the way, who couldn't explain to me at a press conference why his troops had killed Saddam's sons in a gun battle in Mosul rather than capture them.

So Sanchez's message, it seems, must have had Rumsfeld's imprimatur. And so General David Petraeus – widely loved by the US press corps – was presumably responsible for the dramatic increase in US air strikes over two years; 229 bombing attacks in Iraq in 2006, but 1,447 in 2007. Interestingly enough, US air strikes in Afghanistan have risen by 172 per cent since Petraeus took over there. Which makes it all the more astonishing that the Pentagon is now bleating that WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands. The Pentagon has been covered in blood since the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, and for an institution that ordered the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 – wasn't that civilian death toll more than 66,000 by their own count, out of a total of 109,000 recorded? – to claim that WikiLeaks is culpable of homicide is preposterous.

The truth, of course, is that if this vast treasury of secret reports had proved that the body count was much lower than trumpeted by the press, that US soldiers never tolerated Iraqi police torture, rarely shot civilians at checkpoints and always brought killer mercenaries to account, US generals would be handing these files out to journalists free of charge on the steps of the Pentagon. They are furious not because secrecy has been breached, or because blood may be spilt, but because they have been caught out telling the lies we always knew they told.

US official documents detail extraordinary scale of wrongdoing

WikiLeaks yesterday released on its website some 391,832 US military messages documenting actions and reports in Iraq over the period 2004-2009. Here are the main points:

Prisoners abused, raped and murdered

Hundreds of incidents of abuse and torture of prisoners by Iraqi security services, up to and including rape and murder. Since these are itemised in US reports, American authorities now face accusations of failing to investigate them. UN leaders and campaigners are calling for an official investigation.

Civilian death toll cover-up

Coalition leaders have always said "we don't do death tolls", but the documents reveal many deaths were logged. Respected British group Iraq Body Count says that, after preliminary examination of a sample of the documents, there are an estimated 15,000 extra civilian deaths, raising their total to 122,000.

The shooting of men trying to surrender

In February 2007, an Apache helicopter killed two Iraqis, suspected of firing mortars, as they tried to surrender. A military lawyer is quoted as saying: "They cannot surrender to aircraft and are still valid targets."

Private security firm abuses

Britain's Bureau of Investigative Journalism says it found documents detailing new cases of alleged wrongful killings of civilians involving Blackwater, since renamed Xe Services. Despite this, Xe retains extensive US contracts in Afghanistan.

Al-Qa'ida's use of children and "mentally handicapped" for bombing

A teenage boy with Down's syndrome who killed six and injured 34 in a suicide attack in Diyala was said to be an example of an ongoing al-Qa'ida strategy to recruit those with learning difficulties. A doctor is alleged to have sold a list of female patients with learning difficulties to insurgents.

Hundreds of civilians killed at checkpoints

Out of the 832 deaths recorded at checkpoints in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggests 681 were civilians. Fifty families were shot at and 30 children killed. Only 120 insurgents were killed in checkpoint incidents.

Iranian influence

Reports detail US concerns that Iranian agents had trained, armed and directed militants in Iraq. In one document, the US military warns a militia commander believed to be behind the deaths of US troops and kidnapping of Iraqi officials was trained by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

[peterms]

Iraq is arguably the site of the first emergence of civilisation. Their cultures, Ur, Sumer etc, were hardly known for delicacy in interrogating prisoners, or affording them human rights.

Have we progressed so little in so many thousand years? Do we still turn "enemy combatants" over to psychos for torture which we already know will end not in better intelligence about enemy movements, but simply in the death of those interrogated, and the gratification of their tormentors? Give them a little thrill as they cut them up, or shoot them from a helicopter?

[maqroll]

This is more damning than anything Wikileaks has put out...it's also a brilliant documentary...well worth a watch

[Awol]

Do we still turn "enemy combatants" over to psychos for torture which we already know will end not in better intelligence about enemy movements, but simply in the death of those interrogated, and the gratification of their tormentors?

What else were the occupying western forces supposed to do? They couldn't hold Iraqi nationals in custody indefinitely (without massively expanding the popular resort in Cuba) and had no choice but to hand them over to the democratically elected Iraqi civil power. To have done otherwise would suggest that we didn't trust the Iraqi's to run their own affairs - a situation that would have had Fisk and the Guardian et al equally up in arms. Heads you win, tails I lose.

Yes the Iraqi's are brutal feckers but that IS the reality of the Middle East. At great cost to all concerned it's been proven that the western model of liberalism, pluralism and human rights has no cultural traction or historical precedent to build on. In reality it never stood a chance as very many people commented before the neo-cons decided to invade.

When the remaining US forces leave then Iraq will most likely become the proxy battleground of Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, and if a wider war can be avoided (although the Saudi's are preparing now) that will most likely continue until a Saddam clone has the strength to impose his will on everyone else. Good huh?

[maqroll]

Do we still turn "enemy combatants" over to psychos for torture which we already know will end not in better intelligence about enemy movements, but simply in the death of those interrogated, and the gratification of their tormentors?

What else were the occupying western forces supposed to do? They couldn't hold Iraqi nationals in custody indefinitely (without massively expanding the popular resort in Cuba) and had no choice but to hand them over to the democratically elected Iraqi civil power. To have done otherwise would suggest that we didn't trust the Iraqi's to run their own affairs - a situation that would have had Fisk and the Guardian et al equally up in arms. Heads you win, tails I lose.

Yes the Iraqi's are brutal feckers but that IS the reality of the Middle East. At great cost to all concerned it's been proven that the western model of liberalism, pluralism and human rights has no cultural traction or historical precedent to build on. In reality it never stood a chance as very many people commented before the neo-cons decided to invade.

When the remaining US forces leave then Iraq will most likely become the proxy battleground of Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, and if a wider war can be avoided (although the Saudi's are preparing now) that will most likely continue until a Saddam clone has the strength to impose his will on everyone else. Good huh?

Well it was never really about establishing a true democracy, was it?

[Awol]

Well it was never really about establishing a true democracy, was it?

Your lot made the plan so I guess you'd know the answer to that better than us :winkold:

[snowychap]

...plan...

I think I have spotted the flaw in your point.

[maqroll]

...plan...

I think I have spotted the flaw in your point.

A commander was interviewed for the documentary I linked, and he admitted as much- He said once they took Baghdad, they awaited orders...but orders didn't come, because there WAS NO PLAN....it's baffling. The guy said something like "We realized we were a force of about 5,000 troops surrounded by 5 million Iraqis..."

[peterms]

Do we still turn "enemy combatants" over to psychos for torture which we already know will end not in better intelligence about enemy movements, but simply in the death of those interrogated, and the gratification of their tormentors?

What else were the occupying western forces supposed to do? They couldn't hold Iraqi nationals in custody indefinitely (without massively expanding the popular resort in Cuba) and had no choice but to hand them over to the democratically elected Iraqi civil power. To have done otherwise would suggest that we didn't trust the Iraqi's to run their own affairs - a situation that would have had Fisk and the Guardian et al equally up in arms. Heads you win, tails I lose.

Yes the Iraqi's are brutal feckers but that IS the reality of the Middle East. At great cost to all concerned it's been proven that the western model of liberalism, pluralism and human rights has no cultural traction or historical precedent to build on. In reality it never stood a chance as very many people commented before the neo-cons decided to invade.

When the remaining US forces leave then Iraq will most likely become the proxy battleground of Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, and if a wider war can be avoided (although the Saudi's are preparing now) that will most likely continue until a Saddam clone has the strength to impose his will on everyone else. Good huh?

It seems the whole thing has been a total cockup from beginning to end.

From supporting and legitimising Saddam, to selling him chemical weapons to use against his own people, to half-destroying his empire but not finishing the job, to encouraging the Kurds to rise up against him and leaving them completely exposed to be butchered, to having another half-thought-out invasion, to letting sites of unique archaeological importance be trashed and museums looted, to failing to restore law and order quickly enough, to this latest charade of conniving in the kind of brutality we were told we fought the war to end, to the utter failure to have a feasible long-term plan, it's been an object lesson in incompetence.

Our involvement has been entirely selfish, guided by only two aims - to continue to destabilise the region for our own ends, and securing oil supplies for rich westerners to continue driving 4wds for another couple of years and oil barons to cream more profits.

It's a sick and shameful charade, and an object lesson in futility and utter hypocrisy. And the cost, in shattered lives and money diverted from more worthwhile things, doesn't bear thinking about. But at least we've been consistent in our arrogant and negligent post-colonial meddling.

[b6bloke]

A clip of the channel four programme on it. So ashamed and wonder if Saddam would have beenn the lesser of 2 evils

http://tinyurl.com/28p5gb2

[Awol]

A clip of the channel four programme on it. So ashamed and wonder if Saddam would have beenn the lesser of 2 evils

http://tinyurl.com/28p5gb2

Saint Tony feels bad about the people who died, "but can't regret the decision".... Course he can't, he's gotten filthy rich off the back of it.

[tonyh29]

I think we were correct to take him out .. should also be doing the same with Fat Bob as well imo ... that's not saying we take out ever leader that doesn't meet the view of the West , merely every leader that is committing Genocide on his own people

where we went wrong in Iraq was lying about the motive and by having the Americans in charge ,

[blandy]

From supporting and legitimising Saddam, to selling him chemical weapons to use against his own people, to half-destroying his empire but not finishing the job, to encouraging the Kurds to rise up against him and leaving them completely exposed to be butchered, to having another half-thought-out invasion, to letting sites of unique archaeological importance be trashed and museums looted, to failing to restore law and order quickly enough, to this latest charade of conniving in the kind of brutality we were told we fought the war to end, to the utter failure to have a feasible long-term plan, it's been an object lesson in incompetence.

Our involvement has been entirely selfish, guided by only two aims - to continue to destabilise the region for our own ends, and securing oil supplies for rich westerners to continue driving 4wds for another couple of years and oil barons to cream more profits.

It's a sick and shameful charade, and an object lesson in futility and utter hypocrisy. And the cost, in shattered lives and money diverted from more worthwhile things, doesn't bear thinking about. But at least we've been consistent in our arrogant and negligent post-colonial meddling.

Yeah, but we got his WMDs though.....didn't we....

Oh and another thing. Now Iraq has been made a proud and independent democracy, it is free to spend it's oil revenues, well the revenues that haven't vanished via massive embezzlement and fraud, anyway, on whatever they like. For example they can equip their army with any kit they like....as long as it's american, obviously.

[Demitri_C]

well its a major reason why we are in such a mess financally so obviously no

[Awol]

well its a major reason why we are in such a mess financally so obviously no

For UK PLC the whole thing was cheaper financially than the 2012 Olympics.

[LondonLax]

well its a major reason why we are in such a mess financally so obviously no

For UK PLC the whole thing was cheaper financially than the 2012 Olympics.

I guess the question then is how much do we make back from the Iraq war in ticket sales and McDonalds sponsership?

[Gringo]

beeb"]Iraq less safe than a year ago: US watchdog

A top US adviser on Iraq has accused the US military of glossing over an upsurge in violence, just months before its troops are due to be withdrawn.

Iraq is more dangerous now than a year ago, said a report issued by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart W Bowen Junior.

He said the killing of US soldiers and senior Iraqi figures, had risen, along with attacks in Baghdad .

The report contradicts usually upbeat assessments from the US military.

It comes as Washington is preparing to withdraw its remaining 47,000 troops from Iraq by the end of the year, despite fears that the Iraqi security forces might not be ready to take over fully.

"Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work," Mr Bowen concluded in his quarterly report to Congress. "It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago."

The report cited the deaths of 15 US soldiers in June - the bloodiest month for the American military in two years - but also said more Iraqi officials had been assassinated in the past few months than in any other recent period.

While the efforts of Iraqi and American forces may have reduced the threat from the Sunni-based insurgency, Shia militias are believed to have become more active, it said.

They are being blamed for the deaths of American soldiers, and for an increase in rocket attacks on the Baghdad international zone and the US embassy compound.

Additionally, the report called the north-eastern province of Diyala, which borders Iran, "very unstable" with frequent bombings that bring double-digit death tolls.

Mr Bowen accused the US military of glossing over the instability, noting an army statement in late May that described Iraq's security trends as "very, very positive" - but only when compared to 2007, when the country was on the brink of civil war.

A spokesman for the US army in Iraq declined to respond.