2007: No End In Sight. The Story of America's Invasion of Iraq

[Dante]

NYT Sept 16 2004 / US Intelligence Shows Pessimism On Iraq's Future


Interesting movie.

note: I supported the initial invasion and pre-911, I supported going in and removing Saddam. I still do not think it was a mistake.

in my view: The mistakes were mare post-invasion and 'Mission Accomplished'

911 attack on the Pentagon: The
Army Budget Office where 38 Army employees were killed. The Navy's new Command Center...everey body was killed in those two sections of the Pentagon.

2007 No End In Sight
(This is the story of America's invasion of Iraq)


Jan 2003 - Jan 2005 Chairman National Intelligence, Council Robert Hutchings...

"We produced the first national estimate, on the state of the insurgency---in Irag"

"The estimate delivered pretty bad news. It basically laid out...bad, worse and worst scenarios." "The President called it 'guess work', and his press spokesperson called it...'hand wringing and nay saying'." "What was really revealing to me was the President hadn't read it."

Not long into the movie and my heart grows heavy. The evidence is overwhelming in it's position that total responsibility for the post invasion mess lays at the feet of a few men I admired much. Men like Rumsfeld.

My heart grows heavy because men who were respected and wise seem to have panicked over 911, and allowed reason and rationality to be thrown out the window.

Opportunity presented itself and they anted up and raised the betting (Iraq), and bet the house---and they lost. They overplayed their hands.

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Not very long into movie my heart sinks. What have men I admired (Rumsfeld and others) done? The evidence is striking and brutal in laying the post invasion at the feet of a few men. Men I admired.

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U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future
By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: September 16, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16intel.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 - A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said Wednesday.

The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.

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As described by the officials, the pessimistic tone of the new estimate stands in contrast to...comments on Wednesday by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, who asserted that progress was being made.


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"I think it is very difficult to see today how you're going to distribute ballots in places like Falluja, and Ramadi and Najaf and other parts of the country, without having established the security,'' Mr. Kerry said in a call-in phone call to Don Imus...supposed to run that election believe that they need a longer period of time and greater security before they can even begin to do it...I'm not sure the president is being honest with the American people about that situation either at this point.''

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The situation in Iraq prompted harsh comments from Republicans and Democrats...Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called it "exasperating for anybody look at this from any vantage point," and Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, said of the overall lack of spending: "It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing. It is now in the zone of dangerous."

 

[Dante]

back to the movie...

 

[Dante]

The movie. After watching it I have to wonder why George W. Bush gets all the blame.

NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 8:41 a.m. PT, Wed., Dec . 15, 2004

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come under attack from Republican Sen. John McCain and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf over his handling of the Iraq war.

In separate interviews, McCain, of Arizona, said he had “no confidence” in Rumsfeld, citing his handling of the war in Iraq and the failure of the Pentagon to send more troops, while Schwarzkopf, the allied commander in the first Gulf War, said Rumsfeld seemed to be passing the buck when quizzed last week about the armor supply for troops on the ground.

Rumsfeld under fire over Iraq
McCain says he has ‘no confidence’; Schwarzkopf expresses anger

1991, George H. W. Bush, tells Iraqi's to revolt. Shwarzkopf does nothing as Saddam sends helicopter gunships to kills everyone. An embargo ensues, which the Clinton administration continues. Fundamentalist Islam recruitment rises mostly during the economic hardship that follows.

1993 Saddam tries to have GHW Bush assassinated during a visit to Kuwait.

2000, Bush's son George W Bush becomes President.

911

A small group of conservative Republicans from the first Bush's administration is going to "get right what we got wrong in 1991"-- finish the job. Lots of people, me included are relieved that the Iraqi situation will be put straight.



January 20th 2003 Bush signed NSPD - 24 (National Security Presidential Directives [NSPD] George W. Bush Administration)

Reconstruction of Post War Iraq handed over to the Pentagon (Ahmed Chalabi enters scene and is given some influence---(Iraqi National Congress-Bank fraud) (According to the Guardian, the trigger for Petra's closure was the decision of Jordan's central bank governor to tighten up on the outflow of foreign exchange in order to prop up the country's currency. When he ordered 20 Jordanian banks to deposit 30 percent of their foreign exchange holdings with the central bank, Petra alone was unable to comply. That triggered an investigation, and authorities replaced Petra's board of directors and then closed the bank in August 1989. By then, at least $200 million could not be accounted for. -salon.com cache )

Chalabi now: The Nation: Banking on Chalabi -by Aram Roston

Defense Intelligence Agency analysts were called liars when they warned about anything to do with Iraqi National Congress and Chalabi in particular. .

The Bush administration is saying to people inside the military and elsewhere, that by the end of august 2003, Americans will be pulling out...of Iraq.

State Dept's 'The future of Iraq Project' ignored by Pentagon (Rumsfeld).

one of the unspoken facts here is that after the initial bungling of the Post Iraq Invasion occupation: Dismantling of the Iraqi Armed Forces, debaathification of the civilian infrastructure...The insurgency starts heating up (hundreds of thousands of trained and armed men are without means to support their families---millions of people who had jobs are refused entry into a job market---US companies are given work over the bids of Iraqi companies, who would do the work for a fraction of the cost) and -- Fundamental Islamist recruitment is again, on the rise. We now have two instances of this happening.

-depressing reading of events. nothing is spared. nothing.

 

[Dante]

2007 Movie: The Army Corp of Engineers (working alongside and with help from Iraqi's), and US Compnay Parsons' build forts. One engineer says his forts were built in about 5 months and that Parsons built forts were still not fiinished when he left. The Parson's built forts were started a year before this soldier arrived.

I am sure there were criticisms of the facts in the movie, from people who were in the Bush admin, and from people who supported the Bush admin, but...

In 2008, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction weighed in... Parsons, Military Wasted Millions in Iraq, Inspector Bowen Says - Bloomberg.com

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The soldier and the civilian official quoted in the movie are named: Seth Moulton and Ann Gildroy.

Their border forts cost $200.000. Parsons' cost $1.2 million

 

[Dante]

end result? Bush and Rumsfeld were clueless and those of us who supported them from day one, whether we stayed with them through it all or not, have been duped. For whatever reasons almost the whole conservative movement refused a chance to right things in 2004. Bush was reelected and the fiasco continued with the GOP and conservatives of all stripes staying with the failures that kept coming. Why?

Ideology, power, hatred and distrust of fellow Americans---namely Democrats?

Partisan games were played with the war in order to keep hold of the White House out of the hands of the Democrats

 

[Dante]

what happened to the insurgency being in it's last throes in 2005?


Monday, June 20, 2005;

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

CNN.com - Iraq insurgency in 'last throes,' Cheney says - May 31, 2005

The Guardian, Monday 27 June 2005 01.32 BST

Mr Rumsfeld said: "We're not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."

Iraq insurgency could last a decade, admits Rumsfeld | World news | The Guardian

 

[Paulie]

Keep it coming Dev, as you can see everyone's REALLY interested...

 

[Dante]

Keep it coming Dev, as you can see everyone's REALLY interested...

thank you.

when you going to see that kiddie movie with liability?


note: careful, I hope you two don't get discovered. crowds of parents can get pretty ugly when they see two adult predator types lurking at a matinee. I'd hate to lose the valuable contribution you two make to the USMB community

 

[slackjawed]

There certainly is some amusement value when retards talk to themselves........

 

[Dante]

There certainly is some amusement value when retards talk to themselves........

is that what you are doing?

interesting

 

[eagleseven]

Three years too late.

*yawn*

 

[rdean]

The last thing Republicans want to talk about is Iraq. It's one of their greatest failures ever.

Bringing up Iraq brings up the 3 trillion dollar cost the Republcians tried to hide and now try to pin on President Obama.

The wars show that Republicans never supported our troops. Not in Iraq, and not the injured here.

The Iraq debacle brings up the Republican support of the Christian genocide in Iraq that decimated their population from 1.3 million to 3 or 4 hundred thousand. If Bush stood by and LET it happen, then he supported it.

The fact that the cost of rebuilding Iraq was passed onto Obama and now, Republicans scream at the cost and accuse Obama. It's outrageous.

The fact that Iraq is now, by constitution, a theocracy. It's people hate our country. Many feel they were better under Saddam and thank us by cursing us.

They made a national hero of a man who threw his shoes at our president and even built him a monument.

 

[Dante]

The last thing Republicans want to talk about is Iraq. It's one of their greatest failures ever.

Bringing up Iraq brings up the 3 trillion dollar cost the Republcians tried to hide and now try to pin on President Obama.

The wars show that Republicans never supported our troops. Not in Iraq, and not the injured here.

The Iraq debacle brings up the Republican support of the Christian genocide in Iraq that decimated their population from 1.3 million to 3 or 4 hundred thousand. If Bush stood by and LET it happen, then he supported it.

The fact that the cost of rebuilding Iraq was passed onto Obama and now, Republicans scream at the cost and accuse Obama. It's outrageous.

The fact that Iraq is now, by constitution, a theocracy. It's people hate our country. Many feel they were better under Saddam and thank us by cursing us.

They made a national hero of a man who threw his shoes at our president and even built him a monument.

Looking at the movie from three years out gives one a perspective and context that is difficult to get from up close.


It's really disturbing to see what we Americans allowed to happen. We reelected George W. Bush and his team in 2004. We fucked up bad.

 

[uscitizen]

A movie gives one perspective ...

There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

Perhaps if we had a reality show or two on it we could figure it out.

 

[Dante]

A movie gives one perspective ...

There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

Perhaps if we had a reality show or two on it we could figure it out.

A well done and balanced look in a documentary is what I saw. Interviews with some of the players involved with the subject matter.

 

[uscitizen]

A Michael Moore type of film?

 

[Dante]

A Michael Moore type of film?

Not at all. Michael Moore does propaganda and humor.