Posted on Oct 18, 2015
Did the recent public release of the Downing Street Memo change your view on the validity of the Iraq Invasion and Occupation?
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I'm not linking to the memo because I'm not 100% sure of the current classification; however, there are plenty of news outlets and other sites that give the gist.
Short version is that the memo claims that the Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq up to a year before the actual invasion and built its justification around a foregone conclusion.
Does any of that change your perception of the war itself, your service in it, or the sacrifices made and lives lost? Did the ends justify the means or the motivation? What, if anything should be done to keep similar events from happening again? Should there be consequences for those directly involved who knew the issues? Were Servicemembers who refused to deploy justified in those actions and should their punishments be rescinded? Was it an illegal war and were the orders to deploy illegal orders?
So many questions!
Short version is that the memo claims that the Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq up to a year before the actual invasion and built its justification around a foregone conclusion.
Does any of that change your perception of the war itself, your service in it, or the sacrifices made and lives lost? Did the ends justify the means or the motivation? What, if anything should be done to keep similar events from happening again? Should there be consequences for those directly involved who knew the issues? Were Servicemembers who refused to deploy justified in those actions and should their punishments be rescinded? Was it an illegal war and were the orders to deploy illegal orders?
So many questions!
Posted in these groups: 
Iraq
Warfare
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)
Office of the President (POTUS)
George W. Bush
Iraq Warfare Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Office of the President (POTUS) George W. Bush
Posted 10 y ago
Responses: 19
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MAJ Bryan Zeski
I think it's full of poop myself. How would a foreign journalist get a hold of a classified US document?
My opinion is that it is another leftist attack on GW, yet another attempt to place the blame "on my predecessor" if you will.
With that said, it does not change my feelings about the war. Also, anyone who refused to deploy were justly punished. I also feel the same way about people who refuse to deploy because they claimed that Obama was/is not a US citizen, etc., etc., etc.
I think it's full of poop myself. How would a foreign journalist get a hold of a classified US document?
My opinion is that it is another leftist attack on GW, yet another attempt to place the blame "on my predecessor" if you will.
With that said, it does not change my feelings about the war. Also, anyone who refused to deploy were justly punished. I also feel the same way about people who refuse to deploy because they claimed that Obama was/is not a US citizen, etc., etc., etc.
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MAJ Bryan Zeski
1. It's not a US document. It's a British document.
2. There are a lot of classified documents out in the public venues that all journalists have access to - ie. Snowden Documents, Manning Documents, Ellsberg Documents.
Although it is a good question, I think there is significant evidence that this memo is real. I don't see it as any kind of political attack on either party at this time, or an attempt to blame any current events on anyone in the past. It's really just shedding light on a topic for historical perspective - and I think knowing the truth is important, especially when we're talking about sending people to war.
2. There are a lot of classified documents out in the public venues that all journalists have access to - ie. Snowden Documents, Manning Documents, Ellsberg Documents.
Although it is a good question, I think there is significant evidence that this memo is real. I don't see it as any kind of political attack on either party at this time, or an attempt to blame any current events on anyone in the past. It's really just shedding light on a topic for historical perspective - and I think knowing the truth is important, especially when we're talking about sending people to war.
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MAJ James Woods
Yep. Technology has allowed classified information to leak more easily these days and it's only gonna get worse. Sure the left loves any source that makes the Bush administration look like the Nixon administration. But the right is doing a lot to justify their recommendations for combat operations in Syria, Iran, etc. that's a bunch of poop too!
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SFC (Join to see)
My view on Iraq was that I was ordered to go. I didn't care about the politics. I was determined to complete the mission and get myself and the Soldiers to my left and right home. With that being said, going in was probably a mistake, and pulling out was a bigger mistake. If we create a power vacuum, we have to stick around to keep something worse from filling it.
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Not at all sir, For several reasons. 1) the yellow cake reasoning was Intel (later to be proven to be false) that was given to us by our allies (Britain, Germany, and others and was a major factor in deciding to go to war). 2) WMD was proven true by the UN itself as reported by CNN within a month prior to the invasion (Han Blix reported finding 12 warheads, 11 were empty and the 12th had chemicals in it. Iraq wasn't to have EITHER the chemicals OR the means of delivery per the UN resolutions.) 3) On a daily basis, Iraqi AAA fired at our aircraft enforcing the "No Fly Zone" which is an act of war. 4) Ties to terrorism, we found an abandoned Al Qaeda training camp in Baghdad as well as wounded AQ members from Afghanistan would go to Iraq for treatment and recovery. 5) Other than the WMD resolution, Saddam intentionally violated every resolution imposed after the Gulf War. Reasons 2 through 5 are enough (each on their own) by international law to justify our invasion in Iraq. That being said, I fully support our involvement in Iraq, but I don't support the bumbling fiasco of how it was run by Bush and Rumsfeld.
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The end most definitely did not justify the means, unless the aim was to create a power vacuum large enough for a terrorist organization so fierce that even Al-Qa'ida is "too peaceful" for them to rise to power with enough leeway to claim territory and establish a faux caliphate.
That said, "Curveball" (as the informant was aptly referred to, in hindsight) did us no favors, and HUMINT based on his input was the entire basis of the WMD in Iraq misinformation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)
That said, "Curveball" (as the informant was aptly referred to, in hindsight) did us no favors, and HUMINT based on his input was the entire basis of the WMD in Iraq misinformation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)
Curveball (informant) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi (Arabic: رافد أحمد علوان, Rāfid Aḥmad Alwān; born 1968), known by the Defense Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball",[1] is an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program.[2] Alwan's allegations were subsequently shown to be false by the...
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Wars are less successful, they become complicated, goals and justifications change too fast, "American interests" are not my interests, pre-emptive wars are not defense but paranoia, wars should clearly be for self-defense.
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MAJ Bryan Zeski Have you read, The Price of Loyalty?
"O'Neill is the only one who spoke on the record, but Suskind says that someone high up in the administration – Donald Rumsfeld - warned O'Neill not to do this book.
Was it a warning, or a threat?
"I don't think so. I think it was the White House concerned," says Suskind. "Understandably, because O'Neill has spent extraordinary amounts of time with the president. They said, 'This could really be the one moment where things are revealed.'"
Not only did O'Neill give Suskind his time, he gave him 19,000 internal documents.
"Everything's there: Memoranda to the President, handwritten "thank you" notes, 100-page documents. Stuff that's sensitive," says Suskind, adding that in some cases, it included transcripts of private, high-level National Security Council meetings. "You don't get higher than that."
And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed."
As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.
"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."
And that came up at this first meeting, says O'Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.
He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. "There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, 'Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,'" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001."
"O'Neill is the only one who spoke on the record, but Suskind says that someone high up in the administration – Donald Rumsfeld - warned O'Neill not to do this book.
Was it a warning, or a threat?
"I don't think so. I think it was the White House concerned," says Suskind. "Understandably, because O'Neill has spent extraordinary amounts of time with the president. They said, 'This could really be the one moment where things are revealed.'"
Not only did O'Neill give Suskind his time, he gave him 19,000 internal documents.
"Everything's there: Memoranda to the President, handwritten "thank you" notes, 100-page documents. Stuff that's sensitive," says Suskind, adding that in some cases, it included transcripts of private, high-level National Security Council meetings. "You don't get higher than that."
And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed."
As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.
"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."
And that came up at this first meeting, says O'Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.
He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. "There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, 'Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,'" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001."
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The thing that gets me mad is the Idiots that are in charge never have a plan as to who will be the new president of a particular country. It seems half the time we get someone in power to replace someone else they wind up doing stupid shit and we have to go in eventually and remover them by force. At one point we allied with Iraq because they were fighting Iran...We supported the Shaw of Iran for a while before the Ayatollah took over...;.The enemy of MY enemy is my friend !!
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Nope, still a waste of some damn fine people for a country full of people who could give two shits about them or who runs their third world toilet.
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The threat of Iraq did exist before September 11th. People forget the NY Times Brst Seller from 1998... Saddam's Bombmaker.
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MAJ Bryan Zeski
I'm not going to just throw some possibly classified link up on RP. However, if people go to find it themselves after hearing about it, well, that's their choice.
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If we only had a time machine. The war in Iraq was not a good idea no matter what "proof" there was one way or the other. We destabilized the entire region and have set ourselves up for a long war that may not be winnable. Nobody knew what things would happen.
In saying that, us (as the not in the know) did what we were told to the best of our abilities and I am proud that served next to my brothers and sisters. My dad served in 'Nam, my grandfathers served in WW2, I sure was not going to answer the call.
In saying that, us (as the not in the know) did what we were told to the best of our abilities and I am proud that served next to my brothers and sisters. My dad served in 'Nam, my grandfathers served in WW2, I sure was not going to answer the call.
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