Our Progress In Iraq

Curious after looking at still graphics of where we are in Iraq via Gateway Pundit, I thought surely MNF-I would have something more compelling addressing the progress we have made. All I found was this all too quick animated GIF with the dates hard to view at bottom leaving no time to contemplate, or sense the accomplishment. I didn't find it compelling. While I wrote MNF-I for the raw images to work with on my own, I discovered I could grab them up and produce a still shot, as well as a YouTube video demonstrating consistent, if sometimes slow progress in Iraq over the last year and a half. I also included a quick text message for our Senators, currently contemplating a surrender when we are the strongest nation with the strongest military on the face of the Earth. That in and of itself makes surrender ridiculous. We elected these people to lead and to win, not quit because of some headlines.

The still shot comparing Iraq in Jan 06 to June 07 is directly below. The YouTube video is below that. It isn't great. But it conveyed the message a little better in my opinion. Perhaps you'll agree.

As the light green fills in month by month, those are areas in which Iraqi forces are now taking the lead. As you begin to see dark green, those areas have been turned over to Iraqi forces. Watch the video below, or here - then tell me there is no progress in Iraq. And remember, Senators, America is watching you.

Comments

[moldy]

Does dark green mean that the area is secure and insurgents are under control? Or does it just mean that the US troops have left the area?

[Northerner]

Ah yes, propaganda. Nice to see it's still around and some people still swallow it without thinking. Good one, Dan.

[jong]

Cool. Bring the Troops home.

I guess since things are going so well, maybe we didn't need the surge afterall.

[Jim Hoft]

Dan- That is an amazing video! Thanks for putting it together.
If we had a responsible media, they would show this and let people make up their own minds on whether to surrender.
Sadly, that is not the case.

[Phoenix]

Very cool. Visuals do the job better than just reading. Or, at least, they definitely enhance the reports.

I'm very glad to see this.

[Dan Riehl]

dark green - simply means Iraq has control responsibility for those areas, that doesn't mean there isn't activity. But it's their problem, not ours and they seem up to it - which is the goal.

[TANSTAAFL]

Like I told my congressman, if we can't indefinately sustain a casualty rate of three men a day to prevent a genocide in a key strategic country then we may as well not even bother fielding an army.

When you leave the field of battle to limit the number of pinpricks you take then you may save a few soldiers this time around but you encourage the enemy to hang on longer the next time you have to go to war. No matter how badly they are beaten they will look back to Vietnam or in this case Iraq and feel like if they can just kill a few more soldiers the weak sisters on the left will force us to pull out. This will only cause more wars and more deaths in future conflicts.

[Fred Beloit]

Tans, excellent summary. But it is far to complex for the NYT, our Liberal commenters, and our Senators to understand. Do you think you could rewrite it to the 4th grade level?

[Fred Beloit]

Phoenix, have you noticed the first comment is signed "moldy". She used to sign "mulde" but I started calling her moldy. As a woman, do you think she is flirting with me?

[Phoenix]

Most definitely, Fred. "Mulde" or was it "Mulder" has a Germanic sound that conjures up gutteral intercourse. Not at all pleasing. "Moldy" sounds young, cutesy, and unquestionably full of growing, fuzzy essence.

But more on track - I think Erica is in it for the sex. It's the 'dong' imagery that comes with being a dick.

(I know you're not into her.)

[Fred Beloit]

Ready, moldy, eins, zwei, drei, ggggggggrrouph, chugt, schuft, gimultligheidt. Du machst mich so glucklich. Die Sprach der Liebe. Ich bin verleibt. Ach, ach, ach ach. Ich schau dir in die Augen, Kleine. Danka.

[Fred Beloit]

Sorry, Dan, you are doing serious work here and it seems I sometimes have to let out Bonzo the Clown, who lives in my head. Forgive me.

[jong]

Hmmm.

The number of Iraqi army battalions that operate independently, with no assistance from U.S. forces, has dropped from 10 to six over the last two months, the top U.S. general said on Friday.

[Fred Beloit]

Ah, feigned concern from Erica. You know that if they went up from 10 to 13 she would be cheering for our side. Common, Erica, get real. For you this is good news. Any good news for America from Iraq is bad news for you..

[Dan Riehl]

No worries, Fred. As for Air-ica, it wouldn't occur to her that the shrinkage was due to their being in combat more often. Those are growing pains, to be sure. But hardly a reversal.

[Phoenix]

Fred,

You know why the silliness comes out in a very straight/serious post? Awe. Disbelief. It's hard to be serious when you read that some of the commenters are positively gleeful when things go bad for America. Might as well laugh because they sure can't digest that a conservative's commentary just might have a scintilla of verisimilitude in it.

[jong]

Yeah, things are going so well the Iraqi Parliament's taking a month off. Too bad our soldiers don't get the same luxury.

[moldy]

dark green - simply means Iraq has control responsibility for those areas, that doesn't mean there isn't activity. But it's their problem, not ours and they seem up to it - which is the goal.

Posted by: Dan Riehl | Saturday, July 14, 2007 at 12:03 PM

Can we then assume that progress is being measured by how quickly responsibility can be passed to the Iraqis? Do you know what the requirements for passing responsibility is (ie, do the US forces have to achieve a certain level of stability before leaving the area?)

[Fred Beloit]

Erica, I didn't realize you had such a heartwarming concern for our troops. I'm afraid it is a little hard to swallow, though, when your main interest in life seems to be seeing our troops in retreat and defeat. See, the last thing they want is to be in retreat and defeat.

[ajacksonian]

For those provinces in the Dark Green, if memory serves, there are still some MNF-I individuals there, but they are in the capacity of: how to make sure things run well by solidifying logistics and internal accountability. The Iraqis control those areas, scope out what needs to be done, lead raids and can call for assistance, which is mostly air strikes. On border areas they consult with MNF-I to make sure that nothing gets crossed up between Areas of Responsibility.

Light Green are those areas with Iraqis in the lead, needing larger amounts of help on logistics, training, internal affairs and such. The majority of operations are scoped out and led by Iraqis, but MNF-I has some autonomy and operations need heavier de-confliction between forces. Those areas range from large amounts of MNF-I forces and logistics to areas more nearly ready for complete turnover.

White areas are MNF-I control and responsibility, with Iraqis under the C4I of MNF-I. The white areas are ones where Iraqis need to stand up their own forces, their own control and logistics structure and to learn how to run things. Anbar, the rest of Diyala and Baghdad, plus some areas to the north should be Light Green by DEC 2007, if current timelines hold. That leaves the re-clearing out of militias and insurgents in Basra and environs, which we would much prefer the Iraqis to do, but their ability on internal accountability has lagged there and badly.

The main political objective has been to encourage 'bottom-up' structures in the highly tribal areas - mostly where Sunni Arabs are, but also a number of Shia tribes and clans utilize similar, local based, authority structures. Anbar Salvation Council has turned into Anbar Awakening and that is looking to become Iraq Awakening: a full-blown, bottom-up, non-sectarian and technocratic political movement. The US Federal concept of allowing the States, in this case the Provinces, to have religious affiliation but to have a secular government in common has started to take root in Anbar and is spreading. That is the new 'coalition' political movement that the brothers at ITM talk about, that is slowly dissolving the old Shia/Sunni divided government.

Each of the major sects has deep divisions within their sects, and both Sunni and Shia have proportions of highly educated, urban populations that really just want to live their lives without religion being forced upon them. The rural tribes have had this experience, of radical Islam, first-hand from AQI and JaM and the assasination of tribal elders, draconian laws enforced upon them and random executions by the radical terrorists involved. Plus, apparently, the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. It is a very, very strange thing to see a political concept that denounces such radicalism reach out to their technocratic brethren who want no part of that, either, and the Kurds who damned well know that the future does not go down that path. A 15-20% Shia defection to a technocratic coalition crossing Arab/Kurd bounds as well as Sunni/Shia ones starts to marginalize the radical Shia and crumbles the current power structure. Their coalition was shakey to start with and already facing internal divisions. I would not be surprised to see this government replaced even without new elections via loss of a vote of confidence... even if things go *well* they are on that path. Maliki didn't step up to the plate early enough or hard enough on JaM, and that lost him friends, both politically and in the terminal sense.

Getting Provincial election laws down this summer is a *must*, and then elections as soon as is possible thereafter. Those elections will liquidate the interim provincial governments and restructure Iraq internally. That will pressure the current parties to realize they have *no* localized footing.... save for those technocrats who view campaigning and such as a fact of life to run things. The Awakening movement is the deadliest threat to Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia that has ever been invented in the Middle East. Localized, elected government by the People is Revolutionary. I support that Revolution... it is amazing how few Americans want to do that, these days.

Might cost a few lives, this nourishing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and patriots.

You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. - Andrew Jackson

[jong]

Fred Dolt: I love my country just as much as you. I just happen to think we should get the hell of out Iraq and stop sacrificing soldiers in the middle of a civil war. You seem to believe that supporting our troops means getting as many of them killed as possible for nothing. Strange world where supporting brain-dead policies that sacrifice our best and bravest gets twisted into supporting our troops.

The Iraqis don't want us there, the American public doesn't want us there, troops increasingly don't want to be there. Four + years is long enough - it's time to turn the damn country over to the Iraqis and let them be responsible for their own fate.

Pardon my skepticism but the Army's PR machine has been telling us from Day 1 how great things are. Shock and Awe - that one really worked well - Cake walk, capturing Saddam will end the violence, Mission Accomplished, we're turning the corner, ad nauseum. We're still there, and troops are dying faster than ever.

[Boghie]

Dan,

I'm going to give the silly Lefty's some ammo here, but...

It appears that the Diyalla (spelling???) province is light green - and has been so throughout the video transition. At least for a few months prior to the surge it should have been marked as the wild, wild east. Actually, Anbar should be light green, eh...

However, here is something for the Lefty's to think about:
1. The U.S. Army has grown its manpower base from 380,000 in FY2001 (Clinton's last budget) to 505,000 now. That is a manning level of 125,000 additional active duty soldiers in the Army.

2. The U.S. Marine Corps has grown its manpower base from 162,000 in FY2001 (Clinton's last budget) to 185,000 now. That is a manning level of 23,000 additional active duty Marines in the USMC.

Thus, we have 148,000 more ground pounders in FY2007 than we had in FY2001.

I do understand that not all of those are combat troops - but, I also do know that the evil Rumsfeldian policies made a huge change in that ratio. Much of our CONUS support is civilian now. In the USMC the vast majority of those new 23,000 Marines are in the fleet.

So:
1) we have 148,000 additional soldiers and Marines.
2) we have a total of 160,000 soldiers and Marines in Iraq.
3) The surge surged by 20,000 additional troops (factored into 2)

I'll leave the analysis to the reader...

[Hugh Beaumont]

Jong is still pissed off about the Florida recount. Failure in Iraq would partially make up for that 2000 irritation....the "troops" have nothing to do with it.

"it's time to turn the damn country over to the Iraqis and let them be responsible for their own fate."

What kind of liberal sanctions genocide? Do you own a "Save Darfur" T-shirt?

[FredP]

Great video. If you could slowly morph from white to green, or light green to dark green, instead of suddenly changing it would be even better. I would do it myself if I knew how.

[Rip]

Awesome video Dan.

Simplified visuals like that are what the country needs. It's easier to understand and easier to get your point across.

And obviously it will (and already has) create some hostile criticism from the left. In the Youtube comments you are already getting comments to that effect.

They're trying to spin this already, e.g., the Iraqi Army is just a front for insurgent groups, etc.

If the government truly has control in a province and there is stability (non-Islamist induced stability that is), then that is progress.

[Rich Casebolt]

Civil war? Think again ...

http://casebolt.blogspot.com/2007/04/mining-model.html

The gnat-strainers just can't stand it.

Despite their best efforts to stop it ... this Administration and our military are slowly acheiving something unprecedented in the history of human conflict: the transformation of a nation from totalitarian rule to rights-respecting governance ... the one sure vaccine that protects a nation against totalitarian hijacking and fomenting terror for export ... WITHOUT GRINDING ITS PEOPLE TO POWDER FIRST!

Ask the Kurds what they think about our presence in Iraq.
Ask the brothers at www.iraqthemodel.com

"Anbar Rising" -- google it.
"al-Ameriki tribe" -- google it.

Gnat-strainers ...

... (and you know who you are, for you strain at every gnat of Administration error, while swallowing the camels of totalitarian brutality whole in a single, butter-covered gulp)...

... you will see from the queries above, that the surge is working -- so instead of yelling "fire Rumsfeld" or "impeach Bush" before every comment, why didn't you demand this course of action, years ago? I thought you were wiser than the rest of us!

Now you might ask, why didn't the President do this years ago?

Well, I submit that part of the holdup is that he listened to the likes of you critics too much, when you demanded that we turn things back over to the Iraqis with all possible speed, without regard to the physical and societal conditions left by three-plus decades of totalitarian rule under Saddam & Sons.

We leave now, before Iraq can stand strong in rights-respecting governance, and this war will not end ... it will get worse, and we will have to go back again to try and finish the job ... and still have to put up with the unprincipled sniping of you critics.

Now, just how is that "supporting the troops"?

[Rich]

Rich, it's simple really.

The left depends on death, destruction, failure and suffering in Iraq for their political gain and ascendancy.

Anything that would lead Iraq out of that is to be fought at all costs. To do otherwise would not be rational.

[Phoenix]

"...without regard to the physical and societal conditions left by three-plus decades of totalitarian rule under Saddam & Sons."

Quite possibly the hardest thing we have had to overcome. The mechanistics of this war in Iraq are one thing, but 'fighting' the human nature aspect has been the most difficult. It will be generations before some of the Iraqis understand 'liberty' as we are trying to secure it for them. How sad is that? Oppressed people just don't flip into freedom-loving individuals over night, and if we leave them before they understand liberty is worth fighting for, we will have committed a sin against what we hold dear - freedom from and freedom to.

[Bart]

Blockquote>"The Iraqis don't want us there, the American public doesn't want us there, troops increasingly don't want to be there.

Liberals cannot survive without external validation, because they have no moral or intellectual foundation upon which to judge the rightness or wrongness of their views. They form their reality through consensus. If "everyone" agrees with them, then they must be right, whether it is on abstruse topics like Global Warming that they don't understand, or on social questions like the right to keep and bear arms. As a result, they are quick to project their views upon others based on any rumor, innuendo, or phony poll. They are continually amazed that conservatives keep winning races because, as the NYT reporter was said to have asked after Nixon's landslide victory, "How did Nixon win? Nobody I know voted for him."

[Rich Jong]

Leftists keep trying to see another Vietnam when it isn't there. They keep trying, though, because that's what makes them believe their cause is winning--Vietnam, victory of the commies over the running dog imperialist yankees. They keep playing it over in their minds, hoping it will all happen again.

Attention lefties: your fantasy would only lead to a self-destruct for most of your causes. Islamists are racist, homophobic, misogynistic religious fanatics who hate your guts. Sure, you want Bush to lose big no matter who suffers for it. But you need to reconsider who you want to win. Because if the people you're cheering on now eventually win, you're toast.

[Baxter]

Liberals are constantly stating we should leave because the majority of Americans
are against the war now.
Does this mean they should have been for the war in Iraq in 03 when 70% of Americans were for it and the vast majority of democrats voted for it?

Was there an amendment to the Iraqi vote that stated,
"We have to surrender if we lose ______ amount of civilians or ______ amount of
Soldiers."
"We have to surrender if the war lasts longer than _____ amount of time or goes into an election year."

We lost a little over 1500 people in the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.
Should we have bailed out of WW11 when our casualties passed that mark?

I wish liberals would fight the terrorist,you know,our real enemies, with the same
ferocity and spin that they fight President Bush with.

[Baxter]

Liberals are constantly stating we should leave because the majority of Americans
are against the war now.
Does this mean they should have been for the war in Iraq in 03 when 70% of Americans were for it and the vast majority of democrats voted for it?

Was there an amendment to the Iraqi vote that stated,
"We have to surrender if we lose ______ amount of civilians or ______ amount of
Soldiers."
"We have to surrender if the war lasts longer than _____ amount of time or goes into an election year."

We lost a little over 1500 people in the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.
Should we have bailed out of WW11 when our casualties passed that mark?

I wish liberals would fight the terrorist,you know,our real enemies, with the same
ferocity and spin that they fight President Bush with.

[TallDave]

Great work Dan.

The surrenderists recoil from facts like vampires from sunlight.

[jong]

I love guys that have been wrong on Iraq since day one lecturing about what's the right course now. WMD? None, but you believed it. Nuclear Program - non-existent, but you believed it. Al Qaeda connection- nope, but you believed it. Mission Accomplished - nope, but you celebrated. We're making progress - heard that too many times to count - but you ALWAYS chant it back.

Next election, if Iraq's still the mess it is today, the public's going to take it's wrath out on the Republican Party. And that's a poll that REALLY counts.

[Fung Shin]

If Iraq's as bad as it is now come the 2008 election, whoever wins is going to be up tshit creek. If the Demcut/runs win, it's their war to lose. If the Pubdubs win, it would be the last time for many years. The Demcuts are an opposition party. They can't lead, as we can see from the current congress. They'd better hope they don't win the whole pie, since whatever problems we've got now will quickly become much worse. Can it get worse? You'd best believe it can.

[Rich Casebolt]

jong:

I just love critics like you, whose 40-plus years of promoting INACTION in the face of evident threats to our civilization created the conditions we face today in Iraq.

You spew the same ol' gnat-strained monkey poo we have heard before ... hoping some will stick.

Well, genius, when it came to WMD, Saddam had everything but the stockpiles -- in particular, mothballed WMD programs ready to restart once he had bribed enough of the UN to turn off the heat. That is fact, documented in the Duelfer Report.

Did you know about that, before the war?

If so, why didn't you inform us?

If not, it appears that you are as much in error about the facts on the ground as those you smear.

And ... WMD or no WMD, riddle me this:

If a few dozen guys with $1M could pull off the events of 11 September 2001, then why ... in this day and age ... does it make ANY SENSE to continue to trust someone who is of like mind regarding respect for life and liberty, with the absolute, unchecked, unbalanced, totalitarian control of a resource-rich, relatively-advanced nation?

That, is what those of you mired in the conventional wisdom of the 20th century can't ... or won't, in your BDS ... absorb.

And that is why we keep standing up and opposing people like you.

For we won't be fooled again ...

[Fred Beloit]

Gee, you Righties are smart. I'm proud to be on the same side with you.

[jong]

Rich - you need to get informed before you start throwing around accusations. Iraq was our ally - we were supplying them with weapons. So your ill-informed claim that we should have done something about Iraq 40 years ago just doesn't make any sense.

You want to fight Al Qaeda, you need to kill the head - that Bin Laden - who ain't in Iraq.

We're spending $12 billion a month, grinding the Army down, and Bin Laden's hiding out someplace in Pakistan loving that Americans are dying while he's safe in his haven.

Initially, Iraq advanced far into Iranian territory, but was driven back within months. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. Activism by Iraq's main Shiite Islamicist opposition group, al-Dawa, was a major factor precipitating the war -- stirred by Iran's Islamic revolution, its endeavors included the attempted assassination of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.)

Prolonging the war was phenomenally expensive. Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. Agriculture Department provided taxpayer-guaranteed loans for purchases of American commodities, to the satisfaction of U.S. grain exporters.

Shorter Rich: When it comes to WMDS, Saddam had everything but any real WMDs.

The Central Intelligence Agency tried to warn the Bush administration on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein did not appear to have weapons of mass destruction but the warning was dismissed because the US political leadership was not interested in what the intelligence showed, according to a retired senior CIA operative.

The revelation, by the CIA's former European chief Tyler Drumheller, was broadcast on CBS's news magazine Sixty Minutes last night and added to the body of evidence that US and British leaders saw the weapons of mass destruction issue only as a selling point for a war they had already decided to wage for other reasons.

[Fred Beloit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYATbsu2cP8 This is a must see. Erica jong, moldy, and nowinker in a group audience with Sen Clinton. Sen Clinton explains to a group of peaceniks why we must attack Iraq. You will recognize jong and friends. They are wearing pink. You will need a little patience, as did Sen. Clinton, before you get to the good parts.

[Fred Beloit]

This video proves Bush didn't lie about WMD. If any lies were told, this guy told them first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnceSIxxOYg FO, jong. You are another liar.

[Fred Beloit]

Now Erica is thinking: "Wow, how can I get out from under these two videos. Roadtrip?. No. Vilify Fred? Yes, good start. I know. Say the videos are faked and/or taken out of context. Or say yes but Bill was too chicken to start a war. No. That's no good. I know, new screen name."

[jong]

Fred Dolt: Talking and doing are two different things. We had inspectors in country - until Bush pulled them out. We bombed the guy anytime he did something we didn't like. He wasn't a threat to us.

Facts are facts: No WMDS, no Al Qaeda connection, no drones to cross the Atlantic. All the justifications Bush used for war didn't exist.

[Fred Beloit]

Erica, that must mean you won't vote for Hillery.

[Fred Beloit]

Who's we? "We bombed the guy anytime he did something we didn't like. He wasn't a threat to us."

[Fred Beloit]

Writing about the Bill and Hill videos, Erica writes: "Talking and doing are two different things." What does she mean? She means Bill was too chicken to start a war. True, true he was only a tough talker. But Hillery is a tough guy, er, tough Senator and voted for the war in a very brave and public manner. Good for her...then.

[Fred Beloit]

"He wasn't a threat to us." Writes Erica. "He" being Saddam. But he sure was a threat to Kuwait when he viciously attacked them and tried to occupy this sovereign nation for their oil, wasn't he Erica.

[jong]

Fred Dolt: That you try to blame the Clintons is simply a measure of how bad the war's gone. It's Bush's War. End of Story.

We - the United States - bombed the sh** out of Iraq while Clinton was president. Or did you miss the 90's?

The Iraq War is a mess. Period. The American Public wants out. Basically all the justifications for the war have proved false. If there were a do-over - we wouldn't be there.

I guess you also missed Iraq I when we destroyed Saddam's military. We then had him surrounded, bombed him whenever he did something we didn't like. We also had inspectors in Iraq looking for WMDs they couldn't find. He was basically a cornered rat. Some threat.

It sounds like you'll be the one voting for Hillary.

Your arguments are largely irrational. You pretend somehow that Iraq I had no effect on Saddam's power. That we didn't bomb him at will in the 90's. That the case for going to war really turned out to be true. That things really are going well in Iraq.

[Rich Casebolt]

Jong ... by your own standards, why should we listen to you?

1> "Iraq was our ally - we were supplying them with weapons."

Notice the hardware Saddam relied on in his war machine:
... T-72 tanks, not M-1's.
... Mirage and MiG fighters, not Lockheed and Boeing products.
... AK-47's, not M-16's.

Despite your assertions that our support of Saddam was "massive", our dealings with him were a mere conversation-over-coffee, compared to the
whore's bed he shared with France/Russia/Germany.

And why did we support him at all? In part, because people like you stridently opposed any DIRECT American action against Iran.

See what your demands for INACTION have wrought.

2> "When it comes to WMDS, Saddam had everything but any real WMDs."

He had everything but the stockpiles ... the dual-use infrastructure, and the mothballed R&D programs and their intellectual property, ready to quickly restart whenever he bribed enough of the UN to take the heat off of him.

You assume that containment and weapons inspections would continue forever ... between the squeamishness of critics like you (again, promoting INACTION in the face of an evident threat), and the bribery of the UN perpetrated by Saddam, that is not a valid assumption to take.

And ... apparently the inspectors missed these programs. Without our invasion of Iraq, WHEN and HOW were YOU going to find out about these programs and interdict them?

Hmmm ... it is far more likely that we would have found out about them at the cost of thousands of lives, when the weapons developed within these programs were used for the first time.

3> "guess you also missed Iraq I when we destroyed Saddam's military."

Wrong -- dead wrong. Dead as to the tune of tens of thousands of Shiite and Marsh Arabs who died at the hands of the Republican Guard after Gulf War I.

The biggest error made in Gulf War I was when our leadership stopped the ground war before the Republican Guard was completely destroyed.

Why did the otherwise-prudent President GHW Bush do that?

Because of the sensationalized press surrounding the "Highway of Death" in Kuwait, where the Iraqi aggressors, leaving Kuwait, were mowed down in an effort to destroy components of the Iraqi war machine.

That Administration thought that we would be perceived as bullies if we continued, so we stopped ... and let the Republican Guard live on to kill another day.

In other words ... OUR LEADERSHIP WAS ONCE AGAIN SENSITIVE TO THE MYOPIC VIEWPOINT OF CRITICS LIKE YOU, JONG.

Again, see what your demands for INACTION have wrought.

4> "We then had him surrounded, bombed him whenever he did something we didn't like."

But Saddam & Sons were never decisively defeated.

They were still able to provide significant support for terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere -- including the 1993 WTC bombing here -- all those years.

They were still able to bribe the UN.

They still had the most potent military force in the MidEast, even after Gulf War I ... and, if Saddam could persuade the UN and international community to demand our exit from the region, it was more than enough to take Kuwait and probably Saudi Arabia.

Now, consider how having all the oil reserves in the Persian Gulf under the control of two totalitarian regimes ... Saddam & Sons to the west, Iran to the east ... would allow them to grab the world by the short-and-curlies and pull them towards support of their brutal worldviews.

4> "We also had inspectors in Iraq looking for WMDs they couldn't find."

They couldn't find those mothballed programs I described above, either.

Given Saddam's proclivities for duplicity, and the physical reality of Iraq, any inspection regime short of the national proctoscopy facilitated by our invasion could not be considered comprehensive enough to bet our lives on it.

You and other critics place too much stock in the ability of such passive defenses to protect us ... like gun-control proponents domestically, you concentrate too much on eliminating the tools of destruction, as opposed to eliminating the perpetrators who wield those tools.

If you had your way, Saddam would still be sitting there, on his sack of lethal seeds, waiting for the start of the next "planting season" once we were pressured to leave him alone.

"He was basically a cornered rat. Some threat."

A rat with lots of holes to run into ... and come out biting you in the arse.

Jong, you are stuck in the conventional wisdom of the 20th Century, where only the Big can be Bad enough to deserve our attention ... ignoring just how much the smaller "rats" can gnaw through the lines that hold our civilization together, as they try to overrun that civilization ... and turning up your nose at the idea that someone Big can actually do something right.

Again I ask ... if a few dozen guys with $1M could perpetrate the events of 11 September 2001, why does it make ANY sense to trust someone of like mind regarding the respect of others' life and liberty, with absolute control of an entire, resource-rich, relatively-advanced nation?

You and your conventional wisdom helped create this mess ... which, BTW, is a relatively mild mess compared to earlier conflicts ... look at Dresden, or Berlin ... or Hiroshima.

To clean it up, the rules have to change.

That is what this Administration is doing ... but since, in your BDS-afflicted world, your real enemy is this Administration and what you think it stands for, you aren't concerned about changing the rules to protect life and liberty.

You are part of the problem.

[jong]

No, I'm part of the solution. Because idiots like you have gotten us where we are today: mired in a brain-dead war. And if it were up to you, i'm betting you'd have us invade Iran as well, even though we can't finish what we started in Iraq.

The Iraq War has weakened us, made Iraq stronger and made AL Qaeda stronger. That's about as stupid a strategy as you can have. It's been great for our enemies, terrible for us.

And it's you that's stuck in conventional wisdom, ignoring that we're fighting an asymmetical enemy where there's no front line and putting large ground-based forces into unfriendly territory wimply provides the enemy with a "target-rich" environment. You want to kill Al Qaeda? Go for the head - that's Osama - and he's in Pakistan, not Iraq.

We invaded Iraq becuase we were told he had WMDs that Saddam was going to give to Al Qaeda - ignoring the fact he wasn't an Al Qaeda ally. There were also the lies about Iraqi 9/11 connections. Lowering the bar for war to well he could make them, maybe, if he wanted to, is laughable.

Amd thanks for admitting the war is all about oil. At least you're honest on that one.

The rest of your post largely ignores historical facts. We didn't trust Saddam, contrary to what you seem to believe. There was no weapons program, we had inspectors in country to stop the re-starting of any program, and we had Iraq surrounded and bombed them everytime Saddam made any sort of move we didn't like. That's not exactly the definition of trust.

You are the problem.

[Rich Casebolt]

Denial, denial, denial of the facts on the ground ...

I thought you guys said we didn't have ENOUGH troops there ... you're not sticking to the talking points ...

And we are weaker? We just took Al Quada's Iraqi "capital" ... wherever we choose to project force, Al Quada cannot rule the people. They don't control the ground, jong.

"Anbar Rising" ... "al-Ameriki tribe" ... GOOGLE 'EM!

I thought Iraq was a mess, not "stronger" ...

And let me fill you in on something ... killing bin Laden, while I would love to see it happen, will not end this war. The snake would grow a new head with amazing speed.

What will kill this enemy, is denying him the safe havens and resources of nations like Iraq and Afghanistan, reducing the thugs and fanatics to insignificance. That is not a "brain dead" strategy for long-term peace.

While they may have signed on more Pakistanis to their cause, AQ's capability to project power beyond Waziristan is severely limited due to the degredation of their command/control capabilities ... like being reduced to using couriers and taped messages, which in this day and age is about the same as two tin cans and a string. Using anything quicker would be picked up by the NSA, and a reply from us would be sent to them via PredX (Predator Express).

How many attacks on American soil have occurred since 911, Jong?

OTOH, Shiite Iran and Baathist Syria are allies ... why is it not plausible that Saddam and Al Quada would find common cause, sooner or later?

Oh, I forgot ... George W. Bush made sure that would NEVER happen. Ever.

Answer my question, jong:

Again I ask ... if a few dozen guys with $1M could perpetrate the events of 11 September 2001, why does it make ANY sense to trust someone of like mind regarding the respect of others' life and liberty, with absolute control of an entire, resource-rich, relatively-advanced nation?

That analysis is not "lowering the bar" -- it is common sense, a common sense that was suppressed by you and others obsessed with the conventional wisdom of the 20th century ...

... the blind worship of "self-determination" where dictators are treated like democrats ...

... the view that any use of force for any reason (short of stopping the body count on your own soil at a few thousand) was automatically "imperialism" ...

... the idea that demanding other nations implement the checks-and-balances needed to keep the thugs and fanatics from hijacking them, in the light of the vulnerability to terrorist attack of the interconnections of our global civilization, was also "imperialist".

YOU and THOSE LIKE YOU persuaded our nation to let these threats grow ... when common sense demanded that, at a minimum, Saddam should have been removed from power back in 1991 ... instead of leaving him in power, in deference to that conventional wisdom.

And while you are at it ... name one totalitarian (not authoritarian ... totalitarian, as in a regime that has no checks and balances against taking your life and liberty for ANY reason) that, once they had the will and capability to expand their rule, stopped on their own ... without the CREDIBLE confrontation of lethal force being placed in their way.

A confrontation repeatedly disallowed by that same conventional wisdom, even in the face of evident threats to life and liberty.