Richard WarnickMarch 20, 2003 - Another Date Which Will Live in Infamy
There’s no better way to say it than by borrowing FDR’s famous phrase. March 20, 2003 is a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America launched its first (and we hope, last) 21st Century war of aggression. This has turned into the second longest war in U.S. history, after Vietnam, and the second costliest, after World War II. Nearly 4,000 Americans have died. About 155,000 U.S. service members are still in Iraq, many on their second or third tour. There is still no end in sight.
Five years ago: In the pre-dawn darkness, tank crews of the 3rd Infantry Division prepare to invade Iraq.
Many Americans were not fooled when President Bush stated his reason for a preventive war: “We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction.” In fact, 59% of Americans did not support a U.S. invasion without the approval of the U.N. Security Council, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll just weeks before the order to invade.
By September 2004, the Iraq Survey Group final report concluded that the dangerous weapons of mass destruction cited by the Bush administration as a threat to U.S. national security never existed.
About a year ago, the Pentagon finished reviewing more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the U.S. invasion. The conclusion, recently revealed: there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime ever had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network.
Here’s a date destined to be forgotten as if it never happened: March 31, 2008, the deadline Congress set for withdrawal of the bulk of U.S. combat troops from Iraq. The supplemental funding bill that contained the withdrawal deadline passed the House of Representatives on a 218-208 vote, and passed the Senate by a vote of 51-46.
Of course, President Bush vetoed that bill on May 1, 2007– the fourth anniversary of his “Mission Accomplished” speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. He had already set in motion the so-called “surge” that made 2007 the bloodiest year of the entire Iraq occupation.
More info:
2003 invasion of Iraq on Wikipedia.
Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq on Wikipedia.
False Pretenses - The Center for Public Integrity. Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Iraq invasion photo gallery by David Leeson/The Dallas Morning News.
Faces of the Fallen from the Washington Post.
Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War from Reuters.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Don’t you have to make the costs in adjusted for inflation dollars?
With the scale of the Vietnam conflict, 500,000 soldiers in the field at one point, 58,000 American dead, 2200 helicopters destroyed, dozens of bombers, countless destroyed vehicles, and longer duration 11 years to the current 5…., plus more bombs dropped than all of WW2, by all parties involved. To say Iraq is the 2nd costliest, doesn’t seem accurate.
Not that it’s a bargain by any stretch.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I bet you guys consider March 20, 2003 a more infamous date than even 911. It was September 11 when America finally realized we were at war with Islomofascists. This war had been waged for decades and we did nothing about it until we got sucker punched. March 20, 2003 was the day we liberated Iraq which one day will be as revered as our 4th of jury to a free Iraqi people.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I think we just found magdeline albrights’ soulmate.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Ken, you sure the cave dwellers did it? That story is pretty weak by now.
Never mind that, where’s osama has become like where’s Waldo, ‘cept they forgot to put him in the picture. Wasn’t it made clear that saddam had no connection to 911, and didn’t much care for osama and crew? Then there were no WMD. How did we end up Iraq again?
Educate me.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Saddam Had WMD he either sent them on to syria or destroyed them shortly after the invasion. We know he had them because he used them on his own people. Saddam was a threat to his neighbors and a threat to the region. He was given so many chances to honor his agreements made with the UN and his obligations to he entered into when we ended the 1st Gulf War. He thumbed his knows at the world to a point we had to act. And as I recall our president Prophet of God said at the time it was a “Just War”. Now we can argue how this war was fought. I think it could of been finished 5 years ago if we had fought it like we are doing now. Notice there is practically a news blackout coming from Iraq right now from the western media? do you know why that it happening? It’s because we are kicking but and taking names and the MSM does not want you to know about it. If we were getting our buts kicked you know it would be splashed on every paper, the lead on every news report, and both Obama, and Hillary would never shut up about it, but there is nary a whisper about it from any Democrat candidate because they know it is going well. The only people now who claim we are losing are those who have a vested interest in us losing, or those that are hoping beyond hope we lose. What category do you fall in Jester and wmwarnick?
March 19th, 2008 at 3:20 am
The Shiites and Kurds are not saddams’ people, he having been a Sunni. Nor is Iraq a real country, having been cobbed together by the english in the 20’s for their own purposes of facilitating management that would allow them to extract resources.
It is quite interesting to discover where he got those WMDs. He acquired them from us and the Germans during the Iran Iraq war, including the equipment to make them. By the time we got involved, the bio and gas agents were past their shelf life, and of no use. Something anyone with knowledge of such things knows full well.
Let us never forget that saddam received the most money from us of any Arab dictator, at one point 4 billion dollars a year. In the region only Israel received more, and at 4 billion was equal that. We also helped him logistically and with intelligence during Iran Iraq war which resulted in 1 million deaths, most of them Iranian Shia.
There is really nothing to win Ken. One can review Romes’ history with Parthia 60 years before Christ, which had nothing to do with Islam, as it was not yet created. The culture of Parthia which extends to this day is of a culture that is singular, and in that way not prone to becoming anything we would claim to desire.
However, in fact under saddam, women had far greater opportunity for career freedom than today under the creeping Shiite resurgence and control of Iraq, that we in our stupidity have enabled. Some of saddams’ chief ministers were women. He accomplished this social change by using the weapons and money we gave him, along with the oil wealth, to keep all the religious psychos in line. With some 700,000 dead, and millions displaced, we only now try to re-establish what he accomplished through brute force. Our own brute force has killed far more of Iraqs’ people than saddam ever did.
Just consider this, saddam was a bad guy, but there is no denying that he was our bad guy. As far as the UN considerations are concerned we regularly thumb our noses at them, as does Israel, and as Iraq was sovereign, and saddam its ruler, he was under no obligation to honor any of their requests than we do when the do not suit us. Our dealings and support and subsequent abandonment of saddam falls under the dictum of Douglas Kinnards’
“No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent self interest”.
Realpolitik.
Cliff you do your credibility no favors by doing things like that to Ken.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I’ve added a link to the post above to back up the statement that Iraq is the most expensive war except for World War II.
World War II cost $5 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars. The price tag for the Iraq War will be $3 trillion, according to a recent study by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance Professor Laura Bilmes.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Concepts of victory and defeat are slippery in the Middle East, as history shows. Was it a win for the USA to defeat the Saddam Hussein regime? Or was it a win for Iran? If the goal was to turn Iraq into a permanent base for U.S. forces, that was never achievable.
I’m with Rep. John Murtha. It has been more than two years since he concluded, “The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily.” Since he reached that conclusion, how many thousands have died?
March 19th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I just did a site wide search. Ken Bingham has never used the word peace on this blog or his own. He should consider the goal of peace in the proper context…war and occupation.
Ken certainly has the sophistication to appreciate the idea that withdraw from Iraq might be a quicker path to peace.
To be sure, Ken takes the war hawk, fear mongering position that the opposite is true.
But he also must know that, SO FAR, based on ALL the empirical evidence from the Pentagon on down, the war in Iraq is making us less safe and pushed possibility of peace further down the road.
Ken, name one war that continued after the invading troops left.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:22 am
The multi-trillion $ pricetag needs to be adjusted by the value of the oil we harvest, further modified to include all the ailments caused by the effluent of our autos crawling around our foggy bottom valleys; of course we need to take into account the mansions being built by the corporated executives, and there’s always the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure; and don’t forget the vets and those crippled by bombs and depleated war products will need prosthetics, psychological and other types of care. Theres plenty of money to be made, Hell the economy is booming. You whiners need to give it a rest.
(Gooper /snark)
March 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
It is an inaccurate and politically driven number Richard. We are going to turn 4000 dead, and will have to see near 15 times as many US soldiers dead, to meet Vietnams’ measure, in as costly. If you are talking dollars, it remains to be seen. In the larger cost of treasure, it isn’t even close.
I can say now after recent winners, the Nobel prize award system has been cheapened considerably, and for the tally to be considered seriously speaks volumes as to how gullible Americans are becoming.
Will be isn’t is. Where’s bill clinton? He could clear this up. God we’re so screwed, it is like as a people we have undergone a self inflicted lobotomy. DOH!
I wonder what the true cost of Vietnam will be if we follow in the path of suing for reparations. With the tally being an estimated 3.5 million dead in Indochina for our efforts their, not including Cambodia, we haven’t even truly paid the butcher bill for Vietnam. Iraq can’t hold a candle to it in real terms. The book is 1/2 price already, for a reason.
As for harvard economists? are you serious Richard, I’m pissing myself while I watch the elite core of “e conned mists” explain this ongoing train wreck.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Cliff the history of the Island of England is one of steady unending warfare after the Romans packed up and left. Could well be the problem with our own warlike nature, we being a product of their ways.
War as business, just pick your glorious reason and carry on then.
Religious wars come to mind of ones that continue after the initiial invaders left. After the Allies left Yugoslavia, Tito set the model for saddam like behavior, once dead the place degenerated into warfare, well after it had been invaded by Germany, and “set free”.
Then there is Chechnya, you get the point.
In Vietnam once we left there was a brutal mop up of the South Vietnamese Army, widespread retribution, along with the NVA kicking the crap out of the Khmer Rouge, which led to the subsequent invasion of North Vietnam by China. Took some time for the kettle to stop boiling.
We can expect many a score to be settled as soon as we leave Iraq. We have just been the referee these past 5 years. If the Iran Iraq war could yield 1 million dead between the Sunni Iraq and Shia Iran, we can expect the Sunni’s to fight for their lives once we leave.