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10-Year Iraq War Anniversary: What We've Learned In the Past Decade

George Washington's picture




 

 

Reflections On a Major Debacle

Preface:   Many experts and alternative writers pointed out the false justifications and huge downsides before the Iraq war started.  I know for a fact that many letters and phone calls were made to Congress in an attempt to stop the war.

And the protests against the Iraq war were the largest protests in history.

Yet the politicians plowed ahead with the disastrous war and refused to listen to the facts ... or the will of the people.

The Iraq war started 10 years ago.   This is a roundup of the facts that have been documented about the debacle in the last decade.

The War Was Planned Long Before 9/11

The American government planned the Iraq war long before 9/11.

Former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11.

Top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change even before Bush took office.

In 2000, Cheney said a Bush administration might “have to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power.” And see this and this.

Indeed, neoconservatives planned regime change .

Weapons of Mass Destruction and 9/11

Everyone knew that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (update here).

U.S. officials are guilty of war crimes for using 9/11 as a false justification for the Iraq war. Indeed, the entire torture program was implemented in an attempt to justify the Iraq war.

American officials considered lettering Saddam should down a U.S. or UN plane, in order to provide a false justification for war.

Saddam allegedly offered to leave Iraq if the U.S. would call off the war ... but we refused.  We wanted to invade.

The Real Reason

No wonder ...

As even the top Republican leaders have admitted, the Iraq war was - in fact - for oil.

War Crimes

The U.S. engaged in a systematic program of torture in Iraq, which rounded up innocent farmers, reporters, old people and children.  People were murdered and sexually abused as part of the torture program.

The American military used depleted uranium in Iraq - which can causes cancer and birth defects for decades (see this, this, this, this, this and this).

Chemical weapons were used in Falluja, which greatly increased the rate of birth defects.

The Pentagon sent in one of the main US creators of the death squads in El Salvador to set up paramilitary death squads and torture centers in Iraq.

(And Iraqis are worse off now than before the Iraq war. Christians are more widely persecuted than under Saddam.)

Cost: $5-6 Trillion Dollars

The government claimed that the entire Iraq war would cost $50-60 billion. How much did it really end up costing?

Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated in 2008 that the Iraq war could cost America up to $5 trillion dollars.

But a new study by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies says the Iraq war costs could exceed $6 trillion, when interest payments are taken into account.

Given that top economists say that war is bad for the economy, the Iraq war is one of the primary reasons for our current economic problems.

The War Has Hurt America's National Security

National security experts – including both hawks and doves – agree that waging war against Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries has weakened America's national security and increased terrorism risks. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

 

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Tue, 03/19/2013 - 12:33 | 3347699 George Washington
George Washington's picture

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy told the New York Times:

 

The temptation to abuse powers in a crisis is bipartisan and the
[proposed truth] commission’s review should include the role of
Democrats in Congress in approving the Bush policies.

 

As I have previously written, Nancy Pelosi was secretly briefed on torture
many, many years ago, and yet did nothing to stop those unlawful
programs. Indeed, she egged the torturers on. Pelosi was also secretly tipped off about warrantless spying on Americans. And Pelosi hid
from the 9/11 Commission and the American people the fact that the
interrogations of 9/11 suspects were videotaped, and that the alleged
“confessions” of those held at Gitmo were wholly unreliable
. She could have stopped the whole farce cold — but chose to go along with it.

 

Leading democrats Harman, Rockefeller and others in Congress were also war criminals, accessories after the fact, and co-conspirators.

Tue, 03/19/2013 - 12:53 | 3347860 Republi-Ken
Republi-Ken's picture

BIG OIL

MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

CONTROL EVERY MOTHER FUCKING REPUBLICAN IN CONGRESS

Never Never Never Forget That.

But Zero Hedgers are all Republican Offspring who Sucked the Dick of Republican Ideology.

Tue, 03/19/2013 - 19:28 | 3350200 Seize Mars
Seize Mars's picture

RepubliCunt,

I'm a Republican? News to me.

Idiot

Tue, 03/19/2013 - 16:39 | 3349387 Kayman
Kayman's picture

The anointed one with the halo seems to like blood oil too. Republicans and Democrats- bastard children of the same whore.

Tue, 03/19/2013 - 12:38 | 3347750 JamesBond
JamesBond's picture

GW -

the pentagon has invested so much money into a US military infrastructure that there is no way to abandon it.  The US military is never going to completly leave Iraq, no matter who the president is....

just think Korea, Japan, Germany

 

cheers -

 

jb

Tue, 03/19/2013 - 13:07 | 3347986 Westcoastliberal
Westcoastliberal's picture

Bond, James Bond, why would we leave since that's where the oil is and the reason for the entire "exercise"?

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