ok, whats going on with all the oil?
 

im surprised that i never hear an "oil update" in any news, print or tv. i wonder a lot of stuff like....

1) whats happening in iraqi oil fields?

2) whats haliburton up to there?

3) is there some kind of arrangement from the result of our occupation in the middle east?

i find the dearth of info on something so important to be amazing... you'd think there'd be entire cable stations devoted to keeping us up to date.

are there any news sites on the web that deal with this. is the silence on it particularly american?

Mainstream media reporting on Iraqi oil fields, what Haliburton is up to, and the result of our occupation of the Middle East?!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Oh, man. Good one.

If they reported on such things the illusion would be dissolved. America is one of the main offenders, but they aren't the only one.

Edit: Sorry. Most mainstream media outlets would be negatively effected by reporting such things. I won't go off on a rant, but they are not dependable sources on this kind of information. Free Speech TV would be a good place to go for that kind of news.

nothing is wrong.
capitalism is rational.
all is well.
all is always necessarily well.
corporations are nice.
they like you, you like them.
dont you feel better about gas prices and iraq and halliburton and everything else now?
we like each other.
let's have a nice big hug, shall we?



this is how capitalism, which is necessarily rational, floats all boats.
dont you feel better now?
this is what the always rational workings of those necessarily rational markets looks like.
doesnt it feel nice knowing how rational everything is?
i do.
i hope you do too.

ok, now all the below are today's secret words.
whenever anybody says any of the secret words,
scream real loud.
ok?

yay capitalism!
yay petroleum industry!
yay american hyperconsumption of petroleum!
yay everything!
yay cronyism!
yay bush administration!

of course there is nothing to be done about oil, its price or anything else.
this is the best of all possible worlds.

yay capitalism!
yay petroleum industry!

There's a fair amount news about oil out there, usually in the business section (although I haven't seen much of Halliburton or Iraqi oil news).

Here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5318776.stm

This is from yesteday or so. It was on CNN, BBC, and NPR. I don't know about any other news sources. Maybe they thought that a car chase or cat up a tree was more newsworthy.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/06/mark...reut/index.htm

Looks like oil is doing what it does - up and down, up and down. There's a lot of oil speculation type reports this time of year due to the end of the traditional driving season in the US and also the onset of hurricane season (which is feared to disrupt supplies).

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/06/news...reut/index.htm

This one is interesting; sort of whistle-blowing-ish.

As for Iraqi oil and Halliburton? Maybe there is nothing to report or maybe there is a conspiracy, I don't know. But maybe some digging will reveal info.

Here are two different "news" reports for fair and balanced reporting on the 3 most recent news regarding Halliburton and oil in Iraq.

Halliburton
http://www.halliburton.com/default/m...ws_110505.html

http://www.halliburton.com/about/community_0512c.jsp

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/kbraward.html

And from Halliburton Watch
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/4150680.html

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/kbraward.html

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/hal.html

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) is required by Congress to provide quartertly reports on all aspects of Iraq reconstruction and the expenditure of US funds.

These are the highlights of the oil and gas sector in the July 2006 Quarterly Report:

* More than 95% of the sector’s allocation has been obligated, but less than 60% has been expended.
* Oil production, which hovered around 2 million barrels per day (BPD) throughout 2005 and most of the first half of 2006, reached 2.5 million BPD in mid-June. In the two weeks following this peak, however, production decreased to 2.35 and 2.23 million BPD, respectively.
* Exports averaged 1.6 million BPD throughout the quarter and closed at 1.67 million BPD for June, slightly above the end-state goal of 1.65 million BPD.
* The volatile security situation and limited provisions for sustainment continue to be challenges for developing the sector.
* Corruption threatens not only Iraq’s capacity to fund new capital investment, but also its ability to sustain and increase production.

http://www.sigir.mil/sectors/oil.aspx

The July report also notes that the cost of corruption in the overall reconstruction effort is estimated at $4 billion/year.

http://www.sigir.mil/reports/quarter...s/default.aspx

They are being parcelled out to coalition governments. I suspect that bidding is still going on between companies like BHP and Halfayah.
As of April this year, the KBR part of Haliburton is being traded publicly on the NYSE. They still "employ over 30,000 men and women in Iraq. Halliburton's work in Iraq is diverse and complicated. In addition to troop support, Halliburton also provides air traffic control support; produces 74 million gallons of water a month for consumption, hygiene and laundry; deploys as many as 700 trucks a day to deliver essentials to American forces; and provides firefighter and crash-rescue services, as well as working to restore Iraqi oil infrastructure."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton#2000s

As far as I know, Haliburton still has notm apologized about the botched food and water problems the summer of 2005. Current information is sketchy at best.
Yes and no. You see the idea is that we are rebuilding their country. The money is coming from our government in the form of debt, and it's being paid to (mostly) American corporations in exorbitant amounts.

Silence is policy.

Shell believes they have identified a major oil field in the Gulf of Mexico per today's newspaper.

And here is a lovely little article sent to me by a friend that deals with the ten worst war profiteers in Iraq.

War Profiteers

Numbers 8, 9 and 10 will be the big winners:

Does anyone still believe that we didn't go there for the oil?

I supported invading Iraq long before we actually did. The fundemental underlying reason was oil. I would often say I supported the invasion because of the need for stability in the Middle East. But the only reason I cared about stability in the Middle East was because of the oil. I never thought people didn't understand that. When Sadaam invaded Kuwait it was because he wanted to control the oil in Kuwait, and we came to Kuwaits defense because of the oil or "stability in the Middle East" I didn't think there was any doubt. If there was no oil we would not of cared, or at least not me - about getting rid of Sadaam. Sadaam wanted military power to control Middle East oil, he was a threat because he threatened the stability in the Middle East, in other words he was a threat to America. He knew it and we knew it, and it was all about oil. Our American life-style depends on oil. I am willing to fight to defend my life-style as have many others. Those who are not willing to fight to defend our oil dependant life-style should sell the rest of us on the alternative.

"i am willing to fight to defend my lifestyle?"

i was joking.
you are not.

Well in that case, the next time I see you perhaps I should shoot you and take your wallet. You see, I've become accustomed to a certain lifestyle but the economy has forced me to cut back on that lifestyle. By your logic, it is therefore OK for me to steal whatever I need in order to maintain my former lifestyle.


Are you starting to see the morality issue here?

Ding, ding, ding. This is probably why we never hear about it on the news. There's not really much good news to report in this sector, and unlike the bad news about deaths and such, when people here about oil, especially from a country we are occupying, they probably want to hear something good.

I won't go on a rant about corruption in Iraq on this one... I'll either be too right, or absolutely wrong, and both situations would scare me (I'd rather be found wrong though).

I'm sure most of that oil not being exported is going to our military installations to feed our war machines, but it would not surprise me if we are importing oil from halfway across the world to go to our military bases. Some of the other frivolous expenditures I saw while out there, this would not surprise me one bit.

Thanks for the info dc_dux, and thanks for asking this question high-jinx, I've been curious about this myself.

Oh, and when reading about Halliburton, also look up KBR (Kellog-Brown-and-Root, Root may be spelled differently), they hold most of the contracting positions out in Iraq, and this is where my bitching about corruption would start coming into play. I believe they are a subsidiary of Halliburton.

You may have known, but why did this president's administration work so hard to sell Iraq as being part of 9/11, dangerous to us and having WMD's????? None of which were true.

It's not up to those who want alternative fuels to "try to sell their ideas to the rest of us"..... It's up to the car companies, the oil companies and so on to RELEASE the patents they bought up, stole, extorted and so on.

American car companies are going to die very painfully (and so is this country's economy) when the Japanese and other foreign car makers really push out the hybrids and electric cars. It'll be interesting to see how the leadership of this country will prevent massive imports and sales of hybrids.

It will also be interesting to see those people who favor a "laissez faire" business government react to the government protection of the big oil companies. How will they react to the laws that are going to be passed that will prevent or push hybrids and electric cars into legal messes?

How is this government going to react when they lose the taxes from oil?

How are these big business neocons going to handle it when because of their own greed and refusal to change, the Japanese and others develop and start selling massive amounts of hybrids here? The oil companies will be obsolete, the tax money will dry up, the US car companies will be on their last legs and this country will be going into a Depression like we have never seen.

Sound far fetched? How much of our nation depends on the auto industry, in one form or another? And those companies have how many hybrid ideas?

Meanwhile, Toyota, Honda and soon Nissan and Mitsubishi have Hybrids that can not stay on the lot. They are moving very fast and there are waiting lists to buy them.

But the US auto industry wants to blame the workers pensions, retirement benefits and so on. While if they had just 10 years ago started using those patents for non-gas cars, or worked on mass producing hybrids or other form of car they'd still be industry leaders and not dying dinosaurs blaming the workers.

Why aren't we hearing about reconstruction of the oil industry in Iraq? Because frankly, no one really cares. Oh sure, we all want lower gas prices, which some of the hawks now conceed was an important reason we invaded in the first place, but really, other than the human interest angle, who cares about infrastructure construction? If it's going to inconvenience your commute, you care, but who here really wants to know about local construction projects. Yes, these particular projects happen to be important to our self-interests, but they are going to have no immediate impact on us so no one cares.

Show of hands for who wants regular updates on the progress of the repairs to the Alaskan pipeline that's going to have a much more immediate impact on all our lives? There will probably be a little blurb somewhere when it's done, but pipeline construction doesn't sell papers.

No I don't. Stealing someone's property is different from paying a fair market price for it. Being willing to defend a free market is not stealing. I think we fight to make sure the market for oil is free, not to steal oil.

I find that Bush speaks in ways some don't understand. The current conflicts in the Middle East relate to power and control, this in turn directly relates to control of Middle Eastern Oil. Terrorism is a strategy used by some in this struggle. Iran, specifically Sadaam, encouraged terrorism to create chaos in his efforts to control the region. Although not directly related to 9/11 there is a base connection.

You are correct about WMD's. He did not have any. In hind-sight I guess if he actually had them, he would have used them - don't you agree.

I don't understand.

I say - I am willing to go to war for the reasons stated. I support candidates who support my view. My candidates get elected and convince the American public, congress, UN, and others that it is o.k. to go to war. Then you, being against the war say - It is not up to you to sell your ideas on alternatives to war?

If we let Islamic extremist control the Middle East, our lives would be dramtically different. I think in a negative way, therefore I am willing to fight. What do you think? And what are you willing to do?

Many of those Toyota's Honda's an Hyunda's are being made here in the USA. Toyota's stock trades on the NYSE. Chrysler is owned by a German company. Ford and GM have been on a downward slide for the past 40 years.

If people want hybrids and electric cars they will be produced. I don't have any close friends or family that own one, have ordered one, or is even thinking about getting one. Some are liberal, they tend to complain about oil consumption but still want enough horespower to pull a 15,000 boat (the one they dream about owning).

Tax other things. Perhaps a internet usage tax.

Company's will follow the market leaders. Oil companies will diversify with the profits made from oil. The depression in the '30's was pretty bad, I don't know of any respected economist saying we are headed for another depression like that in the '30's.

At one point the horse and buggy industry dominated transportation. The railroads where huge. Then automobiles came along, the airplanes. I am looking forward to what is coming next. change happens all the time. Out with the old in with the new.

Isn't that a good thing from your point of view?

Perhaps you are correct. If manageent is incompetant at those companies, those companies will die. Kind of like natural selection. Perhaps the new companies will be leaner, meaner, and more profit oriented.

Ace, I am not trying to be a smartass because I like the points you have made and the way you made them. However, Saddam and Iran were enemies and had fought a few wars, I am assuming you hit the wrong letter.

Ok, show me anything anywhere that shows Saddam's regime promoted terrorism before 9/11. He did not have anything to do with 9/11, nor did he train the terrorists nor did he have WMDs.... all 3 of those were used to sell this war, not the fact "it was to preserve the free market of oil" or whatever.

So this administration flat out lied to the people and other nations about why they wanted war. If I recall, anyone that spoke out against the administration at the time were called unpatriotic, "didn't have the facts, because those weapons did exist...." and so on.

As for your last sentence, yes, I do believe he would have used them. So in just saying that, the proof that the administration lied about the whole reason we went to war is sickening.

Then there are the people who say "he tried to buy yellowcake".....really and who states this? The same people we believed that said Saddam had Anthrax, Mustard gas and all kinds of nasties. Then were proven and in their own ways admitted to lieing?


And as talked about above those people lied, were given false data and were cajoled, harrassed, and had their patriotism questioned if they said anything.

It wasn't a very "free speech" oriented congress then, just go back and read the posts, the papers and watch C-SPAN archives of how vicious that era was.

But Saddam was a moderate. We in essence are putting extremists in power by this war based on lies.

Iran was the country that needed to be invaded not Iraq. Now it is too late, and Iran has the power to be a far greater threat now than Saddam ever could have been.



Very true, and they are very good employers. Nissan also.


Well there are hypocrites on both sides and we all know this. People want a better world but most are unwilling to change any aspect of their life, they expect everyone else to.

Perhaps, or go after the oil companies like you did the tobacco companies and sue them for billions..... billions supposedly earmarked for programs that help people and yet..... the money never showed up.



Time will tell. I hope we don't get that bad.

I love this argument. The horse and buggy industry???? ahhh I miss watching Wall Street.

Yes, moving forward is always needed, however, you must also take into account the present. We're not training our workers to make the needed moves, our education system is shit and where the US was once the beacon of progression we are sorely lagging behind and becoming dinosaurs. Partly because our society became too lazy and partly because of greed from the top down.

But again, the US lags, we are not the leader anymore and we are leaving great debts and horrific financial and infrastructural futures for our children.

It's sad that the attitude this last quote shows is what the biggest problem is.

Management and the workers aren't working together to advance the companies anymore. It's sad, it's pathetic because of the greed, and it is suicidal to the economy and future of this nation.

$25k to families of suicide boombers to name one.

I don't recall Bush or anyone in his administration saying Saddam was directly involved in 9/11. They did state that there was an indirect connection, which is what i believe.

People were called unpatriotic for failing to support our troops. Some people want us to lose the war, they too are unpatriotic in my opinion. There is difference between dissent and encouraging our enemy, which some people did and still do.

I see this totally different. Even if I thought Bush lied, given the fact that a mad man would have used nuclear weapons against innocent people would trump the lie.

I thought that information came from intelgence agencies. I have not followed the Sadaam trial, but some important questions are: how many people did he actually have killed and how did he kill them? I know we can not prove what he intended to at this point, but I feel better now that he is no longer in power.

O.k., if you call someone a lier, they normally respond in a mean way.

When a person says Bush lied, and then Bush says by calling me a lier - you aid the enemy - you are scum. Then that person starts to cry - I say that person is a wimp (using a G rated term rather than the one I would really use). Basically they need to get over it and fight, defend their position, get tough, get mean, get mad-dog mean.

I am tired of Democrats crying in the media about how Cheny hurt their feelings. The main reason I love Cheny and Rumsfeld so much is because they are two mean SOB's, and I don't like Gore and Kerry because they would be like jail-house girl friends of Cheny and Rumsfeld.

Politics are for grown ups.



Interesting theory. How does putting extremists in power helpful to anyone? Why would Bush want that?

Like I have written before. When you look at a map of the Middle East you clearly see Iran sandwiched between Iraq and Afganistan. Iran is militarily stronger than Iraq. We need control of Iraq if we are to take military action agaisnt Iran. Also having control of Afganistan helps. With military presence in strategic points we can put the squeeze on Iran.

The result of our invasion of Iraq was to put the two most extemeist parties with ties to Iran (SCIRI and Dawa) in control of the Iraq government only increasing Iran's influence.

And we have control of Afghanistan? Perhaps we would have if we did not abandon it prematurely, for the most part, in order to pursue the folly in Iraq.

Using the language of some, aren't we "occupiers" of those nations? Given our military presence, I think we can do what needs to be done, if an offensive military strategy is needed against Iran. If we did not have military presence in those countries an offensive military strategy would be far more difficult.

My biggest fear is the next President will undo what the Bush administration has masterfully orchestrated. People said he had no plan, I can see it pretty clearly - don't you?

Iran sees what has happened. I think that they believe world opinion is against the US and that is why they want to speed up their nuclear weapons development. (Ooops, "nuclear power" development, they don't have enough oil to satisfy their electricity needs - right?)

WOW...I am really at a loss for words.

We cant even control the insurgency and sectarian violence in Iraq, not to mention the reemerging presence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and you honestly believe we can "do what needs to be done" militarily as a result of our increasingly unpopular occupation of Iraq?

What I see clearly is that this "masterful strategy" has only strengthened Iran's hand in the region and yes, has increasingly made the US the common enemy among the more militant muslims in the region and the world.

Our military has a secondary role in policing Iraq. Policing Iraq is not and has never been our primary mission.

Our primary mission was to overthrow Sadaam, lay a foundation for democracy, take the fight to the Islamic extremists, and begin the process of creating stability in the region.

Mission accomplished... America's attack on Iraq drew out the conflict longer than if we would have let a healthy revolution take place. This same thing happened in Vietnam. I forget who's signature this is but I like it; America cannot hope to win in Vietnam against an enemy fighting with guerrilla warfare, and doesn't care about its level of casualties.

My car got broken into about 2 years ago. I called it in immediatally. I explained everything, and was told to make out a report. They didn't even come by to investigate. They filed my report and it was never looked at again. I lost my stereo, my watch, several hundred cds (not burned cds, mind you, actual $14 cds), a window, and my sense of safety. I asked a sherif friend of mine why it wasn't investigated. He told me that the police man-power doesn't exist to investigate most minor crimes. Mind you I live in San Jose, a place known to be one of the safest large cities in the US. Hundreds of billions of dollars go to Iraq for purpouses such as policing. Not only that, we are going into debt much faster than ever before as a direct result of this war. I think we can all agree that Sadam was an evil man and should have been stopped, but should we be doing this at the cost of our own country? My daughter will pay for this. My daughter's daughter will pay for this. My posterity and yours will pay for our inability to make simple financial, ethcail, and moral decisions in their consideration. I am more concerned about solving our problems today instead of tomorrow. While on the surface this is an investment in resources, any scientist can tell you that oil isn't renewable, and will exhaust only faster the more we consume. Any invester will tell you that investing in something that is going to stop giving you a return soon is a bad move. Any democratic citizen can tell you that destroying a government because it might have posed a threat to you in the past is behavior befitting an empire. Any bleeding heart liberal can tell you this war has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with control, and more importantly with lining some very deep pockets. You don't need to listen to the bleeding heat liberal, but the scientist and the invester are nothing to sneeze at.

Good post willravel. I wonder how much oil we've used up during this war.

We have lost more than 3,000 American men and women in Iraq, almost entirely after the fall of Saddam, because our policymakers in the White House and Defense Dept. believed we would be greeted as liberators.

What a sad commentary. What you in effect are acknowledging is that Bush/Rumsefeld did not understand or plan for the fact that an urban war creates an insurgency, not to mention the fact that, as many Middle East experts outside the Administration predicted, we would open the door to sectarian viiolence in a power struggle created by the post-Saddam vaccum......and we paid and are continuing to pay the price.

Unless Army Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, who seems to be on active duty status, by the way.....is a liar, or this interview is a contrivance, your "take" seems to be trumped by Schneid's account of Rumsfeld's pre-invasion planning.
Army Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid's account is remarkably consistant with what has been reported about the "early retirement" of COS, Gen. Shinseki.

It doen't seem that the reports about Rumsfeld overruling the reccomendations of troop strength of Gen. Shinseki, or the State Dept. post invasion occupation plan, has much influence on your opinion. Will this reporting change that? Will any reporting influence a revision of your opinion?

My tired question....how do you <b>know</b>, what you know? Where does all that resolve....that "certainty"....come from? I, by no means, have it....I have to qualify everything that I suspect....with "stuff" like this:

Overall, it does very much look as it the US govt truly believed that people would welcome them with love, and tey seem totally confused that this did not happen.

I find that Americans (and to a lesser extent many Europeans, Canadians, Australians etc) are so clear about the self evident advantages of their own way of life and politico-economic arangements that they (we) feel that the poor benighted souls around the world that have the misfortune to live in non-western style ways will breath a sigh of relief as soon as we arive and thank us for the privilege.

Sadly, the people in the countries involved have a "live free or die" mentality. Just like the Americans had when they kicked out the British.

As the largest historical collonial power in history the British have slightly more experience of how the "natives" do not welcome all the advancements that are offered to them, even though it is obvious to us that they would be better off accepting them.

To me it beggars belief that anyone who has grown up in the USA, a country proud of its victory in an anti-collonial revolution, should be shocked in any way by the level of vehemence that the local population feel about their invasion and occupation.

In the case of the 13 collonies it was "no taxation without representation" as their money was taken to make the regime of George (III Hanover) wealthy and secure.

Is it any wonder that the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are unhappy about the reality (or prospect in the case of Iran) of their money being used to bring wealth and security to the regime of George (II Bush).

As you sow, so shall you reap.

Social Darwinism has been around since Britain thought of it a few centuries ago. It was wrong then, and its still wrong today.
Actually its taking more money out than its bringing in, and the lies used to protect the Bush administration are drawing attention, but I see what you mean. No one seems to be able to stop them until the comming elections.

What I acknowledge is the fact that "policing Iraq" or "winning the peace" in Iraq is not and was not our primary military objective. I think some people thought it was, but the folks making the decisions didn't. So, how do you measure success - by a standard not set by policy makers? I think far too many people are making this far more complicated than it is.

True - there are costs, but what would the consequences be if we didn't pay those costs. I remember a slogan from a transmission commercial where the guys says - "you can pay me now, or you can pay me later". I think ignoring the Middle East now would be a grave error and cost alot more in the future. I guess you think the opposite. If you are right we have incurred a cost that we can recover from, if I am right and we do noththing, we incur costs that we will never recover from. I think the risk of doing nothing is too high.

What would be the consequences had we not interceeded in Iraq? Well that's quite simple. Most political and military analists not on the administration's payrole have been saying for the past 10 years that Sadam's power has (had) been steadily weakening. His grip on the civlians in Iraq was slipping. Resistences were popping up all over Iraq, ESPICALLY IN FALLUJAH. While they were probably headed for a civil war of some kind, it would have been their war. They would have won their independance from tyrany. They might hav eve set up a democracy of sorts there. That's where it was heading. There were no weapons of mass destruction, there were no links to global terrorism. There were humanitarian rights violations left and right, most of which were against their own people. There was involvement with the Palestinian/Israeli problems. The Iraqi government was starting to fall apart. They were zero threat to the US, and a negligable threat to their neighbors, even Israel. If we had done nothing, nothing would have been done to us.

It was never my suggestion to completly ignore the Middle East, but as we can now see plainly, invasion was stupid. We've lost the souls of thousands of American soldiers, we have countless injured American soldiers, but more importantly we have tens to hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians. Why more importantly? Well, because they never made a commitment to join a military. They never signed up to risk their lives. They were born. They lived under tryany, trying to survive. Just as the power that tyrant was yielding was beginning to slip, missles from warships hundreds of miles out to sea came and destroyed lives. Was that taken into account in your "incurred costs that we can recover from"? We can't bring those people back from the dead, American or Iraqi, so I'd say that's something we can't recover.

It's alright for us to stop being selfish for 5 seconds. It's alright to consider the harm we've done, and how to apologize for our mistakes. The best leaders in history understand that they are not Gods. They are the same as those they represent, and to err is human. I make mistakes and so do you. So does the president. If I'm right, that means that our future is broken on the rocks of ignorance. We have dug ourselves into a hole deeper than anyone else, ever. Our only safety net is other's dependence on us, and that won't last forever. The risk of invasion was and still is too high.

I would suggest that the geo-politics of the Middle East is very complicated, requiring a thoughtful and deliberative foreign policy!

The problem is the simplistic black/white analysis and policy development process of the Bush administration, particularly in Iraq, at a cost of thousands of lives and billions of $$.

"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done."
- Robert S. McNamara

How about saying invasion is not what you would have done rather than saying it was stupid?

I don't understand how you say you would not ignore the Middle East and then seem to totally rule out being willing to take military action. Negotiation (resolutions, sanctions, whatever) simply does not work without the threat of , and willingness to take military action.

So tell me - what would you have done - starting with Iraq invading Kuwait???

Avoiding the power of hindsight, I'd go with my original opinions: be scared out of my head during the first gulf war (scared that it would escalate), but support it.

Invade Afganistan and do everything (all available resources and attention) to get Bin Laden and his band of merry men.

NOT invade Iraq. If Bush/Cheny/Rumsfeld/Wolfie hadn't had a hard-on for Iraq, there was no reason to do it. Imagine that none of that trumped up WMD talk had existed... there's no way we have invaded.


From there, who knows what would have happened? I'd like to think we could have done more damage to the baddies in Afganistan by putting our total resources on that issue. It seems like it would have made a difference in results. And perhaps used our stellar re-building skills to help with THAT country. :D

I'm no expert on body counts, but it seems like our war has killed more Iraqis than Saddam would have. I know it's speculation, but is it 2:1? 3:1? What is the point at which we say "saddam would have been better"? Or is "freedom" worth any body count?

Sure seems a better path, to me. And there were people on this very board advocating such a path at each juncture...

What I and others have been saying is that before you go to war, you need to understand the geo-pollitics of such an invasion and plan for the worst possible outcome and not just the rosiest scenario ("we will be greeted as liberators") and reassess the worthiness of such an action.

The evidence is overwhelming that Bush/Rumsfeld had no understanding of the potential for an either an insugrency backlash or sectarian violence.

The results?
What would I have done? I would have continued to focus all of our resources on al Queda in Afghanistan as well as agrressively pressuring Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to take out al Queda within their borders or diplomatically threatened to do it ourselves. Iraq was marginalized after the first Gulf war...its military was emasculated, two-thirds of the country was under a US-UK no fly zone, and he had no WMD. Saddam was certainly a threat to his own people, but not to us. Bush took his eye off the ball (ie focus on al Queda) for whatever reason and not only created a new quagmire in the Iraq, but lost the support of most of the world.

The more important questions now are those raised in this article. How do we make the best of this f*ck up? I dont have the answers, other than its not "stay the course".

The price of crude oil from 2001 - 2005

http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/crudeoilprice01_05.gif

Follow the red line from March 2003 and the invasion of Iraq.

A direct corelation? Probably not. An influencing factor? Probably so, along with our deteroriating relationship with many Gulf states as a result of our invasion.

You guys seem to ignore the fact that Iraq continually ignored UN mandates.

With that it seems you would have allowed him to re-establish his nuclear program (assuming he did not have one at the time we invaded). Once he re-established that proram would you have let him develop nuclear weapons?

Would you let him attack his neighbors? would you let him control the Middle East? At what point would you use the military to stop his defiant activities?

For the record - I never gave a crap about being greeted as liberators. i wanted Saddaam out of power. I wanted a military foothold in Iraq. The "liberators" arguement is a strawman argument, that is why I ignore it.

Did the UN invade?
He wasn't developing nuclear weapons. They discovered that Sadam had bought those infamous aluminum tubes and one unreliable CIA expert said they could only be made into a centerfuge for purifying uranium. The problem is that the real experts from the department of energy said that they weren't for enriching uranium. The "mushroom cloud" comment by Cheney was another layer of deciet. Sadam did not have the means to develop nuclear weapons. There exists no information or reliable testimony that suggests that Sadam was actively seeking nuclear weapons after Desert Storm or that he had the means.
We're not in the Middle East. The act of providing defence for Iraq's neighbors, such as arming them or posting troops, is a lot different than invasion. Sadam did not even have the means to control his own country, let alone the rest of the ME. His military power was diminished to almost nothing by 2003.

So when does the US invasion or Israel being?

I'm not really sure why Iraq should obey the rules when hardly anyone else is.
I'm curious to see if Russia will back-up Iran when/if the US attacks.

Of Bush's "axis of evil," Iraq posed the least threat. Iran , with its fundamentalist regime was a the time of our invasion of Iraq, and continues to be a much greater state supporter of terrorism and North Korea has expanded its nuclear capabiliites and has a far greater need and willingess to sell to terrorists than Saddam everdid.

Yet, Bush spends $300 billion and still counting, tens of thousands of dead and injured, and Iraq is more unstable than ever.

Sorry, Ace....your analysis just doesnt wash by any rational standards.

BTW, I agree the liberator argument doesnt mean crap. And I hope you would agree that we demonstrated no viable plan to deal with the post-Saddam Baathist insurgency or sectarian violence, resulting in a vast majority of Iraqis increasngly turning against the US as more and more civilians die....a hell of a way to "establish a military foothold".

aceventura3, as Gen. Zinni states below, and the Duelfer report confirms, we threw out ten years of planning, we had Saddam "boxed in", we had a cost effective, bloodless containment program, partially funded by our former 1991 Gulf War allies......and now we have excuses, lies, from our "leaders" and an expensive and increasingly uncontrollabe situation on the ground in Iraq, that may require a war with Iran to prevent that country, "the winner", from leveraging the strategic "reward" that Bush and Cheney have handed it:

Ace...in the last day, in my post (#3 in the thread at this <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=2120124#post2120124">link<a/>)
I tried to bring to every reader's attention, my observation that Mr. Cheney was reduced to reciting "untruths", on a network TV news broadcast, to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq:
<b>Note that Cheney used "kermal, a poison faciltity", as a reason to link Saddam with al-Qaeda, and thus, justify the US invasion of Iraq.</b> Kermal is more often spelled as <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=khurmal&btnG=Google+Search">Khurmal</a> .....

In that same post, Aceventura3, I then provided at least 16 excerpts (most of them with links...)from news reports, from sources as diverse as the "Economist", the Jerusalem Post, from NPR, and from Fox News, dated between early 2002 and April, 2003, that all reported that "the posion camp", at Kermal, was located in Kurdish controlled territory, in the nothern Iraq, "no fly zone" airspace, and was reported, in multiple news articles, to receive supplies of weapons and life sustaining supplies, from Iran, not Iraq, and that the camp was located on the Iran border....or articles that reported around this state of affairs:
In 2002, Mr. Cheney seemed to have a high opinion of Gen. Zinni:
Here is Zinni describing the reasoning for invading Iraq, where we were then, strategically speaking, and where we are now, and he faults the "planners":
The Duelfer report documents that there was no Iraqi plan to reconstitute WMD after the UN sanctions ended, or any organizing of scientists in Iraq, or recruiting of them, by Saddam's government, to accomplish that goal:
aceventura3, General Zinni's comments, the findings in the Duelfer report, and the spectacle of Dick Cheney's justifications for invasion and occupation of Iraq, especially his reference to "Kermal", as a justification, have to be displayed alongside the news reporting about US avoidance of destroying Kermal, and it's accessibility to Kurdish and to American forces, and to Iran, but not to Iraq, are posted in response to your postition, and opinion.

What else have you got? ....and is there anything that could be presented to you that would lessen your certainty that invading Iraq was a wise, or a justified decsion for president Bush to make?

An aside perhaps.

OPEC is not pleased with the recent fall in the price per bbl and is contemplating reducing output to keep prices high. Keeping prices over $70 seems to be the new target in manipulating available oil.

You should all remember that it isn't OPEC that is making the most money out of the high price of oil... it is Big Oil. This isn't neccessarily a bad thing, it's just something you should remember before pointing fingers at OPEC (not that anyone was yet).

I base my views on my analysis of the situation. What would change my mind is a presentation of a credible plan of action that would secure the oil market in the Middle East and bring stability to the region. A plan that doesn't involve the threatened use and willingness to use the military as some suggest.

Many seem to be arguing points and issues that are different than what I consider important. For example - The record shows Saddaam had no nuclear weapons. I accept that, howerver, I believe he would have instituted a progam, get the weapons and use them. Some some keep arguing the point about him not having the weapons or a program therefore the invasion was not needed. What I am saying is - Saddaam wanted to control the territory and oil in the middle east, invaded countries in the past, defyed UN mandates, and he would have used nuclear weapons when it obtained them.

That situation was unacceptable in my opinion.

The oil for food program shows we did not have him or the situation under control.

Saddamm needed to go.

He was a threat.

Military action was needed.

Acting after the fact would have been much more costly.

I know I am repeating myself, but I bring up the same points because I don't think I have ever recieved direct responses.

Iraqi PM Al-Maliki started an official visit to Iran yesterday:
Ace....So what we have done through our invasion and your so-called "foothold" is to make Iraq another puppet state of the fundies in Iran, along with Syria, and to a lesser extent, Lebanon, through control of Hezballah.

Sound strategic thinking.........If your strategic goal was to increase Iran's influence and power in the region.

BTW, Al-Maliki is the number two man in the Dawa Party:
Ace...do you believe having Dawa and SCIRI in control in Iraq is good for the political stability and long term future of the region, and subsequently, the US?

What about investing a fraction of what we've spent on the war in alternative fuels? Instead of continuing to invest in an exhaustable resource, and a resource that seems to fuel war, we might consider trying to make things like hydrogen, biodiesel, etc. more efficient. It is conceivable that if the time and money put into oil were invested in something renewable and something we can produce at home, our econemy would become more stable, global terrorism would decrease (because we would no longer be forced to interfere with or go to war with ME countries), our environment would improve considerably, and we would be investing in our own fuel production.
You believe that he had the capability to find, build or buy nuclear weapons? Because the CIA and most other inteligence agencies would disagree with you, and they have evidence and testimony to back their conclusions. General Zinni, a man I greatly respect, explained the situation quite well. As quoed in Host's post above:
One of the spun stories was that of Saddam's ability to make war. If you asked any General who was involved in ME politics before the Second Gulf War, they will tell you that Saddam's power was deterriorating at an alarming rate. This was the post war plan after Desert Storm 1. It was working. Then came Bush version 2.0 and his administration of cowboys.
That shows that not even the UN is capable of being free of corruption, something that shouldn't suprise anyone.
How terribly incorrect. Saddam was not a threat t the US. Saddam was no longer a thread to his neighbors. Saddam was heading towards not even being a threat to his own people. Military action was taken by the US not because of Saddam's ability to make war, but beacuse of these reasons among others:
1) W. Bush hates Saddam Husain. He's hated him since the early 90s. He has been very public about how he feels.
2) Iraq has oil fields, and our president is an oil tycoon (a failed one, but one non the less).
3) Our vice president used to work for Haliburton, a provider of products and services to the oil undistry.
4) War time presidents are allowed to get away with more.
5) The PNAC gang has been planning this for over 10 years, and they assumed that Sadam would become more powerful in their 10 year old plan.
6) Jesus told Bush to go to war.
I hope my responses are more direct, and I apologize if my previous responses have not.

what i do not understand is the linkage between the tanking situation and iraq and oil prices more broadly.
i understand direction no. 1 taken by the thread--the actions of everybody's favorite war profiteers at halliburton--but not the link to the ongoing spiked gas prices.
i understand direction no. 2 as well: the question of whether there is a way to use oil as a wedge to continue supporting the iraq debacle. i still haven't found a better book than michael klare's "resource wards" on american energy policy--there is little doubt that the invasion of iraq fits into the logic of long-term strategies centered around securing oil supplies that have shaped a significant aspect of american foriegn policy of the last 30 years or so. at the same time, this was not the way the war was sold...and the problems with the sales job, the deceptions upon which it was based, and the debacle that the bush people unleashed on themselves, on the americans in the military, on iraq, on the region, and on the planet have been rehearsed above and elsewhere.

i find it interesting to see ace trying to work with the fragments of rationale that the bush administration now relies on to continue fobbing off its self-defeating policies on the people. i think he presents an unwinnable case as well as could be expected.

but i still do not see any actual argument for or data about the linkage between what is happening in iraq and oil prices.
i am obviously not saying that i am suspicious about the existence of such links--i would just like to know what they are.

aceventura3, the last sentence in your above quote, IMO, is contradicted by what the Duelfer report said, documented in the article that I included in my last post. Twice, now, I'm making a sincere and thorough effort to demonstrate, and document, why I believe that the Bush administration had no basis for pre-emptive invasion and occupation of Iraq, for the justifications that you maintain are valid and legal. Kindly respond with some references that explain what triggered the "About Face", that changed the threat that Saddam's Iraq posed to the US, considering the comments of Powell, Rice, and DIA chief Thomas R. Wilson, in 2001, before 9/11, and Cheney's 9/16/01 statment that we had Saddam Hussein, "bottled up".

I would think that you would perceive a motivation to defend your justification for the invasion, since the record strongly indicates that Saddam posed no threat, in Cheney's own opinion, as late as on 9/16/01, Powell said that the sanctions against Iraq had been reformed to keep Saddam from obtaining WMD, Duelfer reported that there was no program to obtain or rebuild the WMD capability, and ten days before the invasion, the WMD inspection program was back in place in Iraq, and the French Foreign Minister, Villepin, made a speech before the UN, stating that:
aceventura3, as you can see, I'm documenting that Powell said he had worked to "reform" the sanctions, and right after the 9/11 attacks, Cheney said that Saddam was "bottled up". Rice had the same opinion, six weeks before 9/11. When the US invaded Iraq, Villepin had said in his speech, ten days before that the WMD inspectors were back in Iraq, and making serious progress for "a month". I will credit the Bush policy of assembling a threat of use of military force, under the resolution of the UN, for restoring the inspections teams that "were making progress".

<b>aceventura3, the scenario that you wanted to keep Saddam from restarting WMD development or obtaining and holding WMD, was in place, by all accounts, before Bush ordered the military invasion. To order invasion, in spite of that, is a war crime, similar to shooting a disarmed "suspect", after calling away the police who were frisking him for hidden weapons....just because....you...with the gun, still felt threatened by the suspect. Your stance IMO, reduced to unsubstantiated and it follows...unjustified, pre-emptive war.....is one that both Bush and Cheney failed to justify, in new attempts in the last few days, probably because of the huge, contrary body of evidence that hangs over this. A strong case, IMO, can also be made that the invasion of Iraq was not justified to the point that arguments that it was an illegal war of aggression, must be respected, and without any more valid justification than Bush and Cheney can now come up with, may end up prevailing.</b>
Powell, Rice, Cheney, and Adm. Wilson were on record, contradicting the later case made for "war".
<b>aceventura3, the Bush admin. is concerned enough that the analysis in the Law Professor David Cole'ss preceding, excerpted review, puts it in legal jeopardy, for it's commission of Crimes against Humanity, to attempt:</b>
....and yup.....this is long....but so is this ordeal, and since the folks who ordered the invasion of Iraq, can't justify why they did it, I think that sharing what I've learned, could be beneficial to you, aceventura3, because, there is no telling where embracing a policy of "pre-emption", failed and resulting in crimes against humanity, will take our country with it's destroyed international "standing", next......

Legality in war is a technicality. It is like the golden rule - he who has the gold makes the rules - He who wins the war defines its legality.

With that aside. Saddam routinely fired on US military planes in the no fly zone in Iraq. That alone could prove to be justification for war.

I don't have a source or need a source. In my opinion he was not "bottled up". He was a man who was motivated to make war and he had done it in the past, he was not cooperating (being submissive) with the the US or UN, he was rebuilding his military machine. Are you suggesting he was a changed man with no interest in making war? If you say yes to that we fundamentally disagree. If no then we simply disagree on the point of - if we had him under control or not. To that question - we will never know the answer, all we can do or all anyone can do is speculate.

The only problem with me trusting the French in this situation is the fact that Sadaam owed them billions of dollars. As I recall they had an economic incentive not to support the war.

Can you at least ackowledge that Sadaam was playing games with inspectors? Can you ackowledge that he was basically thumbing his nose at UN mandates? If you can do that - I will ackowledge that, with the real threat of war, Sadaam was going to allow the pretense of the inspectors making progress in the month you refer to. In my opinion, by that time my mind was already made up.

No. I see it more like a guy that lives on my block who in the past used his attack dog to attack his neighbor, then continually threatens to harm others on the block. after we tell him to get rid of the dog and that we are going to inspect his property to make sure the dog is gone, he fails to let us do it and plays games with the mandate. He also throws rocks at my children when they walk past his house, and he shows no respect for our association rules. when we call the police, the police don't do anything.

At some point I am going to go over and kick the guys a$$.

Sure - my mother-in -law and a few other will call me a neandrethal, I may go to jail, etc.

But I won't live on a block where my children are not safe.

I won't live on a block where a guy bully's others.

I will do what needs to be done.

I think Bush is spending too much time and effort trying to make "nice, nice" with his political opponents. Are we guilty of war crimes? I don't know. However, I a graduate of the school of - if your enemy breaks your finger - you break his arm.

You don't understand me, and I don't understand you. Would you let someone make threats against the people you love, without taking some action? Would you wait until after they act on the threat before taking action? Do you agree - that at some point talk is not enough?

Don't say they can't justify why they invaded Iraq. What I get from your posts is that you don't agree with the justification given. To me that is an important difference.

Legality in war is a technicality. It is like the golden rule - he who has the gold makes the rules - He who wins the war defines its legality.

With that aside. Saddam routinely fired on US military planes in the no fly zone in Iraq. That alone could prove to be justification for war.

I don't have a source or need a source. In my opinion he was not "bottled up". He was a man who was motivated to make war and he had done it in the past, he was not cooperating (being submissive) with the the US or UN, he was rebuilding his military machine. Are you suggesting he was a changed man with no interest in making war? If you say yes to that we fundamentally disagree. If no then we simply disagree on the point of - if we had him under control or not. To that question - we will never know the answer, all we can do or all anyone can do is speculate.

The only problem with me trusting the French in this situation is the fact that Sadaam owed them billions of dollars. As I recall they had an economic incentive not to support the war.

Can you at least ackowledge that Sadaam was playing games with inspectors? Can you ackowledge that he was basically thumbing his nose at UN mandates? If you can do that - I will ackowledge that, with the real threat of war, Sadaam was going to allow the pretense of the inspectors making progress in the month you refer to. In my opinion, by that time my mind was already made up.

No. I see it more like a guy that lives on my block who in the past used his attack dog to attack his neighbor, then continually threatens to harm others on the block. after we tell him to get rid of the dog and that we are going to inspect his property to make sure the dog is gone, he fails to let us do it and plays games with the mandate. He also throws rocks at my children when they walk past his house, and he shows no respect for our association rules. when we call the police, the police don't do anything.

At some point I am going to go over and kick the guys a$$.

Sure - my mother-in -law and a few other will call me a neandrethal, I may go to jail, etc.

But I won't live on a block where my children are not safe.

I won't live on a block where a guy bully's others.

I will do what needs to be done.

I think Bush is spending too much time and effort trying to make "nice, nice" with his political opponents. Are we guilty of war crimes? I don't know. However, I a graduate of the school of - if your enemy breaks your finger - you break his arm.

You don't understand me, and I don't understand you. Would you let someone make threats against the people you love, without taking some action? Would you wait until after they act on the threat before taking action? Do you agree - that at some point talk is not enough?

Don't say they can't justify why they invaded Iraq. What I get from your posts is that you don't agree with the justification given. To me that is an important difference.

ace,

there is a time when talk is not enough, and that time is when the enemy makes their move; when all other options are depleted. i hope you understand that pre-emptively striking a country we do not agree with makes us as correct as them.

country "a" is being told to disarm by country "b" which is unwilling to do so itself. country "b" has more weapons than country "a." both countries have commited war crimes, both have invaded other countries. is it unreasonable for country "a" to refuse to acknowledge the ultimatum of country "b?" superiority does not make a country correct, or just. any country willing to use preliminary violence in order to settle a dispute is no greater than the country it is in contradiction with.

why should any country adhere to rules that do not apply to all countries?

your family is not in direct threat of an attack from suddam.

When you go to war based on false justifications (i.e. bad intelligence or intelligence you manipulate to suit your objective), two things are likely to happen:

(1) You increase the difficulty of winning the war because your justifications dont match the reality on the ground.

The sobering findings from the non-partisan GAO report last week reflect this:

The report was the latest in a series of recent grim assessments of conditions in Iraq.

But the report was unusual in its sweep, relying on a series of other government studies, some of them previously unpublicized, to touch on issues from violence and politics to electricity production. Published on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the GAO report was downbeat in its conclusions -- underscoring how Iraq's deteriorating security situation threatens the Bush administration's goal of a stable and democratic regime there.
The report, citing the Pentagon, said that enemy attacks against coalition and Iraqi forces increased by 23 percent from 2004 to 2005 and that the number of attacks from January to July 2006 were 57 percent higher than during the same period in 2005.

(2) You lose public support as more and more facts are revealed that your justifications were false.

Support for the war and the belief that it was a necessary component of the GWOT had steadily decreased to the point that over 60% of the public no longer believes it.

When its your war, and both (1) and (2) happen, you are only left with one option - to continue to steadfastly present your false justifications as if they were true and to manipulate the facts on the ground to make it appear that the war is progressing better it is.

Which is what Bush et al have been doing since the war started...and continue to do.

As late as last week, Bush, Cheney, Rice are still implying some sort of operational relationship between Saddam and al Queda when the most recent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee affirms that there was no evidence to support this supposition.

The Defense Department admitted last week that it DID NOT count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks — including suicide bombings — when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders around Baghdad last month.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/stor...25-2095927.php

The use of force against Iraq was authorized by our Congress and the UN. Sadaam was the one not following the "rules".

I have a close friend who is currently in the US but is from Isreal. I have met her mother who still lives in Isreal.

After the world responded to Sadaam's aggression, he started bombing Isreal - for no strategic military reason. He was paying $25k to the families of suicide bombers, he ignored UN mandates. The Iraqi people didn't address the problem, Islamic leaders didn't adress the problem, France didn't address the problem, the UN didn't. The US and Pres. Bush had the courage to step up and do what needed to be done.

I admit Bush is not among the best communicators. I remember listening to his speaches before and after the war, and I recall him giving many reasons for the war. You focus on the few that were proven false, I don't.

And, perhaps you don't speak Bush's "language", but to me one of the more important reasons for the war in Iraq is his statement regarding "taking the war to the terrorists". Here is what that means - Terrorist fight an unconventional war. We are set up to fight a conventional war. We need to get the war in a more conventional setting. How do we do that? We find a suitable location for the war. That location was Iraq. Afganistan was not a suitable location. Terrorist went to Iraq to "defeat the great satan" like flys are attracted to a dung heap.

Some say our actions created more terrorists. I don't agree. The people fighting against us, have always hated and have always wanted to kill us.

I know you're busy, ace, but did you read post #45?

I focus on the fact that Bush and and his spokespeople continue to lie to the American people when they knew the intelligence was wrong. I dont care how he communicates. I do care about what he says.

I also care about what he didnt say- or even worse, what he didnt know - in terms of possible outcomes of such an invasion on the stability of the region.

As I noted before, the two most threatening outcomes of an invasion being the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence and the new Iraq-Iran "best buds"
( http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetai...?NewsID=379444 )

Add to that the Turks massing forces on the Turkey/Iraq border nervously watching as Iraq Kurds flex their muscles. Turkey will never allow an independent Kurdistan:

....the war in Iraq seems to have only emboldened the group (PKK) as fellow Iraqi Kurds just over the border have grown stronger and more autonomous since the invasion...

...."It's a huge potential headache for the US. The last thing the US wants is a war between Kurds and Turks in Iraq. The last place that is calm in Iraq is in danger of going up in flames."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0829/p10s01-woeu.html

Its hard for me to see how any of this leads to more stability and is in the US best interest.

Thank you for reading my post and devoting the time to responding in detail.

If you are correct about the UN resolution for the use of force if Saddam did not cooperate with weapons inspectors, and Saddam's bounty payments to families of suicide bombers, and 12 years of Iraqi attempts to shoot down coalition "no fly zone" enforcement aircraft (No aircraft was ever shot down, and the coalition responded to the attempts with proportional force, bombing and firing missles at the Iraqi radar and air defense weaponry sites.), why did Cheney continue to link pre-invasion Iraq and al Qaeda, and a Kermal (Khurmal) "poison camp", I exposed as an untruth:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...24#post2120124 ,
on Tim Russert's NBC broadcast, just this past sunday?

To me, this easily refuted justification by Cheney, exposes the "depth" of what is left "standing" in this administration's justification for pre-emptive war. Cheney told us there was an al-Qaeda "connection", and backed it up with "Zarqawi was in Baghdad in 2002" and backed that up with "Kermal".
Show me any "death of Zarqawi", or post "death" reporting, that even bothers to mention if Zarqawi's body was missing the leg, or showed signs of prior injury, that would back the oft trotted out, and tired...claim by the US that Zarqawi was in Baghdad for "medical treatment", and that Saddam knew of his presence.

There is much evidence....I've cited it....in my other posts on this thread, and at the post at the preceding link, to support that the Bush administration knew that the "no fly zone" was effective from a cost and a strategic standpoint. Wolfowitz spoke to a congressional committee, shortly before the invasion, and asked if it wanted to spend another $30 billion, over the next 12 years, to continue the air enforcement of the "no fly zone"? He admitted that it worked to contain Saddam, but offered invasion as a cost "saving" solution.

Zinni talked to Tim Russert, in april, and described the consensus that I have documented on this thread. A post 1991 gulf war plan, was still effective, for the reasons it was intended to be. Other coalition allies paid part of the cost of keeping that "no fly zone" enforcement and observation, in place.

Powell, well into 2001, said first that the UN sanctions against Iraq needed "repair", and then said that they had been "fixed". As France's Villepin, pointed out, 10 days before the invasion, the WMD inspections were finally working, for at least the past month, and "why destroy the tools" finally in place to disarm and confirm disarmament of Iraq.

The pre-invasion plan had left Iraq as the stabalizing presence in it's region that blocked what we see emerging now. You probably aren't aware that Kurds seriously intend to pursue an attempt to create an independent state that includes 25 percent of Turkey....a vast area north of Kurdish northern Iraq....any Turk who you ask, will confirm that.

The invasion destroyed the "planning", as Zinni described it, that kept Iranian shiite and secular strategic, regional ambitions, in check, for the 12 years before the invasion. A really ingenious "balance", sustainable for years to come, that was bloodless....for the US and for most Iraqi civilians, had proved a reasonable financial cost, had prevented reconstituting, and even serious planning for initiating renewed Iraqi WMD programs, and kept Saddam's Iraq strong enough to check Iraq, and discourage the Kurds in the north from risking fighting a war on two fronts....against Turkey, and against Saddam if he saw an opportunity to engage the Kurds if war with Turkey broke out....was the plan that the Bush-41 administration had devised and time demonstrated....achieved almost all of it's objectives.

The missing element...weapons inspection, seemed to be back in place on March 7, 2003, as Villepin spoke. Villepin pleaded for time to see if the inspections would continue to work, and warned that a unilateral US/UK invasion would provoke avoidable division....and it did.

Powell had failed to persuade France, and the rest of the world, except for Britain and inconsequential, mostly bribed "allies", a month before, in his UN "presentation", of urgency or justification, for invasion of Iraq. We know why, now....Powell concentrated his documentation, and much of his visual presentation, on bio weapons "trailer" that didn't exist, and Zaraqawi's "Kermal", "poion camp", that other governments, who could read the reports that I presented here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...24#post2120124
US news media re-reported that fact, two days after Powell's presentation:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...61575#continue

Powell's own aid of 16 years, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, later called that day, "the lowest point in my professional life".
aceventura3, your stance undermines the risks that patriots like Wilkerson have taken.....in favor of your continued support for liars and their anit-US, anti-international treaty....against aggressive war....policies. Is it "worth it"?

....could easily discern.....was not in an area of Iraq that Saddam had control over, and was reported to be left "intact", deliberately by the US, to be used in propaganda....like Powell presented....to justify invasion of Iraq on grounds of phony "al Qaeda" ties to Saddam.

It's not that I just "don't agree with the justification given", aceventura3, it's because I know enough to tell you that justification, based on lies like Cheney told us as recently as sunday, are disheartening and embarassing, and coming from the VP of the US, more alarming, because either they are criminal rants, or he believes them and that puts him in an observable state of incompetent to continue to "serve" in office. Shitty choices....but that's all they have left us with, in Iraq, too!

I know your comment is dated, but my jaw dropped when I read it.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9513/

RE: <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2181808&postcount=115">aceventura3's post #115 on Maybe more of a vent than debate.. THREAD</a>

I thought that this is a better place to respond to aceventura3's challenge at the link above.

My exchanges with ace, last september, reinforce what dc_dux observed in the
"Maybe more of a vent than debate.. THREAD". Facts do not persuade ace to budge an inch from what he believes. Direct contradictions of findings of fact by SSCI phase II and the 2004 Duelfer WMD report, to what Cheney and Bush said as recently as in Aug. and Sept., 2006, do not sway ace, in the least.

The reality that, in summer 2006, Bush and Cheney still can be observed, on the whitehouse.gov website archived pages....justifying invading and occupying Iraq by linking Saddam to al-Zarqawi, and by stating that Saddam had, or was making, or could make, or wanted to make WMD, long after the evidence presented both by Duelfer and the SSCI, clearly shows only the last accusation to be not completely false and/or misleading.....does not sway aceventura3 from believing that the Bush policy of pre-emption is correct and legal.

The justification for invading Iraq in 2003 are pealed away to the last Bush Cheney justification; the presumption that Saddam wanted to reconstitute his pre-1991 WMD and CBW programs....because, as ace noted in the post linked above, Bush said
....and that is it....for ace, no example(s) of Bush or Cheney lying or deliberately misleading the world as to their justifications for invading Iraq can weaken, to any degree, Bush's solemn vow to "confront any threat, from any source......

ace never responded to my last post here, just above Marv's....and he certainly showed in our exchanges on this page that it mattered not that Cheney lied about al-Zarqawi and Kermal, or that five days after 9/11, Cheney told Tim Russert that the US had Saddam "bottled up".

It matters not that Bush chose to grind down US ground forces in Iraq, a place where there were no Islamic Fascist butcher killers in the area controlled by Saddam, dictator of a famously secular regime, or that Bush ignored the growing threat posed by North Korea, and actually accelerated that country's program to produce nuclear weapons grade plutonium, vs. the predicted 20 years that prgram would have taken under the Bush abandoned accord that the US reached with North Korea in 1994.

ace cannot justify his tolerance for US leaders who tell us lies to justify pre-emptive war against neutralized, or at best, nations who are inconsequential threats, while they do nothing to forcefully pre-empt, or confront nations who actually demonstrate a growing aggressive, nuclear threat, so........???

And for anyone who is still unsure of this...