On December 2nd, the United States military officially handed over administration of Camp Victory to the Iraqi government. The sprawling palace complex of former dictator Saddam Hussein long served as the American military headquarters in Iraq. By the end of the calendar year, all U.S. forces will be out of Iraq (save for a small training force remaining behind to instruct the Iraqis). As we prepare to officially close the books on U.S. military operations in Iraq, perhaps we can finally also put to bed the many myths propagated by the Left as to the reasons for our intervention and its results.
Bush lied, people died. There were no WMDs in Iraq. We went in for the oil. We had no grounds for going into Iraq. Saddam Hussein and Iraq had no connection to 9/11 or Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. We said we were freeing the Iraqi people, but we were just oppressing them.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the quick and easy guide to refuting all of the above absurdities (click on the hyperlinks—you’ll need them).
First, an incredibly inconvenient historical video clip: does any of this sound familiar?
Clinton on Iraq:
Bush lied (people died)—there were no WMDs in Iraq.
While US forces never recovered nuclear weapons from the country and its nuclear program was defunct, that doesn’t mean there were no WMDs there. It was a well-established fact that Saddam Hussein’s regime had used chemical weapons in the past, massacring thousands of Kurds in 1988.
Saddam maintained stockpiles of those weapons. Unsurprisingly, hundreds of WMDs were found in Iraq. Coalition forces continued to find them years after the invasion. Next time someone tells you there were no WMDs in Iraq, point them to these articles. Also ask them what they think was on the secret 56 flights from Baghdad to Damascus right before the invasion. Georges Sada, the former head of the Iraqi Air Force, says it was WMDs. I believe him.
I’m very happy to say, in this case, the Democrats were absolutely right.
Democrats on Iraq:
We went in for the oil.
That’s great. Where is it? If that’s the case, why did we let them award the overwhelming majority of oil development contracts to foreign firms? Why didn’t we just take it? Surely we could have… Where is/was the “Great U.S. Oil Bonanza” in Iraq?
We had no grounds for going into Iraq.
On the contrary, we had plenty of grounds for going into Iraq. Shortly after the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein remained in defiance of countless UN Security Council Resolutions including non-compliance and subversion of the IAEA. The Security Council is in charge of enforcing its own resolutions. Since the other countries on the council refused to do so (France had a history of helping Iraq with nuclear technology and close ties to the country), the US and UK went in to enforce the resolutions.
Saddam Hussein and Iraq had no connection to 9/11 or Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
In fact, Iraq and Bin Laden had a running relationship that included many correspondences and meetings between the 1990’s and the start of the Iraq War. These included meetings with high-ranking Iraqi officials in Afghanistan and/or Sudan.
We weren’t freeing the Iraqi people; we were oppressing them.
In 2005, for the first time, the Iraqi people voted in free, democratic elections and adopted a state constitution. The country is now governed by a coalition of Iraqi political parties, not a dictator. As a result of the relative stability and establishment of the new government, the long-decried UN sanctions against the country have been lifted. For the moment, Iraq stands with Israel as one of the only two democracies in the Middle East.
I humbly ask: how is deposing a brutal dictator and installing democratic government oppressive? There is no way to intelligently argue that the Iraqi people would have been better off under the former regime. Ever meet Saddam Hussein or his sons Uday and Qusay? No? Then you never had a chance to experience their reign of terror up close.
Don’t these look like images of oppression?
Soldier forces children to perform manual labor
Soldier tortures Iraqi children into smiling
Soldier distributes highly dangerous black and white "sphere of death"
Is this supposed to be satire? You are basically picking one horribly biased link for each of your points which supposedly support them.
First off, in terms of Bin Laden and Hussein, they had some sparse contact, but it has been shown that there was no operational relationship. This is not hard to believe considering Bin Laden himself referred to Hussein as an infidel. Although it’s supposedly a myth you are trying to refute you don’t even try to make a connection between Hussein, Bin Laden and 9/11 because it just doesn’t exist.
Second, ignoring the fact that your definition of WMD’s seems to be wildly different from the public perception Bush played on at time, the supposed WMD’s recovered were not even operational. That’s right, they were leftovers from the 1980′s like Madonna or Wham! Perhaps you could argue that we went into Iraq to recover a few old weapons that didn’t even work, but that would be just as stupid as the lies we used as justification in the first place.
Laughable.
Jack, it is truly sad how your hatred has blinded you.
“Weapons of Mass Destruction” have ALWAYS been defined as nuclear, chemical, AND biological weapons. By definition, they are any weapon which could cause death on a massive scale. Keep in mind that yes, while the shockwave from a nucear explosion is physically destructive, it is the radiation and fallout that is responsible for more of the death.
Every source that acknowledged the WMDs were found in Iraq (many mainstream media sources didn’t because it didn’t fit their agenda, or they simply didn’t CALL them WMDs) noted that they were dangerous and could have been deployed against US forces. And what do you think was on those secret flights to Damascus, Jack?
I don’t believe that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, and if you actually read closely, that’s not what I was saying. I was arguing that you cannot make the argument that there was no connection or relationship between Bin Laden and Hussein (which is what the Left does routinely). Even the 9/11 commission acknowledges that the two at least had a relationship. (Notice I never use the word “operational.”)
Sad that you still believe that the war was based on “lies” when there is so much evidence to the contrary.
There is no widely accepted definition for WMD’s, although they could include chemical and biological weapons. However, the weapons you are attempting to call WMD’s could not cause anything approaching mass destruction. They were relics of the 1980′s, and obviously not evidence that Iraq was continuing to develop WMD’s.
Frankly, the idea of moving WMD’s on civilian aircraft is preposterous and is clearly a poor attempt to drum up interest in the book the guy wrote. He has about as much reliability as Baghdad Bob.
And why even bring up Bin Laden when discussing Iraq then? Are you using it as some sort of twisted justification? It really doesn’t make any sense. You are also misrepresenting what the 9/11 Commission said; Hussein and Bin Laden did not have a “relationship,” as you put it.
At the end of the day, we supposedly entered Iraq because of WMD’s, and the only thing we found were a couple of 80′s leftovers which were not even a threat. Great justification.
Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/917314/weapon-of-mass-destruction-WMD
The FBI: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/wmd/wmd_faqs
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction
In official government documents, “WMD” concurs with the above.
So Halabja wasn’t mass destruction? Where do you draw the line then? Enlighten me.
You also haven’t read Sada’s account. He argues that they were moved on civilian aircraft modified to hold cargo. And your comparison to “Baghdad Bob” makes no sense whatsoever because he was a pawn of the regime. Sada was never under Saddam’s thumb to the level that individual was. Read the book.
Why bring up Bin Laden? Because it lends credence to Bush administration fears about potential partnerships between terrorists and rogue states. I’m absolutely not misrepresenting what the report said. The report clearly discusses meetings between AQ officials (including Bin Laden at times) and Iraqi intelligence officials. Again, I never said the relationship was operational, but to argue that there wasn’t one is denial.
Why in the world are you bringing up attacks from the 1980′s? Yes those were WMD’s but the ones they found in the desert didn’t even work anymore and thus were no threat. Only a fool would say we went into Iraq to dig up some old weapons from the 80′s.
And here’s a fun fact: sometimes people make things up to sell books!! Hopefully you didn’t pass out from this revelation since you seem to have a warped world view where you choose to believe things written in sensationalized books without any confirmation, from anyone of merit, or anyone it seems.
And stop bringing up Bin Laden. Hussein and him just plain did not like each other and if we were that worried about connections we would probably start a bit higher up the list which includes a lot of different counties. This wasn’t even the reason we went into Iraq just a way of justifying a completely bullshit war in hindsight.
Iraq absolutely wasn’t the threat Cheney and his cronies made it out to be. There was no legitimate reason for us to invade, and we have paid the price.
Is this supposed to be like an Onion article or something?
This is why I made sure to unlike this page on Facebook the second the Camp Kesem fundraiser was over.
only a super-douche would do that
*write this article
So any country who doesn’t act in America’s interest is worthy of an invasion, which leads to the deaths of millions of people and languishes in failure for 7 years before becoming a precarious success, which could devolve back into civil war at any moment. Is this the model for successful military interventions? This is why neocons have no credibility.
Also, many dictators, including Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, benefited from the suppression of radical Islam. These murderous maniacs were not the friends of Islamists in their own countries. The idea that Hussein and Bin Laden were allies is dubious at best.