War In Iraq Was Supposed To Prevent It From Becoming a Training Ground
War In Iraq Was Supposed To Prevent It From Becoming a Training Ground
The central thrust of Bush’s argument last night for the war in Iraq was that “Iraq is the latest battlefield” in the war on terror. He stated the same case later in the speech: “Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate.”
The fact that Iraq has BECOME a terrorist training ground is true. It wasn’t one before the invasion of Iraq. And Bush admitted as much in November 2002. Before the war, Bush claimed we needed to attack Iraq to PREVENT it from becoming a terrorist training ground. Here’s what he said:
Imagine a terrorist network with Iraq as an arsenal and as a training ground, so that a Saddam Hussein could use his shadowy group of people to attack his enemy and leave no fingerprint behind. [Bush, 11/4/02]
We don’t have to imagine any longer. Bush’s miscalculations in his handling of Iraq have unified the terrorists and have allowed Iraqi territory to become the terrorist training ground that the extremists desired.
Time Magazine Reported the “goal” of the militants in a July 2004 article:
A “Time investigation of the insurgency today — based on meetings with insurgents, tribal leaders, religious clerics and U.S. intelligence officials — reveals that the militants are turning the resistance into an international jihadist movement. … Their goal now, say the militants interviewed, is broader than simply forcing the U.S. to leave. They want to transform Iraq into what Afghanistan was in the 1980s: a training ground for young jihadists who will form the next wave of recruits for al-Qaeda and like-minded groups.”
Nearly a year later and with little headway having been made against the insurgents, the CIA recently reported the results:
“A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda’s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.”
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Well, if he has created this problem we still need to fix it. So Bush was right last night, by your logic.
June 29th, 2005 at 10:13 amjeff, except that the ThinkProgress logic is that Bush’s idea of fixing it is just making it worse. And they’re joined by others in that opinion:
“Our large, direct presence has fueled the Iraqi insurgency as much as it has suppressed it” — Former CIA official Michael Vickers, November 22, 2004
“The occupation is counterproductive in the fight against radical Islamic terrorists and actually increases support for Osama bin Laden in Muslim communities not previously disposed to support his radical interpretation of Islam” — Christopher Preble, Cato Institute report
“Unlike the U.S. missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, where announcing a determination to maintain a long-term presence enhanced U.S. credibility, in Iraq the open-endedness of the occupation only perpetuates suspicions and reinforces the rationale of the insurgency” — U.S. Rep. Marty T. Meehan, January 2005 White Paper
Bush certainly didn’t say anything last night to dispel that argument.
June 29th, 2005 at 10:21 amYou assume that he ever meant what he said. Bush lied from the start. Therefore, all his reasons for going to war in 2003 were also lies. Therefore, when he said we were going to war to prevent Iraq from becoming a terrorist breeding ground he was lying. Therefore, his intention was to MAKE Iraq a terrorist breeding ground. And he has succeeded with his actual intention.
Once you understand that – then everything else he’s doing makes sense. You have to step outside of the context he has spun and start examining his behavior in terms of the truth – which is he and the neocons intended to create just what they created. Now the question is why? And the answer lies in – money, war for profit, destroying Iraq. Why destroy Iraq? Because Saudi Arabia wants to take over Iraq and Iran.
June 29th, 2005 at 11:32 amRight on LeCar, this is about Saudi Arabia and thats why they provided the attackers to hit the towers.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:31 pmBush has not hidden his love for the Saudi’s yet they are more barbaric than Saddam ever was.
Susan
Bush kisses the cheek and hand of the Saudi Prince, as a subordinate does to the Godfather.
And now, just a day after Bush states in his speech that the US is embedding covert operatives into the IRaqi forces and training the Iraqis in covert activities, Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador to the US, and son of the next in line to the Saudi throne, resigns his post to return to Saudi Arabia to head up Saudi intelligence.
Hello America. Wake up and read between the lines. This is not coincidence.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:48 pmFan Mail
I received a comment to the George Bush speech post from a frequent visitor named “godessaradia”. I assume that she is a she, if not then he can inform me. Here is the comment:
June 29th, 2005 at 1:41 pmMark-
Clearly you were delusional when you wrote:
We didn’t start the war – they did.
Care to explain how on Earth this statement has any veracity whatsoever?
Last time I checked, the United States attacked Iraq, not the other way around.
June 29th, 2005 at 1:47 pmDon’t Let Bush Change the Subject
Last night President Bush tried to rescue his failed Iraq policy in a nationally televised address by connecting the Iraq war to the war on terror. He is trying to change the subject from Iraq to terrorism and September 11—implying that Iraq at…
June 29th, 2005 at 3:40 pmAl Queda is an enemy of the US. Al Queda was effectively stopped in Afghanistan.
Bush turned from pursuit of Al Queda to attack Iraq.
Al Queda is now flush with success at infiltrating and using the insurgency in Iraq to attack the US and its interests.
Therefore, Bush provided aid and comfort to enemies of the United States. His own words prove that he did this.
Under the US constitution, no one can be convicted of treason (providing aid and comfort to an enemy) without at least two witnesses or open confession.
George W. Bush is self-convicted of treason.
Q.E.D.
Ed
June 29th, 2005 at 4:32 pmI have questions that I have not heard addressed by the administration, media pundits, nor the blogs.
I heard, again, last night and today via the administration and conservative pundits that we are fighting the Islamic terrorists “over there” or “in the mid-east vs mid-west” so that we don’t have to fight them here in the USA.
Seeing that Bush knew before the invasion that it was not then a hot-bed of Islamic extemists:
1)How can the Administration claim we “took the war to them” unless it was planned not to seal Iraq borders and intentionally draw the extremists into the area?
2)Why would we want to now seal the Iraq borders since the current reational for war is to “…fight them there.”
3)If the Iraqi people can provide for their own protection after the US departure, does the administration hope the extremists will then continue to focus their attention on Iraq and forget US “infidels?” ie) “…as they stand up, we can stand down.”
4)What exactly is our goal in Iraq? Fighting terror? Installing a Jeffersonian democracy? Originally it was just WMD and to liberate the people from Sadam. Are the sands shifting or is it me? I don’t know where we are to go from here.
Thank you for allowing a new poster. I also hope to follow a discussion regarding the recent Scott Ritter article describing covert US operations in Iran if you have one planned or has that already been discussed?
Heidi
June 29th, 2005 at 6:11 pmSince I threw out the Ritter article about Iran…
Could it be that we intend to leave Iraq for Iran and fight “them” there for a while? After the ’shock & awe’ in Iran..on to Syria?
Please don’t tell me. It’s already “drafty” under the ceiling fan above my desk.
June 29th, 2005 at 6:26 pmBush and his Republican pals are for eternal war. Eternal war guarantees eternal war profiteering. The war profiteers are selected from the vast military-industrial complex and are specifically chosen by the Bush White House based on their support of and fealty to the Republican Party (Halliburton, etal.). Some of the increased war profits realized by the Republican-leaning military contractors and sub-contractors then makes it’s way into Republican Party coffers to help get Republicans elected or re-elected. These Republicans then support waging eternal war because eternal wars guarantee eternal war profiteering. And it goes around and around and around. With American taxpayers, of course, footing the bill for the eternal wars, which primarily profits the few at the expense of the many.
President Eisenhower warned us about the danger of the military-industrial complex in the 1950s. Vietnam and now Iraq have proven that few listened, especially among our elected representatives. But, hey, profits are profits, business is business and war….well, war generates profits which is good for business. Or, at least, the businesses that stand to profit from the waging of eternal wars. And campaign money is campaign money, no matter how much blood of our brave and honorable soldiers stains the campaign money.
I didn’t know the business of America was making wars? I must have missed that memo.
June 30th, 2005 at 1:29 amGeorge W.Bush and his fellow neo-con idealogues, have led us all astray down the road to war, first in Afgahnistan (the media ignored war-the sideshow with obviously no plan to ‘win’)and then in Iraq. It is no wonder that Iraq has turned into the ‘training ground for terrorists’ as it has become the focal point for those who have taken up jihad against the United States.Iraq was never a threat to the u.S. and GWB always knew that.It is the macho-posturing policies of this President, that lead us to invade Iraq, wherein time and reality have proven all the so-called ‘justifications’ for our invasion and war there to be false. When a premise is false,AS THE WAR ON TERROR/IRAQ WAS AND IS, how could an aftermath of such be anything but a disaster? It is high time that all brave and patriotic Americans demand a complete reckoning of all their elected officals on these simulatneous wars being waged in all of our names. Regardless of GWB’s desperate speech to drum up support of his wrong-headed warring policies in front of a silent group of obviously corraled soldiers at Fort Bragg, and his continued and shameful insistence on linkage of 9-11 and Iraq, the carnage in both theatres of war continues,unabated by the crux of the matter-TRUTH! It is said that ‘the truth shall set ye free’.When enough Americans wake up to the reality that George W.Bush and his supporters have hoodwinked us into two wars simulataneously and demand consequences from that hoodwinking, then and only then can all our troops come home to he families that love them.If one really does support the troops, as so many claim, then one should demand hat they all be brought home NOW!
June 30th, 2005 at 12:07 pmBushbaby is a lying sack of s— who’s in over his head–trouble is he’s only trained as a “cheerleader” so he doesn’t know how to admit error. That entire Bush clan is none too bright and the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Daddy Bush is so damn bright he thought that atheists couldn’t be citizens. And to these types we entrust the nation.
June 30th, 2005 at 2:55 pmIf you recall after the American people demanded to bring our troops home from Vietnam the people over there worked out there mess. I think it may have to come to that again. Isn’t it sad that again a president lied and sent our men and women to die for unjust, illegal,war. We must vote this regime out of office!! We have to keep the word out about all Downing Street Memo’s. They are really actual MINUTES. http://thinkprogress.org/2005/06/13 and a good laugh for you. http://thinkprogress.org/2005/6/28 Quotes by Bush in 1999. ZLD in Illinois
June 30th, 2005 at 3:06 pmThis would all have been avoided if it were illegal to profit from war. Sounds pretty simple to me. Pass a law that says no company or individual can turn a profit for war related activity. If you want to illegaly invade a another country based on lies you and your buddies can not make a profit , not a single damn dime, from the war or any profits from the stolen oil afterwards.
IMPEACH
July 1st, 2005 at 12:30 amat least bush is facing the problem as opposed to slick willie who ranand rightly so at the time made the us look like a paper tiger.
July 1st, 2005 at 10:07 amAmerica supplied saddam hussein with all the gas to kill all the sh ites in iraq. Saddam was their joey, but he soon decided he had to run his ruling himself and stopped listening to america, now this made bush and his stupid government angry and they decided saddam had to go and thats just what they did. If saddam gased and killed thousanda, then american supplied the gas and have not created any peace by invading iraq either. They also have killed thousands maybe more than saddam.
July 10th, 2005 at 11:54 amThe war was basically due to the changes in World currencies..
When US dollar has been a high demand worlwide in all trades it was fine, however, as the world was introduced with Euro’s, and with the middle eastern countries ( ie: Iraq, S.Arabia) deciding to use Euro’s for selling Oil, it was a threat for America as the value of US dollars would of decreased, and economically for US…not a good pattern.
It’s not like Bush “really” cares about Us’s Economy, his family has somehow have relations with oil company from long ago, therefore, he put off war in iraq for his own BENEFIT.
I don’t understand those people who rekons and supports the idea of War in Iraq, and ofcourse Bush administration.
February 18th, 2006 at 6:34 pmIt is people like you who are not educated, that becomes a terrorist^^