"Then how come there was so much support for us in Desert Storm... even when many of us WERE in Iraq... preparing to carry out orders to go through Baghdad?"

The UN mandate was to remove Iraq from Kuwait, in doing so, the military plans were tailored to the goals set forth by the civilian leadership. The version of the master plan that was chosen was to remove the Iraqi army from Kuwait and reduce Saddam's military force to a level unable to launch another invasion.

Had Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons, which he had at the time, and you no doubt remember preparing for their use if you were in the gulf, we would have marched to the end of the Earth to get him. There would have been no terms, no armistice. In fact had the air war not be so successful at utterly destroying the hundreds of tanks on the highway of death and thousands overall, we may very well have continued to proceed into the country deeper than we did.

Taking a city is much harder, more dangerous, and casualty prone than taking an army in an open desert. As you can clearly see, the urban operations in Iraq are yielding scores of dead Iraqi civilians and Iraqi solders/police daily and handfuls of American troops as well. An active and entrenched battle sieging a city would never have happened in Baghdad in 1991 unless Saddam used chemical weapons. They maybe would have surrounded the city but Stromin' Norman would have told Bush Sr, no way on taking the city, unless he wanted 10,000 dead GI's and 250,000 dead Iraqis. Imagine an American president explaining that to America or the rest of the world at the time.

There is always a plan to do something in place, the initial plan to invade Afghanistan was a modified plan of an operation that was going to take place in the future at some time already.

The primary concerns in Gulf war 1 were, securing Saudi Arabia in Desert Shield, Desert Strom was to get Saddam out of Kuwait and prevent him from invading in the future.

The reason that we didn't have a real coalition goal of removing Saddam is
A. Many fewer Arab nations would have supported it,
B. We wouldn't have had a troop strength position to support the Powell doctrine of "use overwhelming force"
C. We would have had to occupy Iraq long enough to get them on their feet. (Read 5-10 years)
D. We would have had much higher American casualties, a mission a war weary public leftover from Vietnam wasn't interested in entertaining.
E. President Bush Sr. was in his first term and seeking re-election. You don't start a 5-10 year war, pre-9/11 world and expect to get re-elected by the American public. See Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Ford.

No Dan, I'm not talking about contingency plans made up in case a mission became necessary, I'm talk about Operation Orders for missions that had been planned and set into motion. Logistical Base Romeo was set up in Southern Iraq specifically to provide logistics for the push into Baghdad.

If we had of done it then, yeah, it would have been long and maybe even turned public opinion against us... however, the job would have been complete (even the UN charter included bringing Hussein to justice... something that was forgotten as soon as that stupid and worthless ceasefire was signed).

Now the US is being blamed for having the nerve to enforce the terms of the ceasefire. Yet another reason ceasefires are a waste of time and lives.

"Now the US is being blamed for having the nerve to enforce the terms of the ceasefire. "

That's not accurate at all. The US was blamed because nobody wanted to rush to war except the US. Bush thought because of the intel they "sexed up" to make it look like Saddam was rebuilding a WMD program, to hand over to the terrorists lol, we needed immediate action and we needed it now.

The UN said no, so we went and unilaterally re-invaded. Sure there were a few nations helping, the British who are like the 51st state, a few gulf nations, who saw a chance to get something from Iraq in a favorable post war or kick Saddam while he was down, Australia and a few other European nations, I won't crap all over the service of other nations, however when we went in this time, US and UK forces constituted 98% of the man power.

It was essentially a US/UK operation. That pissed the world off mildly. Then when there turned up no WMD, and we didn't have the forces to occupy Iraq and fight an insurgency, the price of oil spiked and that also pissed off the world.

The world doesn't trust Bush because they think he is "a cowboy". In many ways his decision making, supports their view. Of course his decisions have largely been right, but the execution of post war has been a disaster and not exactly unforeseen.

You can debate all you want about if it was a good idea to go all the way to Baghdad or not in 1991. I would have to say that in the years following 1991-1995, where Saddam sat unable to do anything or make war, isolated and contained, just like Castro, nobody was complaining about the situation. It wasn't until 1998 when Saddam kicked out weapons inspectors that things started to heat up again.

Sorry I have to disagree with you. I spent over a decade in the service, I spend four years in the US including boot camp. I was shot in the chest and did all my recuperation outside the US and 20 days after I was back to full duty I was in my next fire fight. Oh, by the way, Mr. Carter was president when I joined the Corps I was shot while he was still president. That was not a 6 month tour it was not a year tour while Mr. Carter was president I spent 8 months in the US including three months of boot camp six weeks of training and 10 days leave. I did not get stationed in the US until Mr. Reagan was president and he shipped my happy butt off to Europe for a few years. My daughter was three years old before I got to live with her, this was the last three years before I got out of the military, no wait, I got a 6 month deployment eight months before I got out of the military.

These troops knew the deal when they joined as did I. We do our jobs and get home when we can. During WWII the military was in for the duration meaning that once sent into combat you stayed there till you died, got FUBAR or the war ended. Now these guys get 12 months home! Great it is more than my fathers generation got, and more than I got. In Vietnam troops got one tour in Nam and then home and out of the military. The thing is, our current troops are not drafted and are there because they want to be. Wives dont' like it but they did not sign up.

Paladin: You're hardcore man. Shot in the chest and back in the fight 20 days later.

Your story would impress me if I believed it.

Oh, and FYI, you missed the part where I said *Iraq* isn't worth it.

Sacrifices are to be expected BOTH on the part of the service member and his or her family (YES, the families sacrifice too, yes, we "signed up"), but it is WRONG for our government to abuse that gift of sacrifice and I absolutely believe that is what has happened with the war in Iraq.

Oh yeah, 12 years of Hussein violating the ceasefire agreement was "rushing". Bah!



Guess what, we don't have to play "mother may I" with the UN. Bush Sr is given credit for bringing the Useless UN in on Desert Shield/Storm, but in the end, they became more of a hinderance than an ally.

The thing is, the UN had nothing to do with the Safwan Accords, which became the Ceasefire Agreement of 91. That was signed by the US and Iraq. Yes, the UN ratified the ceasefire, but the UN were never signatories of it.

Of course, we now know why the UN didn't approve of enforcement of the ceasefire... they were enjoying the benefits of Hussein's rape rooms too much. Even though Hussein build all those palaces during the "oil for food" farce... the Useless UN still approved every request for more money from Hussein.

What the western world is blind to is, to the Arab world Hussein won desert storm. Why? Because WE left. Not only that, but the next election, Bush was voted out of office, but Hussein was left standing... do you know what that told the Arab world? It told them that even the American Citizens would rather see Hussein running Iraq than Bush running the US.

The whole ceasefire agreement handed Hussein the victory. Then when we were too spineless to enforce it, Hussein knew he could get away with anything.... and did. In the end, even the UN was bowing down to Hussein's demands.

So, you can sit there and talk about the Useless UN, terrorism, WMD, Desert Storm or anything else. But the fact is, ceasefires are only as good as the willingness of both sides to conform to them, and enforce them. The other fact is, in every case where the US has signed a ceasefire agreement, we have paid dearly.

"I'd like to know when the freakin' Iraqis elected to govern are gonna show up for work. That alone is enough to make me rethink my support for this war."

Agreement of Whip and I. Write it into the history books!

"We need to quit raising pit bulls (wink to dan) and then acting all surpised when they turn around to bite us in the ass."

Very cute, did you bake that yourself?

"Saddam was our lapdog.
Osama was our lapdog."

Ho Chi Min in Vietnam was our lapdog in WW2, only to want independence in Vietnam. Meddling in other countries destinies has bitten us more often than we would readily acknowledge.

Jumping into Iraq in 2003 was probably the right decision if not hasty. What the wrong decisions after that was, delaying the election of a governing body, planning to invest in rebuilding Iraq at all, and planning to occupy it beyond the initial government setup commitment. That should have been the end, "18 months or less", should have been Bush's slogan. If he had done that and Iraq had gone to hell in a hand basket it would have been much less a problem 5 years later than today, Iraq is hell in a hand basket, we have no way out, no way to fix it, and we are half a trillion dollars shorter and 3500 Americans dead, 30,000 permanently wounded because of it.

Iran could still have been sending in troops to help stabilize, Syria too, Saudi Arabia, where are these nations today? Iran can't do anything because we won't let them, Syria has no interest in getting into a cluster fuck at this point, and Saudi Arabia feels little if any effect because the south end of Iraq is largely in the best shape.

"Oh yeah, 12 years of Hussein violating the ceasefire agreement was "rushing". Bah!"

Thats what you say, but troops started moving in 2002, less than a year after 9/11, Americans were under threat of the DC snipers, Anthrax, ORANGE ALERT! All kinds of fear, daily hourly minute "Fox news alerts" of shit that could/would happen.

What has happened in six years inside the United States AQ terrorist wise? Nothing. They have had no follow up attack that succeeded, no game plan for taking us down after swatting the nest. Only being on the run and stirring up shit in other countries.

"The other fact is, in every case where the US has signed a ceasefire agreement, we have paid dearly."

This statement is really telling, revealing what a war hawk you really are Ted.

In Vietnam, we have not been back, and the country seems to be doing just fine finally getting on it's feet.

In Korea, we have a well established border called the DMZ, and no incursions, though a still hostile neighbor to the north, North Korea is largely China and South Korea's problem.

In Japan at the conclusion of WW2, we never were forced to invade and are very strong trade partners. We have also taught and learned much from Japan on the manufacturing front.

Germany, is a peaceful nation today because of the unconditional surrendur and peace treaty signed.

Our own nation, is the most powerful in the world and has been for over 100 years thanks to the unification of our way of life which came about after the civil war, a peace treaty signed in Appomattox Courthouse settled that one.

The revolutionary war, and conclusion of the war of 1812, with the UK, leads today to the strongest alliance between any two nations on Earth right now, the US and UK, and the whole "democracy" thing has spread and allied these nations and allowed them overcome global alliance of tyranny in the past.

I fail to see any merit in your claim that we have paid dearly for any peace treaty or ceasefire agreement we have signed. The fact is it is President Bush using his own "Bush doctrine" who re-initiated hostilities on Iraq, essentially unilaterally entering us into a conflict we cannot manage with forces insufficient to the task in Iraq. Nobody in congress was pushing harder for this war than the administration, nobody in the public was demanding we attack Iraq.

At the time, the hope was we could win this war and have the forces pulled out before the summer because the chemical warfare suits were really hot in a desert during the day. I guess five years later, with no end in sight, only worsening violence, and lack of progress by the people who are more responsible for it than anyone else, the Iraqi's I have no sympathy or measure of extending our commitment for them at all.

Of course I am troubled by the situation and our moral obligation for helping a nation but there is a very clear limit to just how much help we should be providing. There is also a limit to the responsibility our military and our people should feel the need to have for Iraq. We are not forcing their population to choose to be part of the insurgency. They are choosing that each individual at a time against all the efforts of the legitimate government and legitimate controlling authorities.

They are also choosing not to fight for their own freedom, which is not something we can win for them without their participation. The majority of Iraqis are under 40 in that country, and there is no reason their military force could not be three or four or five million strong. Why is it we scarcely hear of more then a few tens or hundreds of thousands of trained troops?

I don't know about Saudi Arabia, but where are Iran and Syria today? In Iraq killing anyone they need to in order to take over when the U.S. surrenders to them.

With your blessing.

Why does this thing keep doing this?

{Continued}

The central question is, why is the administration making the case that AQ wins if we leave, when AQ is not responsible for the majority of the violence or the lack of progress in the government. They also don't claim Iraq as an AQ state if we leave, because Iraqis don't want them in power or intimidating their towns and villages anymore than they do in Afghanistan.

The reason is the administration doesn't want to leave for whatever reason. They believe that terrorists will be emboldened by inaction. Given the fact that terrorists are going to plan and plot and attempt to exploit weaknesses, sometimes successfully, whether or not we attempt to deny them the ability, means that if we leave in Iraq it is meaningless to AQ and to our own safety. Sure it's bad for the Iraqis' maybe. But maybe not, because maybe it is the corner we have to round for them to come together and solve their problems.

If big daddy USA isn't gonna fix it all with our sweat and blood and money, you have to get up, get a job, and do it yourself. Which is the spirit that Iraqis need to be working under rather than the one of "entitlement" and the USA doing this for them.