Iraq in a Nutshell
A friend is debating one of the increasingly-rare Iraq War proponents in a mailing list that I don't read. They're still arguing about whether the result of the Iraq invasion has been positive or negative. Three years ago I heard a lot of people saying "time will tell" or "history will be the judge" about any number of factors including WMDs, links to Al Qaeda, and the likelihood of freedom and stability in Iraq. Well time has told and history appears to be weighing in. He asked me for advice, and all I can tell him is to repeat the following summary:
Saddam Hussein was a secular, moderate, western-friendly Sunni. That's why our country supported him against the radical Shia of Iran. Osama is the radical religious Wahabbi/Salafist *enemy* of Saddam Hussein, and was prevented by Saddam from operating in Iraq. Iraq had no WMDs and nothing to do with Al Qaeda, but intelligence was intentionally fabricated to make this claim under Cheney/Rumsfeld by the Office of Special Plans to support conclusions that CIA and DIA agents knew were wrong. Many of these fabricated reports (debunked and discredited *before* the Administration used them) were provided to us by INC members working for Iran, which *is* an actual radical Islamic state sponsor of terror. As a result of our invasion Al Qaeda now operates in and trains its agents in Iraq, whose government is now dominated by a government with strong ties to Iran and "protected" by militias trained by Iranian military in Iran. Iraq returns the favor by defending its new allies right to make WMDs and will be seeking their own WMDs. Iraq's new religious Shia government is worse than Saddam's because it tortures prisoners without trial to death, usually with blowtorches and drills eleven times more than Saddam, which is why the Sunnis are fighting the Shia in an Iraqi civil war that displaces more than 20,000 people per month. Israeli security, Iraqi civilians, and American citizens regret the invasion which has been recognized by the CIA as a cause, not a prevention, of terror attacks throughout the world. We've achieved this at a cost approaching $300 billion and 2500 American lives.
Saddam Hussein was a secular, moderate, western-friendly Sunni. That's why our country supported him against the radical Shia of Iran. Osama is the radical religious Wahabbi/Salafist *enemy* of Saddam Hussein, and was prevented by Saddam from operating in Iraq. Iraq had no WMDs and nothing to do with Al Qaeda, but intelligence was intentionally fabricated to make this claim under Cheney/Rumsfeld by the Office of Special Plans to support conclusions that CIA and DIA agents knew were wrong. Many of these fabricated reports (debunked and discredited *before* the Administration used them) were provided to us by INC members working for Iran, which *is* an actual radical Islamic state sponsor of terror. As a result of our invasion Al Qaeda now operates in and trains its agents in Iraq, whose government is now dominated by a government with strong ties to Iran and "protected" by militias trained by Iranian military in Iran. Iraq returns the favor by defending its new allies right to make WMDs and will be seeking their own WMDs. Iraq's new religious Shia government is worse than Saddam's because it tortures prisoners without trial to death, usually with blowtorches and drills eleven times more than Saddam, which is why the Sunnis are fighting the Shia in an Iraqi civil war that displaces more than 20,000 people per month. Israeli security, Iraqi civilians, and American citizens regret the invasion which has been recognized by the CIA as a cause, not a prevention, of terror attacks throughout the world. We've achieved this at a cost approaching $300 billion and 2500 American lives.