Saddam didn't expect U.S. Invasion

[mimartin]

Most people have a tendency to believe their own spin and "commonly accepted rhetoric" over that of others.

Well who can blame anyone when we were spun into a war under false pretenses? We still do not know the truth of the matter because the people that spun us into this war still control all the information. They decide what needs to be classified and what is to be released.

 

I found this on FoxNews website, but I went to the original source, as we all know how they get a little confused with their facts (Mass Effect).

 

Study "The War Card" Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War

 

Key False Statements

 

They actually give the Bibliography and the Methodology they used to determine the false statements.

 

Of course, these “so-called” investigative journalists are probably just spinning the issue. Perhaps Fox News will do their own investigation with the help of townhall.com. Then perhaps we can get to the truth.

[El Sitherino]

all the intelligence said he had WMDs.

Wrong.

 

There was plenty of intelligence that also stated much the opposite.

 

Logic said he had WMDs.

****ing wrong.

 

What formula did you use to conclude that Saddam has WMD's?

I'd really love to see how this was a "logical conclusion", because to me you can't just say "You know, I looked at this chart of evils causing bad things to happen to the world America. And my logical conclusion point was Iraq. IT MAKES ALL THE SENSE IN THE WORLD!"

 

Common sense said he had WMDs.

Mother ****ing wrong.

 

Common sense says a lot of things. Fire = hot, water = wet, Vader = awesome. It however does not say "You know, Saddam has a mustache, much like Hitler and Castro, common sense dictates he must be evil and therefore has weapons of mass destruction."

 

But what we didn't count on was deliberate disinformation by Hussein himself.

Alright. And what's your point? Should people have called us out during the Cold War?

[Tommycat]

Actually the intelligence reports suggested that he might have been working on a WMD program. There was no evidence that he had any WMD's but there was evidence that he had a program that suggested he was working on them. Which strangely enough was just what he wanted the Iranians to think, but that ended up backfiring on him. Those same deception programs worked too well and convinced the wrong people. So yes logic dictated that he had a WMD program, because he wanted it to look like he had a WMD program.

 

And ES, we did get called out during the cold war. It just never escalated to full on nuclear war, nor a full scale invasion of the US. That was primarily due to us not walking away from the negotiating table

[Totenkopf]

Well who can blame anyone when we were spun into a war under false pretenses? We still do not know the truth of the matter because the people that spun us into this war still control all the information. They decide what needs to be classified and what is to be released...

 

Well, I was only really addressing his point about rhetoric. But the whole thing does raise an interesting point about intelligence gathering and handling in general. To what effect do biases and agendas come into play and how can you really determine who's telling the truth/giving most sound advice on the info available? If side A is "rushing to war" and side B wants to hang back at any/all costs, who is the policy maker supposed to believe? More importantly, what if there is a time constraint in making that assessment. Setting Iraq aside, we live in an age of increasingly devastating weapons that can be delivered to targets via multiple vectors and agents. It used to be you wait for the enemy to attack you (making it easier to rally your population behind a decision to retaliate), but how viable is that strategy now, when an attack can take out 1000s/mils in a single act? Yes, preemption is truly a tricky affair.

[Jae Onasi]

I don't think we're ever going to know the truth. It looks like he was at least working on developing WMDs if not actually having them, and if he just wanted to keep up appearances, Saddam did a darn good job. He'd already attacked several villages with nerve gas and had tossed some SCUDs at Israel in the first war. It's not hard to extrapolate a possible WMD program when you see both nerve gas usage and short-range missiles. He certainly had capability to create chemical WMDs and possibly biological. Whether he had the capability to create enough radioactive materials to create a nuclear or even 'dirty' bomb, and long range missiles, is another question.

 

Saddam's assumption that we wouldn't attack is, I think, another symptom of his megalomania--'They wouldn't dare do that to _me_!' This article doesn't tell me about his WMD intentions so much as it just confirms his personality type.

[SilentScope001]

Yeah, regardless of the type of rhetoric (left/right/lib/cons/ad nauseam...). Most people have a tendency to believe their own spin and "commonly accepted rhetoric" over that of others.

 

QFT. If only if people actually believed in my totally correct spin and not in the spin of my enemy...then the world would be a better place.

 

It used to be you wait for the enemy to attack you (making it easier to rally your population behind a decision to retaliate), but how viable is that strategy now, when an attack can take out 1000s/mils in a single act? Yes, preemption is truly a tricky affair.

 

You can always try to find new ways to complete old objectives. Instead of launching the military invasion of Iraq, why not back terrorist attacks and military coups to overthrow Saddam? Or bribe Saddam to 'disband' his WMD program? You DON'T have to invade Iraq anymore, look at how we handled North Korea.

 

It just takes forever, that's all. And I think the peaceniks and the war hawks hate waiting endlessly in a perpetual quantum state between life and death.

[Totenkopf]

But a world of one could be a very lonely place.