to ahmazafire

Submitted by Rick (United States), Jul 30, 2007 at 14:49

The United States invaded Iraq because the US government thought Saddam had or was getting nuclear WMD. Knowing Saddam's history of attacking neighboring countries and Bush knew that an Iraqi attack on Kuwait or Saudi Arabia while Saddam possessed nuclear weapons would make a counterattack like our 1991 response to his Kuwaiti invasion absolutely impossible, Bush decided to go in. WMD were not found and so the invasion concentrated on nation building and democratization of Iraq. Bush means well but is naive.

I agree with you that the longer the war the more innocent Iraqis as well as Us troops die. That is why I said that there should have been targeted assassinations of key Baathist and military leadership before the invasion. Tikrit should have been especially targeted. Martial Law should never have been terminated. Captured insurgents ort terrorists or whatever you call them should have been executed under an indict of martial law. During the looting period which I consider the turning point in Iraq, looters should have been shot. I am sure that the number of Iraqis shot for looting or insurgency would be far less than the horrible number of innocent - mostly Shi'ites - Iraqis killed in car bombs. Troops should have been monitoring the Saudi border where many of the terrorists enter.

Stronger measures should have been taken against Syria. In fact, many rich Baathist leaders escaped to Syria and funded the insurgency from there. They live very openly in Syria. Agents should have been sent into Syria and those Baathists should have been assassinated in Syria. Targeted assassination saves lives and that is the honest truth the US will never admit to and is one of the reasons the US finds itself in such a mess.

There is a long list of 'should have dones" that weren't . I was not for the invasion because I know the US does not have any understanding of the Middle East at all. I though Bush was going in the right direction with his "52 Picture Playing Cards of Wanted Iraqis" but I was wrong. Using the US army in Iraq to nation build seems to be a mistake just as it would be in Syria or Egypt or Saudi Arabia, etc. You do need intelligence - that is critical - but in these despotic regimes there are always people with scores to settle with the despots - just like the Northern Alliance in Afganistan were critical in taking down the Taliban. We should have been concentrating on building our own "sleeper cells" which we could activate to kill the Saddam support structure. That is the way to fight these Arab despotic regimes and not with armies who only contribute to more innocent Iraqi deaths.

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