'Cause We Got Cake
So we're finally getting around to dismantling Saddam's nuclear program, including removal of 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium. I'm not sure if this story is getting as much play as it deserves, considering how many people don't believe he had a nuclear program any more, much less any yellowcake.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:54 AM
13 Comments:
"There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991" -- the last time we had a war with Saddam. And all this yellowcake had already been "documented and safeguarded" by U.N. Inspectors prior to this war. It was stored in "aging drums" since 1991. This isn't a story about an ongoing weapons program.
Saddam had plenty of material to get various WMD programs up and running, and was, in fact, planning to do so as soon as the heat was off--and the heat was going to be off if the US had followed countries such as France and Russia at the UN, as Saddam was assured. Saddam's threat was real, though those who oppose the war can now pretend it wasn't, since the threat has been taken care of.
Well, as long as it was documented and safeguarded, we should have left it where it was. And now the Canadians have it! Bush is a freakin' idiot.
File under Straws, grasping at
File under fully protected, comfort of the.
The question is not whether we should protect our interests or whether Saddam was a good guy. It's whether, given all the interests we have to protect, this situation warranted the costs of this phenomenally-badly planned war. Is it going better? Sure, compared to the first 4 years. Is it better to have some old yellow cake in Canada than in Iraq? Sure. But the increased security that provides is not worth billions of dollars and thousands of American lives. In the meantime, we've lost more lives in Iraq than we did on 9/11, and it has cost us many opportunities to address the more dire threats (actually related to 9/11). (Anon #1)
I don't know why you're comparing the numbers of 9/11 to American dead in the war. The point of the war was to prevent future deaths. How much did it help? We can never be sure. I'm glad because I think things could be much worse, even if opponents of the war can't imagine such a thing.
(The war was quite well planned by the way. Many feel the aftermath was bungled, and that may be true, but while the Bush adminisration was explicitly aware of what might happen, no one could be sure of the best way to prevent it. But that's for another discussion.)
The "war" was well-planned, but the aftermath bungled? The war was declared over 1/100th of the way in. This is the war. If you think this result was the best that could reasonably have been planned, then that was another reason not to do it.
"The "war" was well-planned, but the aftermath bungled? The war was declared over 1/100th of the way in."
Whether you want to differentiate between the war to take over Iraq and its aftermath or not (and without getting into the several reasons a "Mission Accomplished" banner was put up), a few weeks in, Baghdad had fallen, Saddam had feld and the mission to take over the country was done. Even so, Bush declared, in the very speech he made that day, that there was plenty more violence ahead in securing the nation.
"This is the war. If you think this result was the best that could reasonably have been planned, then that was another reason not to do it."
No one in any war knows what's going to happen. If you look at how horrible previous major wars of the 20th century were, you might get some persepctive. And if you don't take Saddam Hussein's threat as seriously as it should have been taken, you're more likely to think things would have been fine if we'd just left him alone.
That summary is way too easy on Bush. Most of the negative results in this war were entirely predicted by the pros who knew their stuff. They were either fired or ignored or both. The problem at the time that Bush declare "major combat operations over" was that we had not actually completed "the mission to take over the country." That suggests a level of control "over the country" that was non-existent. It was one of Bush's few actual "faith-based initiatives." He was hoping the Iraqis would all like us and behave and justify his failure to do his homework. Didn't happen.
"That summary is way too easy on Bush. Most of the negative results in this war were entirely predicted by the pros who knew their stuff."
The pros--including the experts that Bush was following--did successfully predict one hundred of the eleven bad things that happened.
"They were either fired or ignored or both."
Or they were listened to and their ideas either worked or failed. Certainly many of the people who were wrong were ignored. (But I guess you do make a good argument for McCain.)
"The problem at the time that Bush declare "major combat operations over" was that we had not actually completed "the mission to take over the country.""
I didn't want to get into this issue, because Bush didn't declare it that obviously, it was done as a diplomatic measure to get others to join him, the people on the ship's mission was over, and several other reasons. Let's not read too much into a banner--let's look at actual policy.
"That suggests a level of control "over the country" that was non-existent."
That's true after any war. You've got the place, now what should you do with it. The question as before remains what should be done next, and what would have been better--many of the people whom you pretend are experts would have created a larger disaster.
"It was one of Bush's few actual "faith-based initiatives." He was hoping the Iraqis would all like us and behave and justify his failure to do his homework. Didn't happen."
No, he knew the situation as it stood was untenable and he decided to do something about it. If he hadn't, Kerry, Obama, Clinton and many others would now be claiming he blew the whole Iraq issue, and they'd be right. Of course, he'd be out of office by now anyway. In any case, it's odd you're not aware that every war--or fot that matter, decision not to fight a war, is "faith-based"--no matter what Colin Powell thinks.
I can't address all the problems in this analysis, so I'll just point out one. I did not refer to the banner because I knew the party line (it was put there by the sailors to celebrate their return home, and Bush just stood under it by accident). Instead, I emphasized what Bush actually SAID, which was that major combat operations were over in Iraq.
Major combat operations were over in taking the state. What came next were preventing insurgents from taking it back. This is an argument about semantics and not particularly relevant.
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