The war in Iraq: The sensible logic analysis

I have been meaning for sometime to offer my views on the Iraq war. Since the overall war on terrorism is of great interest to me, I have a lot of views to offer. Being too much for one blog post, I have decided to make this a multi-blog series. First up, how we got into Iraq in the first place. I apologize for the length of this post.

Sensible logic takes on Iraq (part 1): How the heck did we get into this mess?

The simple answer is September 11, 2001. Now before you scream at me and say that there was no connection between 9-11 and Iraq, let me just say you are right, there wasn’t. The link between the two is much more complicated than that. While there was no direct link between Iraq and 9-11, the terrorist attack of that September morning did get the ball rolling.

Despite what some think, 9-11 was a significant event in American history. For only the second time, the United States was attacked on its own soil. And even though only 3000 died, and many more die each year due to other causes, it was still a heartbreaking event. We were caught off guard and unprepared and people died. Now put yourself in the Presidents shoes. Nine months into your first term your fellow countryman are murdered. The innate desire to defend must have been strong. To not feel that way would be inhuman. Ask any parent how they would react if their child were harmed. The desire to protect them, even over protect them, must be strong. Inaction is simply not an option.

The million dollar question now is who does the President need to protect America from? Who attacked us? Al Qaida did, we know that. Ok then, where is Al Qaida? What is the capital of Al Qaida? What does the uniform of Al Qaida look like? Here in lies the problem, there is no country of Al Qaida we can attack, no flag they fight under, no uniform they wear, and certainly no rules of engagement they follow. So how do we respond?

Our first response was to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan. Does anyone think this was a bad idea? You heard very little opposition to the take down of the Taliban, but did the Taliban plan the events of 9-11? What if I told you they didn’t? What if I told you they opposed the attack? Would that change your opinion of the war with Afghanistan? In reading “The Osama Bin Laden I know”, Peter Bergen states that the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, warned Osama bin Laden AGAINST attacking the United States directly. He thought, correctly, that any major attack against the United States would certainly bring about the end of the Taliban. He was right. So, if the Taliban had nothing to do with planning 9-11 and in fact, was against it, why then was it ok for the United States to attack them in response to 9-11?

This is a grey area we encounter with the new war on terrorism. We are fighting an ideology, not a country. The Taliban certainly aided, funded, and harbored Al Qaida. In addition, the Taliban were committing vicious acts of violence against the people of Afghanistan. The Taliban needed to be stopped and I for one fully support the fight against them.

Given the vast superiority of the U.S military, the Taliban was easily removed from power. Even though the Taliban still pose a problem, their influence has been reduced and there is a new, democratically elected government in power. I know there are issues still relating to the war in Afghanistan, but that is beyond the scope if this post.

With the Taliban threat removed, Al Qaida strong holds within the country destroyed, and Osama on the run, the next logical question for those in government to ask is: “Are we now safe from future attacks? Did we do enough?”

To me the answer was no. We were by no means completely safe. Islamic extremism did not end with the fall of the Taliban, as the Taliban were not the single source of terror. So who do we go after next? This is where the politics of opportunity and the psychology of having been as viscously attacked as we were, lead us into Iraq.

I do not proclaim to know what was going through the Presidents mind after 9-11 (no jokes please), so this is mere speculation on my part. But I do assume he must have been feeling a need to further protect from other threats. I will admit it is a more than viable of an argument to make that he ended up over protecting us, perhaps unnecessarily protecting us. But at this time (pre-Iraq invasion) can you honestly say that? I do not think so. After what we experienced on 9-11, it was more than reasonable to want to “over protect”. To not do so and wind up with another 9-11 would be inexcusable. So then the next logical step in this process was to look for other potential threats.

In examining potential threats in the region, who comes to mind? First and foremost, it should be Iraq given our recent history. However, let us for a movement look at other threats. Saudi Arabia (SA) comes to mind. Certainly there are radical clerics preaching “death to America” within SA. Terror cells operate with in its boarders and there was most certainly Islamic extremism being taught in some, if not most of the schools. So why not attack SA? Unfortunately they are an ally. They have a moderate government which we have a peace agreement with and it was just not an option to attack Al Qaida within SA. Pakistan posed the same issue as SA, a “friendly”, moderate government despite the fact terror cells were operating with in the boarders but again attack was not an option. Iran at this time was little more than an annoyance as was Syria. The only immediate threat to the United States at this time was Iraq. Sure, THERE WAS NO LINK BETWEEN 9-11 AND IRAQ, but Iraq was still a dangerous regime that did pose a threat to stability in the Middle East. There is just no question Saddam was a dangerous man who killed, or was responsible for ordering the killing of hundreds of thousands of people.

This fact, coupled with a deep-seeded psychological need to protect America from further harm is what I believe lead us into Iraq. Perhaps this was rushed, a big leap in logic, or what ever you want to call it, but again, given the psychological impact of 9-11, I simply refuse to fault the President on this one. I honestly believe, for better or worse, that he did have the nation’s best interest in mind. Now I feel I need to preface this, for my liberal readers, that what comes after the initial invasion, I do fault the President on and I will address that later.

Finally, I would like to debunk the “Bush lied”, “illegal war” line of thinking. First off, there is a huge difference between someone lying deliberately and someone being wrong about a particular piece of information. All credible evidence at that time did suggest Iraq was attempting to obtain WMD. Congress read the same material and reached the same conclusion, as did France, Israel, and a whole host of other countries. So when the President stood up and proclaimed Iraq was attempting to obtain WMD’s, all evidence suggested he was telling the truth. Unfortunately it did turn out the evidence was not as strong as thought. Sure Iraq was trying to obtain “yellow cake” from Niger, despite Joe Wilson turning a 180 after the fact, but it turned out that there was no WMD’s inside Iraq. However, there are no mulligans in battle, no do-over’s, no “opps, my bad!” We got into Iraq, deposed its leader and it became our responsibility to see the campaign through. I will address what I think went wrong in section two of this series.

As far as this being an “illegal” war, per the U.S. constitution, the President cannot declare war, nor keep troops engaged in battle over a certain period of time. Only congress can authorize a war, which is what that congress did. So right there this war becomes a legal one. Sorry folks, we do not need UN approval to carry through U.S. foreign policy. The second, and more convincing, case for this being a legal war has to do with the treaty that ended the first gulf war. I have been trying to find the actual treaty online, but have been unsuccessful, if anyone should find it, please send me a copy. Despite not have the text in front of me, I have read a lot of articles that talked about it. One of the provisions in said treaty was that Saddam was to allow UN weapon inspectors complete and unrestricted access to potential WMD sites. It is very clear that between the time the first gulf war ended and the second began, Iraq violated these terms repeatedly. If I am not mistaken, there were about a dozen UN resolutions passed on this matter, and every time Saddam violated them. Hence Saddam was in violation of the original treaty and thus was subject to the military option the U.S. eventually used. I repeat, Saddam violated the original peace treaty, making war a very legal option.

In conclusion I want to say that while mistakes were made as a result of rushing into war, we do not have the luxury of hindsight. What would have happened if we had taken our time, let Saddam violate several more UN resolutions and it turned out Iraq had a nuke, sold it to a terror cell who set if off in the middle of a major American city? Would we be saying: “Sure that sucked, but hey, at least we did not rush to judgment”? Think about it, there is a reason why we always know what a football team should have done the day after we lose a game, what poker hand we should or should not have played after we lost all our chips, but when it comes to people’s lives, Monday morning quarterbacking is simply not an option!