Al Jazeera reporter Abderrahim Foukara asks former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld if he made adequate preparations for the invasion of Iraq to avoid tens of thousands of deaths of innocent Iraqis. As if Arabs really cared about the deaths of innocent Iraqis! But it is a good question, and obviously the answer is no.
Also interesting is the charge that it is in Foukara's "nature" to be pejorative. It is not in the Arab "nature" to be pejorative. It is in the Arab nature to be a hypocrite. LOL
5 comments :
Well, at least at this point in the interview, Rumsfeld has become uncooperative. Did he ever answer the question.
Until the Anbar Salvation Council in the Fall of 2006, more US troops would have accomplished nothing. Until the Sunni Arabs (primarily those in Anbar) chose to give up the fight--to admit the legitmacy of the new post-Saddam government--more US troops would have only meant more targets and added a greater sense of annoying omnipresence to the lives of ordinary Iraqis. If the Resistance could have claimed 20,000 US deaths instead of a quarter of that, it would have encouraged the Sunni Arabs to continue their destructive War on the Future.
The reason the border was not "secure" is that Sunni Arabs in Anbar were helping to smuggle in fighters from Syria.
After the Anbar Salvation Council, an increase of a mere 25% in US troop levels brought down terrorist violence in Iraq by 80%. Iraqis needed to look over the precipice and see what their country might become.
The violence of 2005-2006 was simply not avoidable.
When US troops leave, we will have another What-Will-Happen-Next choice for Iraqis.
Čmar II, it is not a "War on the future." It's a war on U.S. nazis who attacked Iraq on false grounds.
Others will get in the line of fire (Nouri Maliki and his supporters) simply because of collaboration with the primary enemy.
In the 13th century the Mongols attacked Iraq under Holagu-khan, and once again the Shiites sided with the enemy in order to mass-murder the Sunnis.
That shows us how treachery is nothing new for them
Dolly speaks from the past, contiuing to fight a war to bring Saddam back to power that even the Sunni Arabs have given up.
The da-ning fact is that even before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, the outgoing US Army Chief of Staff, General Shineski warned in testimony before a Congressional committee that too few troops were scheduled to take part in the invasion and that the US military would need around 250,000 troops to adequately occupy a post-Saddam Iraq and prevent violence from breaking out. Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush Jr Administration promptly said that this estimate was far too pesimistic. It tragically turned out that the General was right and Rumsfeld was wrong. I do think that if 250,000 US Troops had been originally been sent to occupy Iraq that much of the violence there could have been avoided and the uprising being put down much earlier with many fewer lives lost.
Another example of the incompetency of Bush & Co. is when questioned before the invasion about US plans to occupy Iraq after Saddam's overthrow; Rumsfeld replied that there were not any, and that such plans would have to wait till they saw what the situation was in Iraq after Saddam's overthrow before any such plans for US occupation of Iraq could be drawn up!
Actually Shinseki refused to give a precise number saying he would rely on requests from regional commanders. However his estimate was well beyond 250,000--it was "several hundred thousand". So, David, your estimate would be far too low compared to the General's.
In the end, the violence in Iraq was pacified with 160K US troops and TIME for the Iraqis to settle their differences and a series of elections to establish the authenticity of the government.
Secondly, if Rumsfeld had said that we have all these plans to occupy Iraq the opposition-at-any-cost would have argued that the on-going negotiations with Saddam to cooperate with the UN inspections was a fraud.
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