1999 war games foresaw problems in Iraq!! "failed state" was the suggested result.

[Roland99]

1999 war games foresaw problems in Iraq
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_Iraq_War_Games.html

The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.

...

"The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."

...

-"A change in regimes does not guarantee stability," the 1999 seminar briefings said. "A number of factors including aggressive neighbors, fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability."

-"Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic - especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments."

Appears that the Clinton administration at least looked into the possibility of invading/occupying Iraq, possibly due to pressure from groups like the PNAC?

This might also explain why even Powell and Rice both are on the record, in early 2001, as saying Saddam was not a threat and was contained because the thought of invading/occupying Iraq was known to be wrought with peril.

But, alas, the PNAC got its "new Pearl Harbor" and were able to come to the forefront since DICK had installed his war criminal underlings/cohorts/spies for Israel all over the WH, State Dept., and the Pentagon.

They were warned, many times over, and still invaded with no plan for a post-invasion Iraq other than some fantasy ideology held by a group of insane narcissists.

[dsc]

1. Of course we looked into it

responsible adults would. We were, after all, subjecting him to bombings and sanctions for his weapons programs and other activities. It would have been irresponsible not to war game a senario where we had to take him out. Of course, it was also irresponsible to ignore the results of the war game and not send enough troops.

[JohnyCanuck]

8. it was also irresponsible to ignore the results of the war game

and not send enough troops.

That would be true, unless what they really wanted was a failed state, i.e. no more possible threat to Israel from a united Iraq and an excuse to keep US troops in their Iraqi enduring bases well into the future to make sure the oil stays under US control, and it's the US who has the final say on how much is pumped and who is allowed to puchase it.

Just think Peak Oil and the fact that Iraq contains one of the last remaining major reserves of easily accessed, sweet (i.e. low sulfur) crude oil on a planet where many oil industry analysts and petroleum geologists are predicting total world oil production will enter a permanent and irreversible decline within the next 5 to 10 years. See, for example, http://www.theoildrum.com/storyonly/2006/3/1/3402/63420

[AlamoDemoc]

2. Bill Clinton's administration killed Iraqis too

"In a May 12, 1996 broadcast of the CBS news program "60 Minutes," Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, was interviewed by Lesley Stahl. "We have heard that half a million children have died," Stahl said. "That is more than died in Hiroshima. I mean, is the price worth it?"

Albright replied without hesitation: "We think the price is worth it."

[madfloridian]

3. For many in both parties....it was never about Iraq.

It was about making it a gateway to the rest of the Middle East so we could democraticize that area with Iraq as base. It was never about Iraq being a real threat, it was about turning it into a paradise for corporate experimentation.

This is very long, will need to be read in sections. It is very telling and
very researched by a reputable magazine.

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html
Baghdad Year Zero

Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia
Posted on Friday, September 24, 2004. Originally from Harper's Magazine,
September 2004. By Naomi Klein.

It was only after I had been in Baghdad for a month that I found what I was
looking for. I had traveled to Iraq a year after the war began, at the
height of what should have been a construction boom, but after weeks of
searching I had not seen a single piece of heavy machinery apart from tanks
and humvees. Then I saw it: a construction crane. It was big and yellow and
impressive, and when I caught a glimpse of it around a corner in a busy
shopping district I thought that I was finally about to witness some of the
reconstruction I had heard so much about. But as I got closer I noticed that
the crane was not actually rebuilding anything—not one of the bombed-out
government buildings that still lay in rubble all over the city, nor one of
the many power lines that remained in twisted heaps even as the heat of
summer was starting to bear down. No, the crane was hoisting a giant
billboard to the top of a three-story building. SUNBULAH: HONEY 100%
NATURAL, made in Saudi Arabia. ...."End of the Snip.

[Roland99]

5. Iran was always the big "prize"

[bullimiami]

4. they are so reality based. hasnt time proven they were wrong?

:)

[nytemare]

6. Eh, failed state, Hurricane Pam, looks like we have a pattern here.

A pattern of insanity.

[sweetheart]

7. Ghenghis Khan is a hard precedent to beat

When you're the next in a long line of sack'ers of bagdhad, unless you
vapourize the place with nukes, you are not as impressive as the mongols.

[Darkhawk32]

9. Kicked and nom'd!!! n/t

[Roland99]

10. Frat-Boy's father, Poppy, wrote this in 1998 >>>>

http://fuller.mit.edu/peace/dad_knows_best.html

Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome

And yet we have Pelosi promising no impeachment hearings????


:wtf: