Here is an interesting article from USAToday.com that is pretty relevent to this thread. It is interesting to see the intelligence methods used and how the analysts were assuming worst case scenarios without knowing exactly what the state of Iraqs WMD program was. The article also goes to mention that there was no pressure from the Bush administration on the analysts, and that the Clinton & Bush administrations as well as the Congressional intelligence commitees all believed the same intelligence to mean the same thing.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...dge-usat_x.htm

 

So why act on worst case senarios with minimal accurate information and the majority of the UN and world against it?

 

I would rather consider the worst case scenario of a given set of intelligence and overshoot than underestimate and have it come back to bite me in the ass.

Lets say the US intelligence community played down the evidence and Bush decided not to go to war. Saddam gives a terrorist one of his biological weapons that we downplayed and it is used agains the US say as a dirty bomb in Los Angeles. Do you not think Michael Moore would be all up in arms that Bush did nothing to prevent this? I certainly would be.

If our intelligence is to be flawd I would much rather it be an overstatement than an understatement.

 

If that were the case then we wouldn't be here discussing this because we (or at least our parents) would've all been blown to smithereens in the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis is an example of how the "shoot first ask questions later" policy would've started World War 3. Had Kennedy decided to invade Cuba instead of merely blockading them, the Soviets would have launched their missiles at us.

Intelligence is always up to the intepretation of the CIA, and it's often out of context and far from complete. I don't think Bush should be penalized for acting on faulty intelligence, but I think in this case he could've acted with much more finesse and diplomacy.

 

This is where we disagree largely.

In the case of the Cuban missle crisis Kennedy was given intelligence and tried to find a peacfull, diplomatic solution. Part of which was a blockade and sanctions against Cuba. Because neither the Soviet Union or the US wanted a nuclear war the Soviets backed down...but only after we agreed to pull our missles out of Turkey which was the reason the Soviets put them in Cube in the first place.

In the case of Iraq the international community had been trying for 12 years to find a peacfull and diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis through sanctions, inspections, and no-fly zones. How much more finesse and diplomacy do you think we should have tried with Saddam? What piece of diplomacy do you think we should have tried that we have not already and failed in doing so? Even under the threat of force and a large coalition on his doorstep Saddam remained defiant.

 

I wouldn't call it large persay, as the only countries in this coalition that make any difference in the world were the Americans and the UK. I doubt Poland makes a difference in the worlds military community.

 

Yes the Americans and the Brits were the two main forces of the coalition...but it still was a coalition. It was also nowhere near the size of Gulf War 1 that was almost 500,000 troops...but still I would be a little nervous if the US assembled a coalition of about 170,000 troops over my boarders with the intent to remove me from power.

And don't knock the Polish military :fawk: I'm Polish BTW.

 

Got any good Polish jokes? :chuckles:


jfwy

 

..........

 

funny you should mention that.. USA and britain have made up the majority of troops in every "coalition" of this nature over the last 100 years. what's your point?