Question for the anti-pre-emptive policy folks...

[piece-it pete]

The thing about the Middle East is that it's had a long history of foreign occupiers, and the presence of foreign troops.

However, Saddam is a secularist, and not someone who subscribes to the fundamental letter of the Koran. He invokes Islam whenever it suits his purposes, but Islamic fundamentalism was a far greater internal threat to his power than anything else. Saddam was all about power, plain and simple. His world view was about geopolitical influence in the Arab world. Al Qaeda's purpose is very different.

I absolutely 100% understand & agree. However, this doesn't change the fact that, in order to withdraw our troops from Saudi Arabia (to address a root cause of Al Qaeda), Saddam had to go, as he was a proven threat to his neighbors.

The military campaign may have worked quite well, but unfortunately the aftermath was not nearly as thoroughly planned and coordinated. Afghanistan's another example where a successful military campaign forced regime change, but failing to wage peace as effectively as waging war has really destabilized that situation and the Taliban has reasserted its power in many areas aside from Kabul.

The problem with planning the aftermath is we simply don't know what the situation will be. This is always true - no plan survives the battlefield. We'll take care of the Taliban. And war is rarely stabilizing.

The only question is the degree to which the intelligence was deliberately tailored to fit the political goals. It definitely would not be the first time this has happened. In the aftermath of the Cold War, we're now finding that a lot of intelligence reports about the Soviet threat were exaggerated to suit the military-industrial complex. After billions were spent on the first "Star Wars" defense system with no operational system to show for it, Dr. Edward Teller (father of the H-bomb and prominent proponent of the Strategic Defense Initiative) freely admitted he didn't think that an actual missile defense system was possible, but still played up the need for SDI so that he and his colleagues would get funding for their coveted research projects.

"We" (the intelligence agencies) might have very well known that Iraq was a shell of its former self and that there were in fact no WMDs anywhere, but reports that were throwing cautionary cold water on the run up to war in Iraq never saw the light of day or were significantly altered beforehand, and those that supported the hawks' position were highlighted. Ahmed Chalabi (the head of the dissident Iraqi National Congress) and his associates supplied much of the intelligence that later turned out to be wrong or a false alarm, yet the CIA is now getting blamed for bad intelligence, even though much of the bad info was funneled to the White House through the Office of Special Plans, which relied on Chalabi's info for the most part. Chalabi in a British interview last week basically admitted error, and said that getting Saddam out of power justified everything that led up to the invasion. This coming from someone who had everything to gain by getting Saddam out of power.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../19/wirq19.xml

This is another quote from a British newspaper about the role of Chalabi and the OSP, written by a former CIA analyst.

"Of course, no policymaker should accept intelligence estimates unquestioningly. Any official who does less is derelict in his or her duty. However, at a certain point curiosity and diligence become a form of pressure.

As Seymour Hersh, among others, has reported, Bush administration officials also took some actions that arguably crossed the line between rigorous oversight of the intelligence community and an attempt to manipulate intelligence. They set up their own shop in the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans, to sift through the information themselves. To a great extent OSP personnel "cherry-picked" the intelligence they passed on, selecting reports that supported the administration's pre-existing position and ignoring all the rest.

Most problematic of all, the OSP often chose to believe reports that trained intelligence officers considered unreliable or downright false. In particular it gave great credence to reports from the Iraqi National Congress, whose leader was the administration-backed Ahmed Chalabi. It is true that the intelligence community believed some of the material that came from the INC - but not most of it. One of the reasons the OSP generally believed the INC was that they were telling it what it wanted to hear - giving the OSP further incentive to trust these sources over differing, and ultimately more reliable, ones. Thus intelligence analysts spent huge amounts of time fighting bad information and trying to persuade officials not to make policy decisions based on it."

I'd like to start with Star Wars (SDI). When conceived there were many "missing pieces" of technology. But it added uncertainty to the USSRs' strategic planning, an invaluable thing. Towards the the end the USSR might have been collapsing internally but we had no way of knowing that (how do you get a spy into the Politboro?) - and there is NO DOUBT that the USSR was a *serious* threat for decades, a far larger threat than Al Qaeda. Reagans' out-spend them strategy is generally credited with playing a large part in bringing them down (with no war), spending an est. max of 17% of GDP on the military, with the USSR having to spend an est. 50%+ to try to keep up. That's GDP, not percent of budget!

BTW, the techies at MIT now say that major parts of SDI (smart rocks, missile interceptors) are available using modified "off the shelf" technology, it just needs major testing to work the bugs out for these applications. No more missing pieces.

Can you imagine basing our take of a new weapon on ONE test? A new gun - jams on the first public try - scrap it! A new tank - track breaks - scrap it! The reality is any new product, military or civilian, goes through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tests & design changes. Should we ground the Shuttle permanantly & give up?

I consider the way GWB justified the Iraq war as by far the biggest mistake he's make. Not evil deed , mistake. He should have talked about the big picture, about the XX other reasons to go in. I understand that most would not understand, and that the WMD was a "sure thing", but the fallout does belong on him.

That said, in any given situation the Pres will get a lot of info, some saying A, some saying B, etc, etc. The Nazis had confirmation on D-Day -ignored. Roosevelt had info on Pearl Harbor - ignored. Clinton had clear info (and enemy action) on the Al Qaeda threat - ignored.

Well, the thing to keep in mind about Saudi Arabia is that most of the financial resources and personnel behind 9/11 came from there. Are they now cooperating with any inquiries to identify who might be involved in future terrorist plans, and are they taking steps to ensure that the financial support for Al Qaeda is stopped? Saying that they can work it out themselves doesn't seem to jive in a "you're either with us or against us" era.

Iran has been slowly instituting reforms for years, and there's been a lot of quiet diplomacy behind the scenes between the U.S. and Iran. Compared to other Islamic countries, women have broad rights and occupy high positions in govt. If anything, the Iraq war has brought a lot of the reform process to a halt and strengthened the hardliner positions, as the ruling Islamic council last week threw out a whole slew of more secular candidates for the their upcoming elections.

Syria's been playing this cat and mouse game with us for years, and their latest actions are really not all that different. Syria was on PNAC's hitlist, and it would not surprise me one bit to see a flurry of "intelligence" reports that play up the threat that they represent as the November elections get closer.

I'm not as hopeful as you. Frankly, I hope your more optimistic assessment turns out to be true. But, the problems in that region took thousands of years to get to where they are today, and I think it's incredibly arrogant presumption for any single nation to think that they can mold that region to a democratic pro-Western vision when the Middle East's whole history has been about power games and internal battles, and resisting foreign occupiers.

Saudi Arabia: I said: "Saudi Arabia is an ally with huge internal problems. They are attempting to come to grips with it, and we would only screw up any chance they have by interfering publicly." The answers to your questions are yes & yes. Al Qaedas' main aim is to overthrow the Sauds. Will the Sauds succeed against Osamas' bunch? I don't know, & neither do they. For us or against us? The Sauds are generally with us. If Saudi Arabia hits us, or provides shelter for our enemies, I assure you something will be done (unless perhaps Kerry wins).

Iran: ANYTHING we do will be used by the hardliners there against us. Will we give them veto power over our actions? We've already given them one thing: notice of both our might & the will to use it.

Syria: I agree, they're good at playing the game, but Assad Jr. isn't as good as Assad Sr., & the stakes (for Syria) are much higher this time around. See "for us or against us" & "might".

The Middle East in general: I 100% agree with you - it would be a miracle if we managed to turn it into a font of Democracy. I am hopeful for our realistic success, but may be more cynical than most. The fundamental thing is this: if these forces continue to leave their area and blow down our buildings, we have the right to defend ourselves. If this means a transition to Democracy for these countries, that is wonderful, & I truly hope this happens. But if not, if these enemies continue to attack us & cannot defend or support their own elected gov't, we still have the right (and the responsiblity) to defend ourselves by hunting down & killing them and their supporters, wherever they may be hiding.

Pete