Trump Rejects Intel Report

[wing2000]

Not to rehash an old argument but to be fair, the Intel Mistake of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was not that big a mistake in terms of "error" by the Intel Community.

Fact #1: Saddam had WMDs because he ACTUALLY USED chemical warfare agents as recently as the late 80s and used them on more than one occassion as verified by actual film. This is not in dispute whatsoever.
Fact #2: Saddam lost the first Iraq war and signed a treaty in which he was to give UN inspection teams free reign to ensure decommission of his WMDs. Well, Saddam had many areas which he denied access to inspectors, thus preventing inspectors to confirm decommission of WMDs
Fact #3: Saddam had plenty of time during the build up of coalition forces to hide WMDs.

Agreed. However, the Bush Administration went further than stating Iraq had chemical weapons. The justification for war was based on the premise that Sadaam Hussein would supply not only chemical weapons, but biological and even nuclear weapons to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda....groups that would have nothing to lose by using such weapons.

It was a false premise and that had no support by any credible intelligence.

Yes, imo the US was premature to go to war with Iraq. However, given the facts above, it was not unreasonable to assume Iraq had WMDs. Sure, hind sight is 20/20 and all and overall I do not like the decision that was made, but the Intel was not "fake" it was just "reasonably" wrong. THen factor in that the US was still reeling emotionally from being attacked, invading Iraq given the context of the time was not completely unreasonable. From a Political Science perspective, it was a chance to do several things:

#1) Send a signal of asymetric response to all would-be terrorists. You blow up a building of ours, we invade an entire country of yours
#2) Show the world that US will be overly aggressive in responding to terrorism
#3) Build a flourishing democracy in a part of the world in which such a government was thought to be impossible

The only country that arguably could be attributed to Al Qaeda was Afghanistan...and thanks to Iraq, we didn't finish the job there in the early years. Iraq was simply the wrong target and had no relationship to Al Qaeda. The Bush Administration fought a conventional war against an enemy whose power resides in ideology, not terrority. Fighting Al Qaeda by taking out one of it's state enemies (Saddam) simply made no sense. Al Qaeda's ideology was based on taking out secular governments like Saddam's.

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[dgiharris]

....It was a false premise and that had no support by any credible intelligence.

The only country that arguably could be attributed to Al Qaeda was Afghanistan...and thanks to Iraq, we didn't finish the job there in the early years. Iraq was simply the wrong target and had no relationship to Al Qaeda. The Bush Administration fought a conventional war against an enemy whose power resides in ideology, not terrority. Fighting Al Qaeda by taking out one of it's state enemies (Saddam) simply made no sense. Al Qaeda's ideology was based on taking out secular governments like Saddam's.

solid post and points

 

[Rion]

You do wonder how the Trump Whitehouse would treat a report of terrorists planning an attack on two towers....

Depends on if Nostrum was located in one of those towers.