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Summary of issues under discussion

Sources

This entry is impossible to present without coming from some perspective; what we can do is, when we make the editorial decision to include content, to mention the source of that content.

External links to news items should preferably be placed at the bottom of the page, with the title of the news item, source, and date, and a summary of relevant content if not apparent from the title.

Naming

The two reasonable titles for this entry are 2003 invasion of Iraq and U.S. invasion of Iraq (add alternatives if you strongly believe either is deficient). See Talk:2001 U.S. Attack on Afghanistan for a (possibly) comparable discussion.

The first avoids (potentially contentious) questions of the nature of the invasion and is permanently unambiguous.

The second follows the standard set by U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, makes a (potentially contentious) definitive statement about the nature of the invasion, and is unambiguous (as long as the U.S. doesn't invade Iraq in the future).

The naming issues affects other entries as well, and is discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (Iraq war) - please use this as a central place for all your naming convention-related discussion.

Another possibility is Second Gulf War or maybe Third Gulf War. Or even "Fourth Gulf War" if you count the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 invasion of Kuwait/Iraq as separate military episodes. For this reason I (Cabalamat) consider all names of the form nth Gulf War to be horribly ambiguous and should not be used.

Nature of Coalition/Invasion

Is the phrase "U.S. invasion of Iraq" misleading or not? This question depends on the nature of the coalition and reasons for the invasion. The nature of the coalition is discussed at coalition of the willing.

Nature of Coalition/Invasion

• content moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (Iraq war)

Many of these countries are supplying medical personel, chem/bio response teams, ships, airbases, overflight rights and other support.

this sentence needs more precision. What is "other supports". Besides, placed where it was give the feeling only coalition forces brings humanitarian help. Could we keep separate notions of war support, from notions of humanitarian support please ? ant

Considering the fact that some of the nations request not to be named - it'd be difficult to compile a "complete" list or to list exactly what every country is doing.

If some nations that alledgedly were part of the Coalition don't want to be named, then that's going to make it difficult to establish who did what, and we oughtn't to report something as fact unless we can get confirmation -- Cabalamat 15:51, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

re: humanitarian help.. feel free to add that other countries and organizations are also providing humanitarian help. I don't see how the above sentence suggests that its only coalition forces.

Dollar and the Euro

I reverted an extensive original research and speculation based on a single POV source, alleging that a major reason for the invasion of Iraq was to restore US dominance over the Euro. Aside from the fact that there is no general constituency for this belief, it flies in the face of ordinary economics. Currencies fluctuate based on economic factors that usually defy manipulation. In the past 20 years or so the GBP has been as high as about USD 1.85 and as low as about USD 1.10, IIRC. But more importantly, the US at this point has no reason to want to beat down the Euro. A cheap dollar improves trade positions for the US, and is probably contributing to recovery in the US while Europe is not faring as well. When US interest rates rise, so will the dollar, without the need for international conflict. -- Cecropia | Talk 05:08, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This is much more then speculation - especially in academic circles it was one of the major explanations offered for the US war drive before the invasion. Importantly there is very good evidence that it was actually a considerations of the US government, from a source you'll respect I think.Republican-voting Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who was an analyst on the Pentagon's Near East South Asia department, later "Office of Special Plans" in the run-up to the war, started talking a lot about what went on in the Pentgon at that time: . From an interview with LA Weekly :

So if, as you argue, they knew there weren't any of these WMD, then what exactly drove the neoconservatives to war?

KK: The neoconservatives pride themselves on having a global vision, a long-term strategic perspective. And there were three reasons why they felt the U.S. needed to topple Saddam, put in a friendly government and occupy Iraq.

The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long before 9/11, in November 2000 -- selling his oil for euros. The oil sales permitted in that program aren't very much. But when the sanctions would be lifted, the sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been moving to the euro.

The U.S. dollar is in a sensitive period because we are a debtor nation now. Our currency is still popular, but it's not backed up like it used to be. If oil, a very solid commodity, is traded on the euro, that could cause massive, almost glacial, shifts in confidence in trading on the dollar. So one of the first executive orders that Bush signed in May switched trading on Iraq's oil back to the dollar.

don't have time now to work on this unfortuntely.... pir 11:54, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Firstly, I am not now (and have never been) a Republican, and insofar as some of my beliefs are similar to those of some neocons, the imprimeteur of a Republican and/or a neocon does not impress me, per se.

The flaw in including such material in an encyclopedic article is based largely on its source, and its recondite nature. If we are to include vaguely plausiable theories (especially sometimes quoting verbatim a long rant from a POV site) we can place a lot of material in a lot of contentious articles. These articles are of the "ah-ha!" variety (so beloved of many political radicals, left and right) where they read a heretofore novel explantion for an international incident, it appeals to them, and that must therefore be "the reason."

This argument reminds me of people who told me quite firmly, in the 1980s, that Japan was now the world superpower, at least economically, to which I responded: "when the Japanese economy has a problem, the world coughs, when the US economy has a problem, the world gets pneumonia; when those positions are reversed, then talk to me about Japanese dominance."

I expect, if the EU stabilizes to the point where the citizens of member nations begin to think of themselves first as Europeans, rather than French, German or Italian, that the Euro will be a reserve currency; but I don't see the currency denomination of oil sales as being an issue. Euros, like dollars, will always be purchaseable on the world market at market rates. U.S. dollars held in international depository have a limited impact on the U.S. economy, because they are always a liability. To see them as "providing goods and services for free" turns economics on its head. The U.S. economy is better off having those dollars purchasing export goods to boost the economy.

It is government instruments of the U.S. that represent short-term international subsidy to the economy, but that is not the same as "printing money." If the U.S. were to "print money" in the classical sense, the dollar would rapidly inflate, and this in itself would destroy the dollar as a reserve currency. -- Cecropia | Talk

I completely agree that the dollar/Euro thing was as unlikely the number one reason for the invasion as were weapons of mass destruction. However, the dollar as the main currency in oil trading has a great importance. Given the massive U.S. debt and the tremendous trade deficits we have seen for so many years it is counter intiutive that the dollar still serves as a reserve currency. The trading of a good with pivotal importance in that currency is a major reason why the trust in that currency has not declined more dramatically. There are two sides of the medal of a strong or weak currency. A weak currency is good if you have debt in it or if you want to sell your goods. On the other hand it is bad if you have to pay your imports and it makes you more vulnerable for foreign takeovers. Since the US are heavily dependent on imports it helps if it can pay a major import good in their own currency, without the risk of currency fluctuation. I think the point should be mentioned, not prominantly though. Get-back-world-respect 20:31, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mental Health Problems after Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan

How do you think should we include the following article? Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care ] 17:03, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Coalition order of battle

Hi, It would be a good thing to show the coalition order of battle during the 2003 offensive in this article. Indeed, it is very complicated to understand american ODB nowadays. Was the 3rd ID under V corps command ? Or just the 101st ? I don't know but I wish I would.

Iraq/Al Qaeda & 911 Commission

I am removing the following paragraph from the entry because it is false and misleading:

However, the 9/11 Commission has since confirmed that there was indeed a long-term relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. The report indicated that Hussein on numerous occasions after 1998 offered Osama bin Laden refuge in Iraq. Hussein also expressed his willingness in the future to possibly help al Qaeda in operations, but more generally gave his moral support to bin Laden, stating that the two groups have common enemies.

I went over the 9/11 Commission final report and do not see this claim anywhere. I realize some politicians and pundits continue to maintain it is true, but there is little in the final report to actually back this up. Below are a few passages that come close, but they don't support the claim above. If you want this in there, please be accurate about it, and I think there should be a sentence or two that notes that on balance there is no evidence of any significant cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda, and that while Saddam may have made overtures, al Qaeda rejected Saddam as an infidel and even as an American stooge. In addition, al Qaeda was actively funding and training Kurdish terrorists in northern Iraq (an area controlled by the U.S. military, not Saddam) who were dedicated to removing Saddam Hussein. It turns out that most of the evidence the US relied upon to support the claim of such cooperation came from discredited sources like Chalabi and Libi. Quotes from the 9/11 final report follow:

p. 66: There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime,offering some cooperation.None are reported to have received a significant response.According to one report,Saddam Hussein?s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin.

p. 134: Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible.He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin?s having met with Iraqi officials, who ?may have offered him asylum.?Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders,though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq

p. 161: In his interactions with other students,Atta voiced virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American opinions, ranging from condemnations of what he described as a global Jewish movement centered in New York City that supposedly controlled the financial world and the media,to polemics against governments of the Arab world.To him,Saddam Hussein was an American stooge set up to give Washington an excuse to intervene in the Middle East.

p. 334: Responding to a presidential tasking,Clarke?s office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled ?Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks.?Rice?s chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad,concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda.The memo found no ?compelling case?that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports,including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event.Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak,the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein?s regime.Finally,the memo said,there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional weapons.

--csloat 18:33, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The following quotes are from Stephen Hayes' book: The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America.

According to the Clinton Justice Department's spring 1998 indictment of bin Laden, "Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq." (Page 114.)

In what the CIA nicknamed "Operation Dogmeat," two Iraqi students who lived in the Philippines tried to demolish U.S. Information Service headquarters in Manila. Iraqi diplomat Muwufak al Ani met with the bombers five times before the attack. His car even took them near their target on January 19, 1991. Their bomb exploded prematurely, killing Ahmed J. Ahmed, but his accomplice, Abdul Kadham Saad, survived and was whisked to a Manila hospital. Saad, carrying documents bearing two distinct identities, asked staffers to alert the Iraqi embassy, then recited its phone number. (Page 39.)

Around this time, according to former high-level CIA counterterrorist Stanley Bedlington, Hussein paired Iraqi intelligence operatives with members of the Arab Liberation Front to execute attacks. "The Iraqis had given them all passports," he said, "but they were all in numerical sequence." These tell-tale passport numbers helped friendly governments nab these terror teams. (Page 41.)

"In 1992, elements of al Qaeda came to Baghdad and met with Saddam Hussein," Abu Aman Amaleeki, a 20-year veteran of Iraqi intelligence, said on ABC's Nightline on September 26, 2002. Speaking from a Kurdish prison, he added: "And among them was Ayman al Zawahiri," bin Laden's chief deputy. "I was present when Ayman al Zawahiri visited Baghdad." (Page 43.)

Former Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) Deputy Director Faruq Hijazi, reports a reliable foreign spy agency, supplied blank Yemeni passports to al Qaeda in 1992. (Page 66.)

Mohammed Salameh, a 1993 World Trade Center attacker, called Baghdad 46 times in the two months before bomb maker Abdul Rahman Yasin flew from Baghdad to New Jersey to join the plot. Salameh's June 1992 phone bill totaled $1,401, which prompted his disconnection for non-payment. After the blast ? which killed six individuals and injured 1,042 ? Yasin fled to Baghdad, where records and multiple press accounts show he received safe haven and Baathist cash. (Pages 11 and 50.)

Based on a 20-page IIS document discovered in Baghdad, the Defense Intelligence Agency reports that "Alleged conspirators employed by IIS are wanted in connection with the Khobar Towers bombing and the assassination attempt in 1993 of former President Bush." (Page 180.)

In an October 27, 2003 memo, Defense Undersecretary Douglas J. Feith explained Hussein's bonus pay for terrorists: "Iraq increased support to Palestinian groups after major terrorist attacks and...the change in Iraqi relations with al Qaeda after the embassy bombings followed this pattern." A top Philippine terrorist also said Iraq's payments to the al Qaeda-tied Abu Sayyaf grew after successful assaults. (Page 120.)

ABC News reported on January 14, 1999, that it "has learned that in December an Iraqi intelligence chief, named Faruq Hijazi, now Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden." Hijazi "went to Afghanistan in December with the knowledge of the Taliban and met with Osama bin Laden," former CIA counterterrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro told National Public Radio's Mike Shuster on February 18, 1999. "It's known through a variety of intelligence reports that the U.S. has, but it's also known through sources in Afghanistan, members of Osama's entourage let it be known that the meeting had taken place." (Page 124.)

On January 5, 2000, Malaysian intelligence photographed September 11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar being escorted through Kuala Lumpur's airport by VIP facilitator Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi recommended to Malaysian Airlines by Baghdad's embassy there. The pair soon were photographed again at al Qaeda's three-day planning summit for the October 2000 U.S.S. Cole and 9/11 attacks. Three separate documents recently unearthed in Iraq identify an Ahmed Hikmat Shakir as a lieutenant colonel in Uday Hussein's elite Saddam Fedayeen. (Page 4)

Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani is the former Iraqi diplomat suspected of meeting September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta in Prague on April 8, 2001, and possibly June 2, 2000, the day before Atta flew from Prague to Newark, New Jersey. Top secret Pentagon records cite a Czech intelligence report that al Ani "ordered the IIS finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office." During the summer of 2000, $99,455 was wired from financial institutions in the United Arab Emirates to Atta's Sun Trust bank account in Florida.(Page 129.)

After evacuating an al Qaeda training camp he ran in Afghanistan as U.S. troops approached, Ansar al-Islam founder Abu Musab al Zarqawi eventually had his leg amputated and replaced with a prosthesis around late May 2002. He was treated in Baghdad's Olympic Hospital, an elite facility whose director was the late Uday Hussein, son of the deposed tyrant. Zarqawi is implicated in ongoing attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and is believed to have sawed off American businessman Nick Berg's head. (Page 167.)

U.S troops inspecting an al-Qaeda-affiliated Ansar al-Islam camp in Iraq discovered, Hayes reports, "several hundred passports belonging to suspected Ansar and al Qaeda fighters, dozens of them bearing visas issued by the Iraqi regime." A passport found on one dead terrorist listed his visit's purpose as "jihad." (Page 172.)

The following quotes are from the 9/11 Commission's Report:

There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein's efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin.

In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December.

Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States.

Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him asylum." Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.

Your very selective choice of quotes from the 9/11 Commission's Report is disingenuous and misleading. Perhaps you would like to rephrase the paragraph you deleted, rather than delete it out of ignorance. --G3pro 31 July 2004

I don't think my choice of quotes is disingenuous or misleading. What you have quoted tells us this: The 9-11 commission found that there may have been overtures but that these overtures amounted to nothing. It is not surprising that al Qaeda had contact with Iraqis and Iraqi intelligence -- importantly, not with Saddam Hussein, as was alleged in the passage I removed -- but it would be surprising if there were any direct cooperation between them. All you have established is that there were contacts, which nobody denies. (In fact, one can find far greater evidence of such contact between al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, etc.; some of this is in the report too). Hell, there were al Qaeda contacts with the CIA!

I'm happy to have something in there about what the 911 Commission found, and I quoted what I removed above precisely so that it would not be "deleted out of ignorance." That's why I looked through the Commission Report again and quoted that too. But the statement as it is written is false and misleading. If you want to say Stephen Hayes believes in the al Qaeda-Saddam conspiracy, fine, but I don't think that's worthy of attention in this entry. If you want to say the 911 Commission said something, I think it should be more accurate than what is there. The report did not find a "long term relationship" between Saddam and al Qaeda; at best it found sporadic contacts that never came to fruition. And most of the stuff in Hayes' book has been explicitly refuted by US intelligence analysts as well as journalists. --csloat 01:59, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Grammar.

Please note that a nation, such as Turkey, is not to be refered to as "They". Although a nation does consist of people who could be referred to as "They", the nation itself is singular, because it is one nation. Misuse of pronouns is quite a common error, but it should be quite obvious as well.

NPOV disclaimer

Sarge Baldy added a NPOV disclaimer without comment. Is the neutrality still disputed? If so, what parts are in dispute? If none, we should remove the disclaimer. Quadell (talk) 16:51, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

Since there don't seem to be any updates on this even after a week, I'll remove the dispute notice. -- Schnee 10:26, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Saddam and Hamas??

Aside from the contentious allegations of Iraq’s relationship with al Qaeda, the former regime is know to have had strong relationships with many other terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Can anyone provide evidence to support this claim? I find this statement very hard to believe, as Hussein's regime and Hussein himself were secular; Hussein considered Islamic fundamentalists to be enemies, and vice versa. Revolver 09:03, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I can't believe that you don't know that Saddam rewarded suicide bombers and their families with large cash sums (around $25,000 I think). Saddam has many more ties to terrorism than you give him credit for. G3pro

Here are a few sources for the claim.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.stm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter12-i.htm

To dismiss charges Hussein's regime supporting Islamic militants on the basis that he is/was a secularist overlooks the fact that Hussien was an opportunist, not an ideolouge. Alliances of convience happen all the time. TDC 14:34, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

I guess it depends how you interpret "strong relationships". Yes, there was connection and support between the regime and terrorist groups, (some more than others). I would say the way you put it is more accurate: "ties" or "alliances". A "strong relationship" to me implies something more, something like a shared goal or values. Replace the Baathist regime with the U.S., which was involved in supporting in many ways right-wing dictatorships in Central America in the 70s and 80s. We also openly supported Afghanistan against the Russians. Would you say the U.S. had a "strong relationship" with these dictators or with Afghanistan at the time? I wouldn't, even if I thought the support was justified. The U.S. has a strong relationship with the U.K., with liberal democracies of the West, etc., but had only "alliances of convience" as you put it, with Noriega or bin Laden. Revolver 10:40, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Somewhere between ties and alliances is where I would define "strong relationship". I also do not know where you are going with this. TDC 15:08, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

Here's where I'm going: my point is that "strong relationship" may mean different things to different people, or leave differing impressions. I think it's better to talk in specifics. For example, I think it's better to say, "reimbursed families of suicide bombers" or "had known financial ties to <fill in>" or "provided refuge for <fill in>". These are much more specific. And, BTW, they're much easier to provide evidence for, because they're specific. Let the reader infer what they will from this. Many people might read "strong relationship" and assume an ideological alliance, esp. if they're unfamiliar with the region. Similar statements about the U.S. and Noriega, e.g. could theoretically lead unfamiliar readers into thinking we were once ideological allies. In this case, ideological differences could be mentioned, emphasising the alliancies are primarily strategic. And of course, that some terrorist organisations have refused to deal with Saddam. None of this undercuts the point you're trying to make, it just makes it more clear and more specific. Revolver 19:44, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I see. Well there is quite a bit of info to intorduce here and I do ont know the most efficient way to do that. Let me see what I can do. TDC

Though Saddam supported and gave money to Palestinian fighters, as far as I know he never gave money to Hamas or its followers. Graft 15:59, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

France and Iraq

TDC, this article you gave as a reference is crap. It's full of nonsense. For example, Roland 2 missiles made in the past few months by a French-German partnership? The Roland 2 was developed in the early 80s, and was obseleted by the Roland 3 developed in 1988. It went out of production in 1993. Totally impossible for it to have been recently manufactured. Find a better source that does some actual fact-checking, or else I'm striking that sentence. Graft 15:59, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

number of casualties

"157 KIA (approximation), 4,524 U.S. troops wounded in action "

the site linked to http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/ says 7,026 wounded in action and 1,154 killed (not necessarily in action). does this just need to be updated? - Omegatron 19:30, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Yes. – Quadell ] 02:17, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

terrorist connections

someone just cut a lot of material on terrorist connections. while everyone but dick cheney now admits there was no operational al qaeda connection, i thought there were acknowledged connections with palestinian terrorists. shouldn't these be mentioned, as they were the technical basis for the terrorism allegations? or have they been discredited? Wolfman 02:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

control of oil as a reason for invasion

This is an important POV and deserves more than just a sentence. I know of any "evidence" that US invaded to control oil but this is expected as it would look bad for the party in power. With the big Iraq debt and the setting up of American oil companies in Iraq, the US will end controlling the oil. 209.197.154.26 22:54, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

there can be little doubt that control of oil was the reason for the invasion, but you don't need some corporate conspiracy theory. The object was to remove the control of oil from a man of Saddam's demonstrated character. His resources were the threat, without them, Iraq would just be another Sudan. al Qaeda is contesting Iraq much more than Afghanistan precisely because of the oil, although the closeness of easily perverted human resources in the neighboring countries and in the parentless, irredeemable faydeen also make it easier to cause trouble in Iraq. Fortunately al Qaeda resources are being diverted against hardened US military targets instead of innocent US civilians.--Silverback 03:55, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately US military resources are being diverted against innocent Iraqi civilians instead of hardened al Qaeda targets. Fpahl 08:33, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There is no evidence of this. It is al Qaeda that is attacking Iraqi citizens. The military is trying to protect them and to train Iraqi's to be responsible for their own security. If you know the location any hardened al Qaeda targets please let the US military know. You will see action.--Silverback 09:04, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Before we get into a heated debate here, I should say that I'm not claiming that the US military is intentionally targetting civilians for the sake of targetting civilians. If I hadn't been restricted by my humourous intent of rearranging your sentence, I would have made that clearer. That said, I do believe that the US military is killing thousands upon thousands of civilians. If you doubt this, I would encourage you to visit the Iraq Body Count database and tell me what's wrong with their methodology. While these civilians are obviously not killed for the sake of killing them, it seems equally obvious to me that the US military would not even dream of proceeding as it does if these thousands of civilians being killed were US citizens. It is in this sense that it is showing no respect for human life.

This ties in with what originally upset me about your comment and prompted me to reply to it. Your comment is (perhaps intentionally) reminiscent of Mr. Bush's mantra "We need to fight the terrorists abroad so that we don't have to fight them here". In one sense, this is of course perfectly reasonable -- go and find them and deal with them before they get a chance to come here and attack us. But in the context of the lower value the US military places on the lives of Iraqi civilians, it takes on another flavour -- let's go and fight our fights elsewhere, so that it's Iraqi houses that get destroyed and Iraqi children that get killed and not ours. This is cynical in the extreme. Before the US attacked Iraq, there was no significant terrorist activity there. Thus, far from taking the fight to the terrorists, the US has taken the fight to the Iraqi people, who have nothing to do with it. That is not what I would call "fortunate".

BTW, I don't know the location of any al Qaeda targets. If I did, I would most certainly not report them to the US military, where they would be at risk of being tortured or otherwise deprived of their human rights. I would report them to the local authorities, as with any other criminals. Fpahl 11:01, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Before the US attacked Iraq, there was no significant terrorist activity there?

Saddam's regime RULED by terror. Could you possibly have missed reports of the cutting off hands and tossing people from buildings, the taking of children and raising them as feydaeen, the ruthless suppression of uprisings, etc? Saddam's regime even fought with terror, don't you recall the reports of guns pointed to the heads of family members of tank commanders until they when out to face US forces? Threats of force like this are every bit as morally repugnant as the actual carrying out of the threat. Just as there is no moral distinction between sanctions and war. The moral bright line was crossed when sanctions were imposed.

As for the current, terrorist activity, the blame lies with the terrorists who commit the acts, not with the United States. The U.S. would be happy to be out of Iraq now, if there were a peaceful regime there which respected individual rights. The United States has just as much right to oppress Iraqi's as Saddam did, which is to say, none, nada. His racial, religious, language or geographical affinity with the local populations do not create a special right to oppress, nor do they create a right in others to oppose his removal or to oppose the protection of individual rights there.--Silverback 12:07, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)