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Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

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Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#21

Post by Vlaix »

phaus wrote: post #18
lambda wrote: post #3

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…

There were over two dozen foreign intelligence agencies that agreed that Saddam either had or was attempting to build or purchase weapons of destruction. Nuclear weapons are extremely difficult to hide anywhere on earth, but many other types of weapons of mass destruction aren't difficult to dispose of. That's not to say that the invasion turned out to be a good idea, or that we were justified in the attempt, but tho…

The number of death is probably more an effect of the general destabilization of the country (which gave ample room, as an example, for various exactions on minorities in Irak besides the war, in particular on Christians) rather than direct casualties.

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#22

Post by gruseom »

phaus wrote: post #18
lambda wrote: post #3

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…

There were over two dozen foreign intelligence agencies that agreed that Saddam either had or was attempting to build or purchase weapons of destruction. Nuclear weapons are extremely difficult to hide anywhere on earth, but many other types of weapons of mass destruction aren't difficult to dispose of. That's not to say that the invasion turned out to be a good idea, or that we were justified in the attempt, but tho…

I don't doubt for a moment that American and other Western soldiers were trying hard to avoid civilian casualties. It's deeply unfair to blame them for things they didn't do or for decisions they didn't make and never would have made had it been up to them. That being said, there are a couple problems with your argument. First, it's not the case that dozens of intelligence agencies believed the WMD propaganda. They would have been utterly incompetent if they had. They're far from perfect, of course, but no way are they that stupid and certainly not on that scale.

Rather, what happened is that political leaders pressured the leaders of the intelligence agencies (essentially political positions in their own right) into delivering reports that gave the "right" (i.e. the wrong) answers irrespective of what their professional analysts really thought. Few intelligence agencies could withstand the overt political pressure that was applied to the CIA and others (largely out of the Vice President's office, as I understand it) in the run-up to that war—after all, ultimate power resides with the political leaders in a democracy for obvious reasons. Note, however, that when the same leaders tried to do it again a few years later, enough of the professionals' real opinions was leaked to make a repeat manipulation impossible. I have in mind the unanimous assessment of US intelligence agencies in 2007 that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons (an assessment that still stands, incidentally, and is still unanimous, though you'd not guess it from the news). When political pressure started to be applied to distort that opinion, someone leaked a summary of it to the press, and that put an Iran war off the table for the rest of the GWB administration. Bush writes about that in his memoirs.

The other problem with your argument is that by the Nuremberg standards, war of aggression is understood to be the "supreme international crime" that encompasses all the evils that take place as a result of the war [1]. That is, the Nuremberg standard of justice considers all the secondary consequences of war (such as Iraq underwent with bombings, civil war, etc.) to be subsumed under the original crime of a war of aggression. This arguably makes sense, since without the invasion, there wouldn't have been a civil war. By this standard, soldiers are not responsible for atrocities they didn't commit, but the leaders who started the war in the first place actually are. Since that is the standard of justice that we (rightly) apply to others, we ought not to reject it or minimize it when it applies to ourselves. (The standard won't be applied in this case, of course, but that's a separate issue.)

The above is how I understand it from the sources I've read, anyway. Factual corrections are more than welcome.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#23

Post by Theodores »

lambda wrote: post #3

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…

At the 1975 OPEC meeting in Algiers a new treaty was agreed on for the Iran-Iraq border. This was in Iran's favour, and, in those days Iran was a US client. The deal was that Iraq would cede territory in the Shatt al Arab area and in exchange Iran would stop arming Iraqi Kurds. This on-going border dispute (which had gone on for centuries) was important to what happened next.

In 1979 a lot of stuff happened. There was the Iranian revolution. Also, around this time, not fully understood at the time, there was also the hostage crisis, Iran-Contra scandal and an election in the USA.

On 4 September 1980 Iran shelled Iraq, marking the start of the war. On 22 September Iraq full on invaded Iran along the whole length of the border on the assumption that it would be a good idea to do so given that the 'revolutionary' Iran would have so much internal turmoil etc. that their defences would be down. Hence, Iran 'started it' so that particular war wasn't exactly Saddam's devising.

You will find this Wikipedia article on the Iran Iraq war to be quite an eye opener:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_...

Read it carefully and I think you will see that, much like WW1, the Iran-Iraq war started for silly reasons but then developed into a situation where those that sought to profit through arms perpetuated the war. As they say, 'war is a racket'. Sure Saddam was there commanding conscripts to their deaths and it was all his fault, but it is not as simple as that, is it?

In England we know what these sorts of shenanigans are as we are the grand masters of it. We call it 'divide and rule'.

Sometimes you have to look at a situation and ask 'who benefits?'. As ever in war, the arms companies, their financiers and those that run off with the loot.

P.S. Why are people on first name terms with Saddam, even in his death? People aren't chummy in quite the same way with Barack, Vladimir, Dave, Angela or even Adolf for that matter. Why is the former Iraqi President afforded first name status when every other Great Leader gets to have a surname?

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#24

Post by lazyant »

lambda wrote: post #3

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…

Since you mentioned the Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq war, the US and other western countries were an ally of Iraq while they knew Saddam was gassing Iranians with chemical weapons, their hypocrisy is astounding.

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#25

Post by berntb »

arcadeparade wrote: post #5
lambda wrote: post #3

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…

Because of the sanctions in the 90's there were also up to half a million excess deaths of children aged under 5. It was called genocide by both men who were in charge of it, both of whom resigned in protest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq#Estimate... I also find it interesting that many people who deny that this many people were killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion will have no problem believi…

>>Because of the sanctions in the 90's there were also up to half a million excess deaths of children aged under 5

Saddam wanted to get rid of the sanctions, it was in his direct interest to inflate the statistics. (There were reports of e.g. multiple funerals for a given dead child, too.)

His regime also had "extra" income from smuggling, which could have been used to alleviate suffering of civilians under his boot. These resources weren't used for that, as far as I've read.

I never got a good answer to my standard point, when this was a hot subject:

It is arguably bad to give in to extortion from dictators. In this case a dictator isn't using his resources to alleviate the suffering of civilians in his own country!

To let dictators get their will through by the suffering of their own civilians is obviously a very, very bad precedent.

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#26

Post by lazyant »

beloch wrote: post #20

I still remember the chill that ran through relations between Canada and the U.S. after Paul Martin refused to join the war in Iraq (despite still be embroiled in the war in Afghanistan). U.S. pop culture mostly ignored Canada, as per usual, but what few mentions there were soon lumped Canada into the same boat as "French surrender-monkeys", again in spite of the fact that Canadian troops were fighting and dying in A…

yep, thank god Harper wasn't PM then or we would be still in Iraq

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#27

Post by beloch »

lazyant wrote: post #26
beloch wrote: post #20

I still remember the chill that ran through relations between Canada and the U.S. after Paul Martin refused to join the war in Iraq (despite still be embroiled in the war in Afghanistan). U.S. pop culture mostly ignored Canada, as per usual, but what few mentions there were soon lumped Canada into the same boat as "French surrender-monkeys", again in spite of the fact that Canadian troops were fighting and dying in A…

yep, thank god Harper wasn't PM then or we would be still in Iraq

Or Ignatieff. Honestly, I suspect Harper's stand was just one of the usual efforts of the opposition party to differentiate themselves from the ruling party despite having basically zero real platform differeces. It would be great if this country's politics started being more about policies than personalities again!

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#28

Post by infinitone »

Theodores wrote: post #23
lambda wrote: post #3

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…

At the 1975 OPEC meeting in Algiers a new treaty was agreed on for the Iran-Iraq border. This was in Iran's favour, and, in those days Iran was a US client. The deal was that Iraq would cede territory in the Shatt al Arab area and in exchange Iran would stop arming Iraqi Kurds. This on-going border dispute (which had gone on for centuries) was important to what happened next. In 1979 a lot of stuff happened. There wa…

In regards to your P.S.

Because Hussein, Saddam's last name, is attributed to a greater person (where the name originated from): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_ibn_Ali

Just a hypothesis though..

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#29

Post by berntb »

gruseom wrote: post #22
phaus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were over two dozen foreign intelligence agencies that agreed that Saddam either had or was attempting to build or purchase weapons of destruction. Nuclear weapons are extremely difficult to hide anywhere on earth, but many other types of weapons of mass destruction aren't difficult to dispose of. That's not to say that the invasion turned out to be a good idea, or that we were justified in the attempt, but tho…

I don't doubt for a moment that American and other Western soldiers were trying hard to avoid civilian casualties. It's deeply unfair to blame them for things they didn't do or for decisions they didn't make and never would have made had it been up to them. That being said, there are a couple problems with your argument. First, it's not the case that dozens of intelligence agencies believed the WMD propaganda. They w…

>>since without the invasion, there wouldn't have been a civil war.

Uh...

This happened: A starts a war W with B. As a follow on effect, some groups inside B starts a civil war W2 with others in B.

You say that A is responsible for the second war W2 too, which they didn't start and even actively tried to stop?!

After the war, when does A stop being responsible for everything bad that happens to B, done by B themselves? After 10 years? 100?

You just blame A for everything, including the weather? :-)

(It is easy to make a good argument that the W2 war would probably have happened anyway, at some point. Or that Saddam was already doing a continuous civil war with his army/police against everyone but his supporters, to keep power. You might even argue, but not with your definitions, that USA is responsible for all those killed by Saddam when they didn't topple him in the first Gulf war...)

Edit: Clarity.

Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation

#30

Post by berntb »

gruseom wrote: post #15
mcantelon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_uranium_forgeries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)

I clearly remember how all that WMD stuff was obvious propaganda at the time. Some of it ("we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud") was even laughable. Nor did the US or other Western intelligence agencies believe it. Analysts tried to submit good reports, but they were overridden. People have often spoken of an "intelligence failure", but there wasn't such a failure; what there was was a success in pol…

>>I clearly remember how all that WMD stuff was obvious propaganda at the time.

Interesting, do you have references?

To me, it seems really hard to distinguish "obvious propaganda" from low details due to protection of intelligence sources.

You would naively/cynically assume that if the US army/etc knew they wouldn't find any remaining WMD programs, they would be planted?

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