Rice Adviser: Iraq Invasion Was 'F*cking Stupid'

Over at the Washington Independent, Spencer Ackerman continues his enlightening "Rise of the Counterinsurgents" series with "A Counterinsurgency Guide for Politicos." The Indy has obtained a copy of a forthcoming manual on counterinsurgency strategy written by David Kilcullen, a "former Australian Army officer who is now an adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."

The handbook seeks to provide a framework for considering whether Washington should intervene in foreign countries' counterinsurgency operations, raising difficult questions about whether such nations deserve U.S. support; under what conditions that support should occur, and whether success is possible at acceptable cost. No systematic approach to strategic-level questions in counterinsurgency currently exists for senior U.S. government officials.

And how difficult are the questions being raised? Well, in what's sure to be the pull-quote of the piece for those media outlets who still consider anything other than Surge Logic (TM) important, Kilcullen provides a little color:

More bluntly, Kilcullen, who helped Petraeus design his 2007 counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid" -- in fact, he said "fucking stupid" -- and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual's lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future.

"The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place."

Wow. What an appeaser!

Comments

[jqcitizen]

US Army General, Tommy Franks (Ret), was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the president. But doubt he received the award for voicing an opinion of the Neo-con war lover, Douglas Feith, using nearly the same expletive.

These geniuses who think war is so great should spend a few years fighting them instead of inventing them.

[justanotherbushhater]

Dude, uh, F**kin' YEAH! Like we didn't know THAT already?

[newbridge]

If we vote for McCain, we will get four more years of neocons and Cheney-like minds. It is a scary thought. We will get four more years of watching our government intervene all over the world and we will be lied to about why. We will have four more years of a main stream media black out to the truth. We will have more terrorist attacks so these monsters can stay in power. McCain's campaign includes all of George Bush's cronies with their new world order mind-set.

[nogimmicks]

It was not stupid. It was evil. While people died (4K+300K), some other people benefited from the invasion enormously (e.g. Cheney's Halliburton, Sen Diana Feinstein's family companies, Perle's oil deals, etc.), with most Americans thrown into recession.

[repugnicansfearme]

Right F*cking On!!!

[DonDavis]

Bush"s "Mission Accomplished" Finally Achieved: Iraq in Better Shape Than U.S.
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=1986

[Furby]

It's not like you needed 20/20 vision or 140 IQ back in 2002 to see that the administration was trying to push a war on its people under false pretense. Remember the news coverage of the UN session where poor old Colin Powell is sitting there with a photo and a pointer, trying to make a case even he didn't buy. It was painful to watch. The administration's rationalization of that war had more holes in it than swiss cheese. The whole world looked on in total disbelief. Any dissent within America was considered quasi-treason. There is no quick fix to the PR mess in which America finds itself now, but there is a lesson to be learned. America should clean its own house before giving housekeeping tips to the rest of the world.

[Bushwhacked]

Totally agree. But the sad lesson that needs to be discussed and learned from as well is how half the country fell for this nonsense in the first place and went on to re-elect this corrupt administration.

[freecasey]

Absolutely. One of my favorite "Bush/sky is falling" moments came in the days before the invasion, when Iraq was frantically bashing up its arsenal of al Samoud missiles with front-end loaders in response to Bushie hype. These short-range SCUD missiles, which Iraq was allowed to possess even under UN sanctions, unfortunately were discovered to be able to cruise a few miles further than the 93 miles were supposed to.

From AP, 3/1/03: "This is the deception the president predicted," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, calling Baghdad's promise (of disarmament) "propaganda, wrapped in a lie, inside a falsehood. We do expect that they will destroy at least some of their missiles .... The Iraqi regime is a deception wrapped in a lie."

Of course, the media did nothing to dispel the notion the typical American held that these missiles were akin to ICBMs.

[keclxivq]

"The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place."

So that means we've had the biggest stupid Administration, including Rice, for over seven years now. Making stupid decisions.Getting people killed due to these stupid decisions. These decisions were not only stupid, they were actually illegal. So don't go blaming stupidity. These people were supposedly the brightest of the bright so your stupid argument won't work. The argument is actually a not so clever attempt at blaming stupidity and not PNAC beliefs. In fact it is the PNAC member's beliefs that have put this country where it is today. These people should be jailed for treason, all of them. Including Rice for allowing this to happen. At some point it was time for someone, Rice perhaps, to stand up and say this is not only stupid but totally illegal. At least now we know what defense this administration will be using at the trials they will be facing after January. Thanks for the heads up even if unintentional!
Firing Squad, front and center!!

[JayDDrew]

And Rice continues to be a lying sack of feces for continuing to go along with the policies of this administration.

[Fudgefase]

I love the Australians. They don't use twenty words when one will do....

[EarthToZoey]

This is the most awesome headline. I want it on a t-shirt.

[wdw101]

why?

[EarthToZoey]

Maybe because it's straight talk about the Iraq war?

[KarlaElisa]

Make that 2 t-shirts.

[Redbeard0504]

Well, mgsorens, I'm no so sure that if you put you supposition of 4000 Americans dying to free Iraqis so that they might create a democracy to a vote it would win. If I am not mistaken, the Brits did try to create a country out of those three regions and groups and it turned into dictatorships and mass killings. Bush is right in one of the things he has said in that history will decide and history is certainly not the present.

Once we are gone from Iraq, and the sooner the better, we will see if they can maintain any sort of fairness in the way the play "democracy".

I am not also so sure we did not play right into the hands of the Iranians and al Qaeda. I think Bin Laden has made statements to the fact he would like to lure us into a war in the sands of the middle east and see us bleed to death there. Iran now has its most feverent enemy turned into their ally with the Shia majority in a ruling position.

So, who might be the winners here?

[rokarolla]

Couldn't help but notice that you plugged in "to free Iraqi's so that they might create a democracy to vote and win" as a reason 4000+ American soldiers died in Iraq. That's what we call "shifting rational". We invaded Iraq because of 9-11, remember?
After a time, the American people got wise to the faulty linkage...and the rational for the war shifted to overthrowing an "evil dictator", then more recently "Iraqi Democracy". Be careful when you pontificate wrongly about what American soldiers died for. I'm sure these distinctions are not lost on those still fighting erroneously. High treason anyone?

[Gidster]

That's right! We invaded Iraq because the President and his lackeys told us that Saddam was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, even though Bin Laden had already claimed it for Al Quaeda, and because Colin Powell stated over and over that Saddam had Nuclear and Biological weapons, remember the WMDs? The non existent WMDs.
That was why we were told we went to war, later it changed to "Regime change", only then was it "For Democracy"!
If you are going to tell someone they are wrong about something, at least have the ACTUAL facts!

[Lagrangian]

Actually, the reason we invaded Iraq depended on the phase of the moon. Beacon of democracy in the middle east. WMD not acceptable in a post-9/11 world. Saddam gassed his own people. Etc.

[mgsorens]

War is never a good thing.
Before the Iraq war, Russia, France, and Germany were aggressively lobbying to remove the sanctions on Saddam. Though obvious exagerations, groups like Amnesty Intl. were claiming that 500,000 children were dying each year as a result of the sanctions. Several hundred thousand people were murdered by Saddam's Regime. (we know that is true because we dug up the mass graves).

Strictly from a moral point of view, trading 4,000 deaths (U.S. troops) for more than half a million deaths of Iraqi's, doesn't seem stupid. Saddam didn't have stockpiles of WMDs, but according the the Iraq Survey Group, he had the capacity to resume production of some of his chem/bio weapons within weeks. That represents a substantial danger, because Saddam had already used terrorists to attempt the murder of a U.S. President. A pretty reckless thing to do.

As a direct result of the Iraq War, Libya gave up it's nuclear and chemical weapons programs. Iran halted its nuclear weapons program, and the A.Q. Kahn nuclear weapons proliferation consortium was shut down.

The Iraqi people have begun a democracy. No telling how that will turn out, but a democracy seems like it might be a good thing right in the middle of the Middle Eastern oil reserves, In a country that the border between Shia and Sunni Isalam runs right through, and which is also on the border between age old enemies, Arabia and Persia.

[wdw101]

I agree....with you.......sounds like a good idea........also we need to protect our oil reserves over there......

[wavydavy]

"War is never a good thing."

Really? Then why did you just post 4 long paragraphs about how wonderful the war on Iraq is? And, not only that, but also 4 long paragraphs of speculation and nonsense.

"Strictly from a moral point of view, trading 4,000 deaths (U.S. troops) for more than half a million deaths of Iraqi's, doesn't seem stupid."

Yes, actually, it seems EXCEEDINGLY stupid. (And this is not even to mention the immorality and illegality of attacking a sovereign nation that had neither attacked nor threatened to attack the US.) Just how many of these alleged "half a million deaths of Iraqi's [sic]" have been reversed by our actions? (I am not aware of any mass resurrections in Iraq; perhaps you are.) And what do you say about the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed by US forces and armaments, or the MILLIONS of Iraqis who are now refugees from their homes?

And, best of all, it was all done to support the US' addiction to oil. Well, if that's not a good reason to destroy a country and ruin our own economy, I don't know what is.

[wdw101]

so first strikes are never correct?

[mgsorens]

I guess I was wrong. Sometimes war is better than the alternative. In this case the alternative was to allow Saddam to continue to murder, torture, and rape Iraqis, and to allow Saddam to continue to attack U.S. planes on U.N. missions, and to allow Saddam to continue supporting several terrorist groups, or to allow Saddam to resume production of WMDs.

[Artos]

mgsorens,

You would like to use this arguement of yours as a last ditch defense of why an invasion was defensible, but your arguement holds no water. What was the Conservatives arguement when Clinton decided to use troops in Bosnia and to defend Kosovo. You could say that in those cases Conservatives weren't interested in using our troops to defend lives, because of course we gained nothing of substance (like Oil) in that case. I remember perfectly well how they lambasted Clinton for intervening. Then of course they also gave him hell over Somalia. And where are they when it comes to other nations such as Darfur. How come the Conservative Blowhard liars aren't interested in toppling tyrants in many other countries with Invasions. I don't recall Conservatives talking invasion back when Iran took our Embassy personnel hostage. What they did do was make a deal with the Hostage takers to hold on to them for a while longer so that they could win an election and put Reagan on the Throne. Republicans don't do anything unless it is for profit.

[truthynesslover]

Im sure everyone is relieved to know iran is no longer a problem.And where was a.q.kahn from?the fact is we were told lies to get the american people behind this invasion.How about bringing democracy and freedon to the saudis or china?70% of americans believed saddam Attacked us on 9/11 a lie repeated by cheney many times.Hows that afganistan war going for you?You remember the ones who attacked us?The ones who just had the largest opium crop in history?I wonder what thell do with all that money?

[thepoliticalcat]

Are you insane? What kind of moral equivocation is this? Trading 4,000 American deaths for more than half a million deaths of Iraqis?

Firstly, over 1 million Iraqis have lost their lives by now. The 600,000+ figure was published quite a while ago and the killing did not cease immediately thereafter. Secondly, what about the wounded and maimed? Some years ago, the figure was 30,000, but recently one source reported approximately 300,000 Americans suffering TBI and another 300,000 suffering PTSD. No figures on how many have lost one or more limbs or organs. No figures on how many will need high levels of continuing medical care for their lifetime. TBI/PTSD sufferers often require personal attendants due to their inability to perform basic care for themselves.

No figures on how many Iraqis have been wounded or maimed. 4.5 million refugees both internal and external. Women and young girls forced to resort to prostitution in order to survive.

And, worst of all, the conversion of a secular nation to one rife with religious fundamentalism and sectarian warfare. As a direct result of the Iraq war, Iran has lost the only counterbalance to its ambitions. A.Q. Khan resides with impunity in Pakistan which will not even permit interrogations to discover the results of his nuclear proliferation efforts.

The Iraqi people have not begun a democracy. The educated and wealthy have fled and now the religious wingnuts are battling each other for whatever's left of the shattered corpse.

[Reveille]

I suppose that wisdom late is better than wisdom never; it's a shame about those 4,000+ soldiers who won't have the chance to read about this epiphany.

[08politicaljunkie]

Dr. Rice is in the oil game too -- Chevron.

[curocat]

Yep, they named an Oil Tanker after her, but removed the name after her appointment..

[thult33]

MY comments to the post to stanmanic were certainly as innocous as his post, and both the original post by stanmanic, and my reply, admittedly not complimentary to stanmanic, have vanished. I think that the moderator of this forum should give an explanation to their seemingly arbritary exclusion of so many posts from people that have a right to their respecful opinion.