cloudboy
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Let's not forget the history of how this started. Below is the summary of FRONTLINE'S, How We Lost Iraq. Until the IRAQIs themselves get this under control, it's going to be a problem. Bush was advised that Maliki was the wrong man to be Prime Minister, but he overruled his advisors on the ground.
>The United States invaded Iraq with more than 100,000 troops, replaced its government with a new one, suppressed its Islamist extremists and trained a “moderate” Iraqi army, but, the minute we left, Iraq’s “moderate” prime minister turned sectarian.< -- Thomas Friedman
(1) History of the US IRAQ WAR: arguably the greatest foreign policy failure in UNITED STATES history.
(2) The Bush Administration had ignored warnings from Osama Bin Laden was planning attacks in the USA, warning that culminated in the Aug. 6 briefing, titled ''Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.''
(3) On the pretext that Saddam Hussein and IRAQ were linked to Al Qaeda and that Saddam Hussein had WMD, GWB started a campaign blitz to invade IRAQ.
(4) After the decision to invade IRAQ was made, the planning involved no detailed plan to secure the peace and occupy the country after IRAQ’s gov’t was toppled.
(5) There was no conception anywhere within the administration or the Pentagon than an insurgency might break out after the initial war was concluded.
(6) Without any advanced planning in place or the necessary manpower to provide law and order in IRAQ, a US military force saw the surrounding population of 5 million IRAQIs in the Baghdad area loot all the public buildings. Fires burned for days at a time because no one was able to put them out. There were no police, no national army, or firemen. (In other words, there was a total power vacuum.)
(7) Rumseld dismissing the worrying over the looting as “henny-penny” hysteria.
(8) The BUSH administration picks Paul Bremer to lead IRAQ for the counter-intuitive reason that he has no experience in the region and speaks no Arabic.
(9) During Bremer’s first week in IRAQ he issues two general orders:
(10) DeBaathification – all members of the Baath party are officially kicked out of the government and their government jobs.
(11) The IRAQI army is disbanded.
(12) Some 50,000 armed Sunnis are told to go home without jobs and no prospects to participate in the IRAQ. Many of them are armed, militarily trained, and upset.
(13) Five days later the first IED bomb explodes on the road to the Airport killing the first of many more victims to come.
(14) Tommy Franks retires because the Pentagon and Washington are ignoring his imput about what to do in IRAQ. Other senior military officials also leave the country.
(15) The Pentagon and the White House ignore all input from CIA, diplomatic, and State Department sources with experience in the region.
The Pentaton / White House plan at this point is to pull out 100,000 troops from IRAQ in the next coming months and only leave behind a small force of 30,000.
(16) Rumseld refers to insurgents as “Dead Enders.”
(17) Jordinian Embassy is exploded.
(18) The UN headquarters is exploded.
(19) The Red Cross Headquaters is exploded.
(20) George Bush says, “Bring’em on” when asked about the insurgency.
(21) A new General, George Casey, is assigned to IRAQ who has no combat experience to his resume. He implements “small footprint” strategy.
(22) Insurgency spins out of control. Four Americans are killed and hung in effigy in Falluja.
(23) GWB makes personal decision to exact revenge, sends the Marines into Falluja.
(24) Fighting ensues but there is no victory and the US looks like it’s attacking the native population and religious shrines of the country.
(25) The fighting galvanizes the insurgents. Shia’s in tern start to form their own militia’s to protect themselves.
(26) Rumsfeld travels to IRAQ and finds out that the USA has zero (0) intelligence about the insurgents.
(27) He orders the military to gather intelligence, and the military responds by making sweeping arrests of IRAQIS and herding them into Abu Ghraib, Saddam’s repurposed prison.
(28) Middle of the road and neutral IRAQIs enter Abu Ghraib leave radicalized wanting to attack US soldiers in revenge.
(29) Anti-Americanism begins to peak in IRAQ and the Green Zone is the only safe place for Americans in the country.
(30) Paul Bremer transfers power to a feeble IRAQI governing council and leaves IRAQ with his tail between his legs and the country in Chaos.
(31) The USA realizes that the insurgency is based in Falluja and decides to conduct an all out marine assault upon it, withdrawing from the small foot print strategy.
(32) For 10 days the fighting is "the most intense any US combat operation has seen since Vietnam."
(33) The USA basically levels the city and drives out the enemy combatants, but the political fallout was the US lost all support and any hope that the SUNNI population would support coalition plans in IRAQ.
(34) The USA closes all the main roads in Baghdad to hold elections. The turnout is massive except for the SUNNIs, who boycott it completely. Only 10% of the SUNNI population voted, a clear indication that they'd oppose the new government.
(35) Cheney crows that the insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes," and he predicts that the fighting will end before the Bush administration leaves office. (It's hard to get more delusional than that. How is it that he still makes the talk show rounds and is regarded with any credibility whatsoever? How did Bush get reelected in 2004? What a country we live in!)
(36) The worst has yet to even happen. In the Chaos in IRAQ, Al Qaeda sets up and gains a strong hold. The first thing it does is blow up the Samara Shiite Mosque, hoping to create an all-out civil war between the Sunnis and the Shias. The conflict between these two groups still rages today....
(37) As intended by the bombers of the Mosque, SHIA members and militias retaliated attacking SUNNI mosques, killing Imans, dragging them though the streets, and a civil war was at hand.
(38) The Bush Administration denies there's any sectarian violence in IRAQ and vows to hold the course.
(39) It searches for a Prime Minister to lead the country and settles upon Nouri al-Maliki, a man who lived in exile in IRAN and other countries who opposed Saddam Hussein and wanted to topple his regime.
(40) Republicans lose Congress in 2006 (lose the House.)
(41) Bush pushes Rumsfeld out.
(42) In last desperate measure, Bush against the advice of many advisors, elects to conduct a Surge in IRAQ in 2007 and selects David Patraeus to lead the effort.
(43) Patreaus is PHD educated with expertise in counter-insurgency. Units are ordered off base and back into IRAQI neighborhoods. Fighting is fierce. American casualties are high.
(44) The White House and Pentagon find working with the new Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki, their hand-selected man, "difficult." He was never really vetted before being installed in office.
(45) The Ambassador to IRAQ, Patraeus, and the US national security advisor consider Nouri al-Malik to have a sectarian agenda and to be undermining the mission to create stability in IRAQ. All three recommend that Nouri al-Malik be removed from Office. GWB overrules them. He likes Nouri al-Malik and has faith in him. GWB has been mentoring him in the arts of leadership and politics, and GWB wants him to succeed.
(46) This is another example of Washington overruling the knowledgable Americans on the ground with the best insights and ideas about what to do in IRAQ. Over the weekend, Obama said the rise of ISIS is directly related to the Maliki-led IRAQI government. The chickens have come home to roost from his sectarian policies.
(47) Patraeus begins to buy off the SUNNI insurgents with some $400 Million Dollars in cash in an effort to calm them down and to help drive Al Qaeda out of IRAQ. He does this without informing Washington About it. (No Presidential authorization.) Patraeus essentially stops the sectarian violence that had led the country to the brink of civil war.
(48) Bush flies to IRAQ in the last month of his Presidency and signs an agreement to keep American troops in IRAQ for 3 more years. During a press conference with Maliki, an IRAQI reporter throws both of his shoes violently at President Bush exclaiming that 100,000 IRAQIs had died because of him. The reporter was subdued and arrested.
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The Obama Contribution:
(49) The one thing holding IRAQ together after 2008 is the Americans between the SUNNIs and the SHIA brokering compromise between the two.
(50) Obama ignores the advice of Patraeus and US Ambassador to IRAQ and the Pentagon -- and pulls all US forces out of IRAQ. It was recommended he leave a force of 25,000. A contributing factor to the full pullout was how Obama insisted that the IRAQI parliament give all us soldiers legal immunity. This proved too much of a roadblock.
(51) The moment the Americans leave on DEC 18, 2011, Maliki arrests the Vice President, a SUNNI, accusing him of leading death and hit squads in IRAQ. The VP was sentenced to death. He was able to leave the country however and live in exile. Sectarian animosities between SHIA and SUNNIs escalate. The US is not in IRAQ and it is not a priority to the Obama Administration. The US disengages. The US is no longer shaping policy in IRAQ. Obama is characterized as "not wanting to deal with it."
(52) Maliki purges SUNNIS from all leading posts and the army.
(53) The Sons or IRAQ, Sunnis funded by Patreaus, shift against the IRAQI government.
(54) ISIS, a kind of Al Qaeda on steroids, or as one official put it, Al Qaeda 6.0, strikes out and takes large swaths of territory. It releases graphic videos of summary executions. The IRAQI army folds during the conflict.
(55) OBAMA deploys 300 military advisors back to IRAQ.
That's the summary of Frontline's "How we lost IRAQ."
< Message edited by cloudboy -- 8/22/2014 7:21:12 AM >
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RE: IS defies US and executes US journalist - 
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