When Democracy Doesn't Breakout All Over: Part 2

Once it became clear that Al Qaeda had planned and carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001 President George W. Bush authorized the use of military force against Afghanistan  after the Taliban government refused to turn-over those responsible for planning  the attacks.   

American forces began their attacks in Afghanistan in October of 2001 and they would continue until December of that year leading to the downfall of the Taliban government and the cornering of elements of the Al Qaeda in the Tora Bora region near the border with Pakistan.

The strategy, as with the whole Afghan campaign, was to limit the number of American boots on the ground.
Instead Afghan fighters would operate under the direction of the small CIA/Special Forces teams, supported by air power.
But at Tora Bora, the Afghan mujahideen proved unreliable allies. They refused to fight at night leaving al-Qaeda to reoccupy ground that had been painfully won.
At one point they agreed a ceasefire which may even have secretly assisted Bin Laden. "I don't think they were properly trained," recalls the anonymous Special Forces soldier. "And I don't think their heart was in it."

Forces involved in the operation were often denied the right to use certain tactics such as placing landmines on the reverse slope to prevent escape.  Also denied was the use of additional forces mainly the U.S. Marines in Khandar.   Once it became apparent Osama Bin Laden had escaped into Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province Richard Clarke former counterterrorism advisor to President Bill Clinton
said     "Tora Bora was just a case of military incompetence,"


Having lost Osama Bin Laden the urgency for his capture and the stabilization of Afghanistan suddenly took a backseat to a country and a person of whom neither had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington.

Suddenly the Bush administration became obsessed with Saddam Hussein and Iraq and the threat they supposedly posed  to the world.  Saddam Hussein was threat to his own citizens and not the wider Middle East or the world.

The following are some quotes from Bush administration officials prior to the invasion of Iraq.

02/13/2002, Kenneth Adelman, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board

"Liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."

09/18/2002,  Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense (before Congress)

"We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons -- including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas. ... His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons—including anthrax and botulism toxin, and possibly smallpox." (presentation to Congress)

11/15/2002, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

"Five days or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last longer."

03/27/2003, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary

"There’s a lot of money to pay for this ... the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”

RICE: The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

The person being quoted here is then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

The Bush administration sold the American people are bill of goods when they accused Saddam Hussein of not only working with Al Qaeda but allowed them to establish training camps inside Iraq.
Osama Bin Laden despised Saddam Hussein for not following his faith.  Let's face it Saddam was as about as religious as sea salt.

Another source they used for justification to invade was a man whose code name was "CurveBall"  supposedly supplied the smoking gun  confirming that Saddam Hussein was still in the chemical warfare business .  He claimed to have been a chemical engineer working at a plant which manufactured mobile biological weapons laboratories.  
      
Germany's Federal Intelligence Service and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service warned the British and American governments about the authenticity of CurveBalls claims.  When former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the United Nations Security  Council to laid out Americas justification for invading Iraq the claims made by CurveBall were used to help sell the world on the need to contain Saddam Hussein and the threat he posed  to the world.   

The U.S. invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003.
  
Three days before the invasion former U.S. Vice President DIck Cheney appearing on the NBC News program Meet the Press made the following comment:

CHENEY: Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. [3/16/03]

Dick Cheney was completely wrong about that and almost every other prediction he made about the Iraq war.

Dick Cheney wasn't alone in miscalculating the outcome of the war. They were just so convinced that Iraqis would welcome an invasion of their country by Western military forces that it never occurred to them that the average person living in Baghdad would see it for what it was an invasion.

On May 1 2003 former President George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln sailing just off the coast of San Diego California to deliver a speech about the war in Iraq and America's continued involvement. 

Thank you. Thank you all very much.
Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.
In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment, yet it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other made this day possible.
Because of you our nation is more secure. Because of you the tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free.

My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended:

That simple yet telling phrase would prove to be so wrong by July of that year that that speech which became known as the Mission Accomplished speech was an embarrassment to the Bush Presidency for how wrong it was about the situation in Iraq.

L Paul Bremer would make complete the trifecta of major miscalculations when  announced the disbanding of the Iraqi army.

Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2: Dissolution of Entities signed by Coalition Provisional Authority on 23 May 2003, disbanded the Iraqi military, security, and intelligence infrastructure of President Saddam Hussein  Beginning on 20 March 2003, the United States and coalition partners launched the invasion of Iraq. On 21 April the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established with Jay Garner at its head, and on 11 May he was replaced by Paul Bremer. His first order as CPA administrator, issued 16 May, disestablished the Iraqi Baath Party and began a process of "de-Baathification."^[4]

Even in the defeat of Nazi Germany the allied forces used members of the Nazi party to help stabilize Germany in the immediate post war years.

The disbanding of the Iraqi army was perhaps the main impetus for the insurgency to take hold as those former members of the Iraqi military saw no place for themselves in the post Saddam Hussein Iraq.



Part 3 will deal with all that democracy that's breaking out all over Iraq and the Middle East.