{"id":7612,"date":"2014-06-26T07:56:33","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7612"},"modified":"2014-06-26T07:56:33","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:56:33","slug":"looking-back-at-iraq-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/looking-back-at-iraq-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back at Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is historically inaccurate to say the war was cooked up by Bush alone.<\/em><\/h3>\n
by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\"Army
Army Third Division soldiers advance on Baghdad, April 2003 (Getty Images via NRO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

S<\/span>o who lost Iraq?<\/p>\n

The blame game mostly fingers incompetent Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Or is Barack Obama culpable for pulling out all American troops monitoring the success of the 2007\u201308 surge?<\/p>\n

Some still blame George W. Bush for going into Iraq in 2003 in the first place to remove Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One can blame almost anyone, but one must not invent facts to support an argument.<\/p>\n

Do we remember that Bill Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that supported regime change in Iraq? He gave an eloquent speech on the dangers of Saddam Hussein\u2019s weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 2002, both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass a resolution authorizing the removal of Saddam Hussein by force. Senators such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Harry Reid offered moving arguments on the Senate floor why we should depose Saddam in a post-9\/11 climate.<\/p>\n

Democratic stalwarts such as Senator Jay Rockefeller and Representative Nancy Pelosi lectured us about the dangers of Saddam\u2019s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. They drew on the same classified domestic- and foreign-intelligence reports that had led Bush to call for Saddam\u2019s forcible removal.<\/p>\n

The Bush administration, like members of Congress, underestimated the costs of the war and erred in focusing almost exclusively on Saddam\u2019s supposed stockpiles of weapons. But otherwise, the war was legally authorized on 23 writs. Most of them had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and were unaffected by the later mysterious absence of such weapons \u2014 which is all the more mysterious given that troves of WMD have turned up in nearby Syria and more recently in Iraqi bunkers overrun by Islamic militants.<\/p>\n

Legally, the U.S. went to war against Saddam because he had done things such as committing genocide against the Kurds, Shiites, and the Marsh Arabs, and attacking four of his neighbors. He had tried to arrange the assassination of a former U.S. president, George H. W. Bush. He had paid bounties for suicide bombers on the West Bank and was harboring the worst of global terrorists. Saddam also offered refuge to at least one of the architects of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and violated U.N.-authorized no-fly zones.<\/p>\n

A number of prominent columnists, Right and Left \u2014 from George Will, David Brooks, and William F. Buckley to Fareed Zakaria, David Ignatius, and Thomas Friedman \u2014 supported Saddam\u2019s forcible removal. When his statue fell in 2003, most polls showed that over 70 percent of Americans agreed with the war.<\/p>\n

What changed public opinion and caused radical about-faces among the war\u2019s most ardent supporters were the subsequent postwar violence and insurgency between 2004 and 2007\u00a0and the concurrent domestic elections and rising antiwar movement. Thousands of American troops were killed or wounded in mostly failed efforts to stem the Sunni\u2013Shiite savagery.<\/p>\n

The 2007\u201308 surge engineered by General David Petraeus ended much of the violence. By Obama\u2019s second year in office, American fatalities had been reduced to far below\u00a0the monthly accident\u00a0rate in the U.S. military. \u201cAn extraordinary achievement,\u201d Obama said of the \u201cstable\u201d and \u201cself-reliant\u201d Iraq that he inherited \u2014 and left.<\/p>\n

Prior to our invasion, the Kurds were a persecuted people who had been gassed, slaughtered, and robbed of all rights by Saddam. In contrast, today a semi-autonomous Kurdistan is a free-market, consensual society of tolerance that, along with Israel, is one of the few humane places in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In 2003, the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0estimated that Saddam Hussein had killed perhaps about 1 million of his own people. That translated into about 40,000 deaths for each year he led Iraq.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A Saddam-led Iraq over the last decade would not have been a peaceable place.<\/p>\n

We can also imagine that Saddam would not have sat idly by the last decade as Pakistan and North Korea openly sold their nuclear expertise, and as rival Iran pressed ahead with its nuclear enrichment program.<\/p>\n

Nor should we forget that the U.S. military decimated al-Qaeda in Iraq. Tens of thousands of foreign terrorists flocked to Anbar Province and there met their deaths. When Obama later declared that al-Qaeda was \u201con the run,\u201d it was largely because it had been nearly obliterated in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Launching a costly campaign to remove Saddam may or may not have been a wise move. But it is historically inaccurate to suggest that the Iraq War was cooked up by George W. Bush alone \u2014 or that it did not do enormous damage to al-Qaeda, bring salvation for the Kurds, and by 2009 provide a rare chance for the now-bickering Iraqis to make something out of what Saddam had tried to destroy.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2014 Tribune Media Services, Inc.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is historically inaccurate to say the war was cooked up by Bush alone. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online So who lost Iraq? The blame game mostly fingers incompetent Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Or is Barack Obama culpable for pulling out all American troops monitoring the success of the 2007\u201308 surge? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1YM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3174,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/blame-bush-obama-or-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":7612,"position":0},"title":"Blame Bush, Obama–or Us?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services When someone screams about a terrible policy of the present administration, just pose four questions: First, was the controversial decision taken with bipartisan support? Second, were there precedents for such action in prior Democratic administrations? Third, will such polices continue under the newly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2008"","block_context":{"text":"December 2008","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2008\/december-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1251,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/rethinking-george-bush\/","url_meta":{"origin":7612,"position":1},"title":"Rethinking George Bush?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Former President George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon. In reaction, for nearly two years President Barack Obama won easy applause by prefacing almost every speech on his economic policies with a \"Bush did it\" put-down. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2010"","block_context":{"text":"September 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/september-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2332,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-fault-is-not-in-our-stars-but-in-ourselves\/","url_meta":{"origin":7612,"position":2},"title":"‘The Fault Is Not in Our Stars, But in Ourselves’","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Liberal columnists decrying the Obama administration\u2019s supposed lack of partisan fortitude and eagerness for a nasty fight for healthcare seem oddly detached from reality. The opposition to Obamacare would have gone nowhere had the president offered a concise plan, had his team kept repeating\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2009"","block_context":{"text":"August 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/august-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7942,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-biggest-lie\/","url_meta":{"origin":7612,"position":3},"title":"The Biggest Lie","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Left would rather forget its old slogan, \u201cBush lied, thousands died.\u201d by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online The very mention of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)\u00a0and Iraq was toxic for Republicans by 2005. They wanted to forget about the supposed absence of recently manufactured WMD in great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"President George W. Bush at the White House, February 2005 (Alex Wong\/Getty Images)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/pic_giant_102114_SM_George-W-Bush-G-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5907,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bushs-warranted-rehabilitation-will-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":7612,"position":4},"title":"Bush’s Warranted Rehabilitation Will Come","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner George W. Bush\u2019s September 14, 2001, so-called \u201cbullhorn\u201d speech, that he gave with his arm around fireman Bob Beckwith at Ground Zero (\u201cI can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people \u2014 and the people who knocked these buildings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2329,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-vs-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":7612,"position":5},"title":"Obama vs. Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Actions often have unforeseen consequences. Throughout the campaign and the first few months of the new administration, Barack Obama adopted a number of personas and positions that only now may be coming back to haunt him. Or in the words of the right Reverend\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2009"","block_context":{"text":"August 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/august-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7614,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612\/revisions\/7614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}