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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (148524)	11/24/2005 12:31:36 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793597

It is true that many warned it would not be easy to set up a democracy in Iraq. But that's as far as it went. Neither Friedman nor any other pundit predicted that Al Qaeda would make Iraq its central stand; everybody thought that we would be fighting Baathists and other Saddam regime elements. However, saying it would not be easy to set up a democracy is not at all the same as saying that the state would fall to pieces, and the Coalition would have to build a government, elections, the army and the police up from square one while fighting off a Sunni/Al Qaeda terrorist war. Claims of foresight have been waaaay overblown. If you look back at actual quotes of the time, you will often find today's claimants of prescience arguing that we shouldn't invade Iraq because Saddam would gas our troops. Today they say that they always knew Bush was lying about WMDs.

To: Rambi who wrote (148524)	11/24/2005 2:45:45 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793597

Rambi, I too am enjoying the exchanges between you and Nadine. Both of you offer different views, and in a most civilized way. Much appreciated! Re Friedman and other pieces of info...don't forget the Advanced Search here on SI...we can find some of his posts and comments about them, by year, if we wish... Re Mackey's book--I haven't read The Reckoning. But google or most searches will tell us about him, and his book...in some cases, we can even find the quotes we wish to find. The only thing I will offer here is that we have to remember that the CIA had been emasculated by the budget cuts of the 1990's, and I believe the number of 25% of the existing agents in the field were pulled out as well. Leaving the US with no 'ears to the ground' so to speak. As I noted several times over the years, one thing that really galled me about Clinton was that he refused for 6 months (!!!) to see James Woolsey, his appointed head of the CIA. It galled Woolsey as well, if you listen to him carefully. Actually, it is a wonder that we really knew anything about Saddam's Iraq. Eason Jordan, Head of CNN News Worldwide, discussed a couple of years ago, his reasons for NOT telling the truth about what was happening in Saddam's Iraq. He wanted not to have their "news bureau" pulled from Iraq nor didn't want his people killed there. He didn't tell the truth for ELEVEN years, he said. (pull up google/any search engine, and insert .... Eason Jordan CNN Iraq .... I'm especially glad that we have someplace like SI, and responsible threads such as PfP to find a variety of opinions, columns, editorials, bloggers, etc....And there are other links on SI where we can find the inflamatory ones as well. Eventually, truth will come forward and to the top.