Concerning trend :ISIS Related

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Dutch

That was never part of the equation though, President Bush Sr. stuck to the letter of the law when it came to the coalition. They only would support the removal of Iraqi forces in Kuwait. And at that point, there was a belief that Saddam Hussein would agree to WMD inspections and shut down his nuclear program. Another misstep on our part to believe that.

Except it appears that's exactly what happened. Yes, Iraq made life difficult for inspectors post-1991, but every post-mortem after the 2003 invasion indicates that Iraq never re-gained its ability to manufacture WMD post-1991, and it's not clear if there were even attempts to do so, even in 1998-2003 when inspectors were not in Iraq.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Dutch

We didn't break it. Saddam Hussein broke it.

When you read the quotes from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et. al. on the topic, they are clearly referring to the fact that Iraqi oil revenue would easily cover reconstruction costs due to the war (i.e. destroyed infrastructure) as well as any costs to set up a Democratic state.

You can argue that the latter was "broken" by Hussein, but the former was clearly "broken" by the coalition forces.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Dutch

We didn't break it. Saddam Hussein broke it.

I'm speaking literally, in terms of the costs of war. You're speaking metaphorically, in terms of "the way Saddam Hussein ran the country planted the seeds for significant sectarian strife in the event of his ouster."

And it's the former I'm talking about. When I say "we broke it, YOU buy it," I mean that literally. We go in, make a mess kicking him out, and do so at least in part with the justification that cleaning the mess up afterward isn't going to cost US anything, because Iraq has oil revenues and can pay for the cleanup herself.