" we will rue the day we ever started"

[LynnTheDem]

Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S.
October 17, 2002

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/17/zinni /

Col. David Hackworth
Nov 6, 2002

"Should the president decide to stay the war course, hopefully at least a few of our serving top-uniformed leaders - those who are now covertly leaking that war with Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster - will do what many Vietnam-era generals wish they would have done: stand tall and publicly tell the America people the truth about another bad war that could well lead to another died-in-vain black wall. Or even worse."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29786

James Webb, former Sec. of Navy under Ronald Reagan, Decorated Marine Veteran - Navy Cross, Silver Star, and Purple Heart
Sept 4, 2002

"Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? …In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets…. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A34847-2002Sep3

Brent Scowcroft, one of the Republican Party’s most respected foreign policy advisors, and national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush
August 15, 2002

Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts. "Our pre-eminent security priority--underscored repeatedly by the president--is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

Norman Schwarzkopf - Four Star General
Jan 28, 2003

"The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq….(And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52450-2003Jan27?language=printer

Gulf War General Says Iraq Invasion 'Totally Unjustified'
September 22, 2002

"...a growing unease among senior British officers... But there is concern that an invasion of Iraq could totally destabilize the entire region."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/22/nirq22.xml/

"A Republican Dissent on Iraq"
Full page ad in Wall Street Journal by major GOP contributors:

"Mr. President, …The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back…. A Billion Bitter enemies will rise out of this war."
- Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2003

A growing number in government have misgivings about Iraq policy
October 8, 2002

"...a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.congress08oct08,0,2232015.story?coll=bal-iraq-storyutil


Gee...who could have known?

[Hissyspit]

1. Again, journalist Thomas Powers two days before the war...

Journalist Thomas Powers, who wrote an article in 2003, I believe, published in the New York Times, called "The Man Who Would Be President of Iraq" is a Pulitzer Prize winner and expert on the CIA and intelligence. He also wrote: "Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al Qaeda."

The interview with Terry Gross was on March 17, 2003, before the ground war had started. The ground war started on March 19.

GROSS: If we create a new government, and if that government is, as you describe it, more of a client government, do you think that government is going to be under attack either by other Iraqis or by terrorists from other countries?

POWERS: It's hard to say when the trouble will begin.

You know, the thing that, the thing that worries me about this whole, this whole episode is the magnitude of the grand scheme that the Bush Administration has dreamed up for transforming the political landscape of the Middle East. You know, big ideas are the ones that give you the most trouble and trying to make the world perfect just leads to disaster, in my opinion, and I think that has sort of been the record of human history, and whenever we've engaged in a really big endeavor, trouble comes.

Now exactly when that is going to happen, I don't know. There's gonna be some kind of a government there. We're gonna be there. Eventually, you know, after the fighting stops, the dust settles and everything is quiet for a while. And for a time it looks like: 'Gee, this wasn't so hard. You know, this is gonna be a big success.'

But you've changed the fundamental relationships of people there and gradually they realize what the limits of their action are, and they realize, well, we can't have any, you know, any military forces with tanks attacking the Americans, but it isn't that hard to kind of sneak up on 'em in the streets.

And I think sort of an endless amount of trouble will slowly begin to bubble forth, so I figure we're gonna have a month of war, and then we're gonna have a month of indecision, and then we're gonna have a couple of months where everything looks pretty good. And then after that, things are gonna start going downhill, and it's gonna be trouble, and it's gonna be money and it'll take a generation to resolve it."

[SharonAnn]

30. Where does 'rue the day" quote come from. It's not in the linked article.

[LynnTheDem]

34. Here you go

http://www.fletcherconference.com/oldtranscripts/2002/pilot.htm

[kentuck]

2. One would have to believe George W Bush was a man of great vision...

and I am not that removed from reality quite yet...

[gratuitous]

6. It would have taken lottery odds for this to work

Or my favorite analogy, about the same odds that if a little toddler jams a fork into an electrical outlet, he'll poop out a pill that cures cancer. In the universe of possible outomes you can't absolutely rule it out, but you're not going to let him at the outlet if you have any sense.

[Richard Steele]

10. I like that analogy. nm

[SharonAnn]

22. I can't find this quote in the referenced article. Where does it come from?

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/17/zinni /

[tabatha]

3. thanks for the links. nt.

[Divine Discontent]

4. I logged IN just to recommend this!

EXCELLENT collection of comments. GEE - WHO KNEW? is right!



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[sam sarrha]

5. i lived in an islamic republic.. i thought it would be a lot LOT worse than this before this.. only

a wet brain alcoholic drug addict draft dodger would do such a stupid thing..

[jgraz]

7. Don't forget that foreign policy expert, Janeane Garofalo

"I resent ... Senator Santorum's assertions that this won't be particularly costly or lengthy. This is going to be economically devastating for us. And also, the assertion that inaction breeds terrorist strikes, that is ridiculous. Action in Iraq will make us decidedly less safe."

- Interview with Tony Snow on Fox News, February 23, 2003

[Hissyspit]

20. In the Moveon.org commercials which aired somewhere before the war

(not many places, I imagine) Janeane predicts 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.

She was mocked at the time for this.

(NOTE: I believe they were moveon, but I'm not 100% sure.)

[Phredicles]

8. "I don't think anyone could have anticipated...

...our half-baked excuse for a plan would blow up in everyone's faces."
:eyes: :grr: :puke:

[Wilms]

9. K&R n/t

[Old and In the Way]

11. These posts of yours are so enlightening.

Not much to say, but this administration was determined to invade for reasons having nothing to do with smart strategic thinking. Was it the oil, the domestic political leverage, an opportunity to drain the Treasury...or combination of all three? I'm so looking forward to investigations that will give us the truth.

[bidiboom]

25. All of the above + security of Israel n/t

[Hekate]

12. Only a million Americans took to the streets in protests unreported by the MSM...

... WE were listening!

Hekate

[evolved Anarchopunk]

13. The 1st two quotes have given me a lot to think on.

There is a sense of resignation to the inevitable war in their words. Men with their experience, and with their military expertise -- and these are the men standing for peace, standing up to a bloodthirsty Bush administration! Our leaders are and will always be war profiteers, let history write itself.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Hell, we on DU were rueing the Iraq War before it was even known

as the Iraq War.

[smoogatz]

15. The "noble cause."

That's the latest semi-official line coming from the mouths of O'Reilly, et al. The invasion of Iraq may have been mishandled by Rumsfeld, but in theory it was a noble cause, and the people who planned it were just a bunch of noble, optimistic guys who wanted to transform the Middle East by sowing the seeds of Liberty. Like every other Bushco ratonale for this war, it's complete bullshit. They were worried about one thing, and it had nothing to do with terrorism or Democracy or WMD: what was Saddam going to do with all that oil money when the UN sanctions were finally lifted? It was always about the oil. History will judge these dickheads (Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie and Condi) harshly--they're not just incompetent, they're dangerous ideologues with no regard for the Constitution or international law.

[RedEarth]

16. KR .....

[civildisoBDence]

17. It's plain and simple--DUHbya is liable for criminal negligence.

The arrogant, bloodthirsty, warmongering, self-aggrandizing fucking asshole!!!

Good God, this has to be the biggest mistake any president has ever made in office...what even compares?

Newsprism

[mike_c]

18. impeach the war criminals NOW....

Impeach. Indict. Imprison.

[novalib]

19. NOT ONE MORE LIFE!!!!

NOT one more LIFE SHOULD BE LOST in Bush's ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL WAR OF AGGRESSION!!!!

Any soldier who dies from here on out will be one solider too many!!!!!

The American People have CONFIRMED what the rest of us have known for years ----

THIS WAR IS A TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE MISTAKE!!!

BRING THEM ALL HOME!!!!

NOW!!!!!!

[Nikki Stone1]

21. The chickenhawks proved their impotence on the backs of the citizen soldier

and the US treasury.

[opihimoimoi]

23. Bush don't read...he didn't know, and he is known to be deaf to warnings

He is in over his head I guess....

[Katzenjammer]

24. Dennis Kucinich laid it all out in February '02. His voice was the first, long before Dean or any

of those now claiming they were against it before they were for it before they were against it.

[Cha]

26. Moi?

bush started this MisbegottenWAR ON IRaq for political; reasons..no way could it have been a good thing.

[donkeyotay]

27. Here's another sensible voice that was ignored

Sen. Paul Wellstone, Senate floor speech, Oct. 3, 2002:

I have supported internationally sanctioned coalition military action in Bosnia, in Kosovo and Serbia, and in Afghanistan. Even so, in recent weeks, I and others including major Republican policymakers like former Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker, my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee Senator Hagel, Bush Mideast Envoy General Anthony Zinni and other leading US military leaders have raised serious questions about the approach the Administration is taking on Iraq.

There have been questions raised about the nature and urgency of Iraq's threat, our response to that threat, and against whom, exactly that threat is directed. What is the best course of action that the U.S. could take to address the threat? What are the economic, political, and national security consequences of possible U.S. or U.S.-British invasion of Iraq? There have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions abroad, including its effects on the continuing war on terrorism, our ongoing efforts to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, and efforts to calm the intensifying Middle East crisis, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions here at home.

http://www.wellstone.org/archive/article_detail.aspx?itemID=5423&catID=3605

[JMDEM]

28. Utter Rueage

[redqueen]

29. Great compilation.

:thumbsup:

[WinstonSmith4740]

31. Are you kidding? I can hear Condi now...

"Well, certainly no one could have foreseen..."

[AntiFascist]

32. K&R n/t

[FernBell]

33. k&r

[yorkiemommie1]

35. anybody with common sense

and a little knowledge of human nature ( er... you can't make people your allies in democracy by killing their kids or parents ).