Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; the Afghanistan war gave control back to the Taliban. SEAL Team 6 got Bin Laden, but what about the other terrorists like him out there?
I do wonder if George W. would have figured out some reason to topple Iraq. He had a grudge against the Saddam regime from before he was elected. That war felt inevitable once the Supreme Court got involved in the election.
I also wonder how history would have played out if we had President Gore.
I remember reading that Clinton's team was very concerned about Al Qaeda, but the Bush team ignored their warnings. It might have been very different with Al Gore in command.
In his strongest public statement, to 60 Minutes, [Richard] Clarke said Bush “ignored” the terrorist threat before 9/11. To the commission he testified, more soberly, that, for the Administration, it was an “important issue but not an urgent issue.” Clearly, the Clinton White House worried more. Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger remembers telling his successor, Rice, during the transition that, for the Bush team, “the No. 1 issue that you’re going to be dealing with is terrorism generally and al-Qaeda specifically.”
The record of the Bush Administration’s first half-year suggests its members didn’t buy it. They were more focused on Russia, China and especially missile defense. In his book Bush at War, Bob Woodward quotes Bush himself saying of Osama bin Laden, “There was a significant difference in my attitude after September 11. I was not on point, but I knew he was a menace … But I didn’t feel that sense of urgency.”
Clarke’s strongest argument in this dispute is the pace with which the Administration considered the plan he proposed on Jan. 25, 2001 for combatting al-Qaeda. The program had evolved during the Clinton years, as al-Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and then the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. The Bush team put the proposal through an April meeting of senior officials, took their time with it over the summer and finally brought it to Bush’s Cabinet-level security and foreign policy chiefs, who approved it, just a week before 9/11. None of that suggests it was a national-security priority.
The Bush administration dig themselves a pit by criticizing the Clinton administration so much for directly attacking the Al Qaeda training camps. They couldn’t turn that around without losing face.
If you want to lean more search for the phrase “wag the dog”.
The grudge was for trying to assassinate his father. IIRC, one of the soldiers attending Saddam's hanging at Camp Justice got a call on his cell phone moments before the execution and gave the phone to Saddam. Who do you think was on the line?
There's at least one cell phone video from the execution.[0] This video was offensive to the US administration for many reasons, so any immediate reporting of it and other unsavory behavior at the hanging was quickly squashed in the US media. But again, IIRC from 20 years ago, the videographer wasn't the only one using a cell phone at the event.
The provisional government that was hopelessly corrupt and incompetent, although it is arguable that they were ever in charge in any practical sense. That government was a good example of how not to do nation building.
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Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; the Afghanistan war gave control back to the Taliban. SEAL Team 6 got Bin Laden, but what about the other terrorists like him out there?
If there was no 9/11, there would be no carte blanche from congress to Bush to send the military off on whatever crusade.
I do wonder if George W. would have figured out some reason to topple Iraq. He had a grudge against the Saddam regime from before he was elected. That war felt inevitable once the Supreme Court got involved in the election.
I also wonder how history would have played out if we had President Gore.
If we had President Gore we would have done a lot more and a lot earlier re: climate change. Probably the biggest missed opportunity in our lifetime.
I remember reading that Clinton's team was very concerned about Al Qaeda, but the Bush team ignored their warnings. It might have been very different with Al Gore in command.
But this article portrays it differently: https://time.com/archive/6738066/the-truth-of-the-matter/
The Bush administration dig themselves a pit by criticizing the Clinton administration so much for directly attacking the Al Qaeda training camps. They couldn’t turn that around without losing face.
If you want to lean more search for the phrase “wag the dog”.
The grudge was for trying to assassinate his father. IIRC, one of the soldiers attending Saddam's hanging at Camp Justice got a call on his cell phone moments before the execution and gave the phone to Saddam. Who do you think was on the line?
Would you mind sharing some sources re: Saddam answering a call moments before being hanged? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence…
There's at least one cell phone video from the execution.[0] This video was offensive to the US administration for many reasons, so any immediate reporting of it and other unsavory behavior at the hanging was quickly squashed in the US media. But again, IIRC from 20 years ago, the videographer wasn't the only one using a cell phone at the event.
[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01sunnis...
The article you linked doesn’t mention that Saddam answered a call right before his execution… which is what you implied earlier
Does the execution video show anybody holding a phone up to Saddam?
You moved the burden of proof from you to me. This looks like a disinformation tactic.
Probably didn't happen. Here's some material detailing that day; https://www.dawn.com/news/amp/589198
Invading Iraq was always part of the neocon agenda. 9/11 provided a useful pretext, but it was always going to happen.
Well before 9/11, US troops were intervening in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Iraq, Haiti, Panama, Libya, Lebanon and Grenada.
Some of those were (limited) unilateral strikes but a lot of those were multinational endeavors done with the blessing of the international community.
I'm very confused. Who was in control before?
The provisional government that was hopelessly corrupt and incompetent, although it is arguable that they were ever in charge in any practical sense. That government was a good example of how not to do nation building.
Right but that government got put in charge after the US-led invasion and war. Before the war the Taliban was already in power.
At least the Taliban tends to be relatively isolationist.
A lot of them are funded by Iran.
The other terrorists like him out there use US tax money to blow up Palestinians.