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| Even the troops say it is wrong and all smoke and mirrors? |
paraclete |
11/24/06 |
Iraq a moral blunder: war hero
By Patrick Walters
November 25, 2006 12:00am
Article from: The Australian
THE former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for Australia's special forces says that the nation's involvement has been a strategic and moral blunder.
Peter Tinley, who was decorated for his military service in Afghanistan and Iraq, has broken ranks to condemn the Howard Government over its handling of the war and has called for an immediate withdrawal of Australian troops.
"It was a cynical use of the Australian Defence Force by the Government," the ex-SAS operations officer told The Weekend Australian yesterday.
"This war duped the Australian Defence Force and the Australian people in terms of thinking it was in some way legitimate."
As the lead tactical planner for Australia's special forces in the US in late 2002, Mr Tinley was in a unique position to observe intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and the coalition's military preparations in the lead-up to the war.
Mr Tinley, 44, who retired from the army last year after a distinguished 25-year career, said the US-led coalition had been naive in its thinking about what it could achieve after a quick military invasion of Iraq.
"They never had enough troops to fully lock down the major centres and infrastructure or the borders," he said.
In Iraq in 2003, Mr Tinley served as deputy commander for the 550-strong joint special forces task group that took control of western Iraq.
Part of his command was 1 SAS Squadron, which was awarded a US Meritorious Unit citation for its "sustained gallantry", contributing to a comprehensive success for coalition forces in Iraq.
He served 17 years with the elite SAS regiment, leaving the army as a major last year. In 2003 he was appointed a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "dynamic leadership and consistent professional excellence".
His comments came as Baghdad experienced its deadliest day of sectarian violence since the coalition's March 2003 invasion, with 160 killed and 250 injured by five powerful car bombs in the Shia district of Sadr City.
In recent weeks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has conceded Iraq has become a "disaster", while the Iraq quagmire contributed to the swing against US President George W.Bush in this month's congressional elections.
Britain has set a tentative timetable this week for withdrawing some of its troops, while the US and coalition forces consider options to end the conflict, which could include a short-term lift in troop numbers.
John Howard said yesterday that despite all Iraq's problems, he still believed he had made the right decision to take Australia to war in 2003.
"Everybody back in 2003, including Kim Beazley and particularly Kevin Rudd and even (French President) Jacques Chirac, were all saying Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," the Prime Minister said.
He said Australia had not agreed to take on any new responsibilities in Iraq and any changes to Australia's 750-strong military presence would depend on a possible withdrawal of British forces.
During war planning with US and British special forces at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 2002, Mr Tinley says he never saw any hard intelligence that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.
"When I pressed them (US intelligence) for more specific imagery or information regarding locations or likely locations of WMD they confessed, off the record, that there had not been any tangible sighting of any WMD or WMD enabling equipment for some years," he said.
"It was all shadows and inferenced conversations between Iraqis. There was an overwhelming desire for all of the planning staff to simply believe that the Iraqis had learned how to conceal their WMD assets away from the US (surveillance) assets."
Coalition special forces troops were charged with hunting down Scud missiles and Saddam's suspected WMD arsenals, operating from just west of Baghdad all the way through to the Jordanian border, and between the Syrian and Saudi frontiers.
After the initial invasion, the search for WMD became something of a "standing joke" with neither coalition troops nor the Iraq Survey Group turning up anything of consequence.
"The notion that pre-emption is a legitimate strategy in the face of such unconvincing intelligence is a betrayal of the Australian way," he said.
Mr Tinley told The Weekend Australian he was now speaking out having expected people "far more capable and more senior than me" to have expressed serious reservations about Australia's involvement in Iraq.
"During our preparations for this war I remember hearing (ex-defence chief) General Peter Gration's misgivings and assumed he did not possess all the information that our Prime Minister did," he said.
"I now reflect on his commentary with a completely different view and am saddened that other prominent people in our society didn't speak louder at the time and aren't continuing to speak out in light of what we now know."
He said the Government had broken a moral contract with its defence force in sending it to an "immoral war".
The Government's stance on Iraq and later on issues such as the Tampa had gradually allowed fear to become a motivating factor in the electorate, he said.
Mr Tinley said the Howard Government had failed to be honest with Australians about Iraq and "you can't separate the sentiment of the defence force from that of the people".
He advocates an immediate pullout of Australia's 500-strong task force in southern Iraq but accepts that security forces must be kept to guard the embassy in Baghdad. "Our 500 troops are in the south-west of Iraq under British tactical command while our US partners are doing all the heavy lifting in the remainder of the country," he said.
A more meaningful contribution could be through providing defence and security force training in a safer neighbouring country, such as Kuwait. "This is no slur on our soldiers. (Brigadier) Mick Moon and his men have been doing a fantastic job."
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Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 11/28/06 12:31 pm:
I'm curious... which part of this war was illegitimate?
Was it the part where a tyranical dictator who ruled through fear and torture was deposed?
Was it the part where that tyrant's financial and logistical support for terrorists was cut off?
Was it the part where the guy who refused to live up to the requirements of the cease-fire agreement from the last war taken to task... after 13 years of warnings?
Was it the part where the tyrant who made the entire world believe he had WMDs and had used those WMDs in the past was brought to task for not submitting to inspections by the UN?
Was it the part where the WMDs were found? (over 500 mortars and rockets filled with sarin and mustard gas, over 500 TONS of yellowcake plutonium, numerous mobile chem and bio labs, many samples of bio-weapons and chemical weapons materials, etc.)
The only illegitimate part about this war that I have seen is the political pressure that has been brought to bear against the US armed forces that has kept them from doing their jobs properly, thus extending he war and increasing casualty figures.
Elliot
Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 11/28/06 12:31 pm:
I'm curious... which part of this war was illegitimate?
Was it the part where a tyranical dictator who ruled through fear and torture was deposed?
Was it the part where that tyrant's financial and logistical support for terrorists was cut off?
Was it the part where the guy who refused to live up to the requirements of the cease-fire agreement from the last war taken to task... after 13 years of warnings?
Was it the part where the tyrant who made the entire world believe he had WMDs and had used those WMDs in the past was brought to task for not submitting to inspections by the UN?
Was it the part where the WMDs were found? (over 500 mortars and rockets filled with sarin and mustard gas, over 500 TONS of yellowcake plutonium, numerous mobile chem and bio labs, many samples of bio-weapons and chemical weapons materials, etc.)
The only illegitimate part about this war that I have seen is the political pressure that has been brought to bear against the US armed forces that has kept them from doing their jobs properly, thus extending he war and increasing casualty figures.
Elliot Clarification/Follow-up by paraclete on 11/28/06 9:45 pm:
Elliot
don't be hypocritical, you know very well that the war against Iraq was illigimitate, the only people who sanctioned it were the US itself. The US made war on a non enemy state, one it had been instrumental in holding captive with international sanctions and arms for twelve years. The war was justified on lies, lies of non existent WMD, of non existent terrorist connections with al qaeda, of the need for regime chaange of the very dictator the US had kept in power for years.
The only reason you think it is legitimate is that Saddam was an enemy of Israel
Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 11/29/06 12:28 pm:
Clete, I am not the one being hypocritical. YOU are the one who talks about how evil the Islamo-fascists are out of one side of your mouth, and then criticizes the leaders who actually take some sort of action against Islamofacism. THAT is hypocracy.
I, on the other hand, have stuck to my guns on every point. I haven't said "Well, they are bad guys, but we shouldn't be fighting them in Iraq." I have argued that we should be fighting them EVERYWHERE, and that right now they are in Iraq, so we should be fighting them there.
Nor do I believe that the war was "illegitimate" or that "the only people who sanctioned it were the US itself." There is a coalition of over 140 countries involved in Iraq. The war was actually sanctioned by the UN, whether they would care to admitt it or not, when they made their resolutions that said that Saddam had to comply with the UN's sanctions "or else". This war was the "or else".
"The US made war on a non enemy state"
This "non-enemy state" was paying for, harboring and giving aid and comfort to terrorists. They were in league with Al Qaeda, and Saddam's own documentation proves it.
"one it had been instrumental in holding captive with international sanctions and arms for twelve years. "
You have got to be joking. So now you are arguing that not only was the war wrong, but so were the sanctions that Saddam refused to follow? That we should have allowed a nation that had proven its aggresive nature, that had made war against other nations and that had a history of USING WMDs against its enemies to have free reign without oversight? This after spending month arguing against the growth of Islamofascist influence in the Western World? Who's being a hypocrit now, Paraclete?
>>>The war was justified on lies, lies of non existent WMD<<<
Again, five hundred TONS of yelloowcake uranium and 500 missiles filled with sarin and mustard gas do not lie. Nor does the documentation from Saddam's own files.
>>>of non existent terrorist connections with al qaeda,<<<
Non-existant only to you. The ties have been proven over and over again, from the harboring of Abu Nidal to direct, high-level contacts between Saddam and OBL, to Saddam's construction of a terrorist training facility in Salman Pak, to Saddam's paying for terrorist activities with checks signed in his hand.
"of the need for regime chaange of the very dictator the US had kept in power for years"
Yes... a mistake that has now been rectified. We SHOULD have gotten rid of the bastard back in 91 when we had the opportunity. The son has corrected the mistakes of the father.
"The only reason you think it is legitimate is that Saddam was an enemy of Israel"
No... that's just one of MANY reasons.
I don't like dictators and tyrants. I don't like people who use WMDs as a weapon to quell political unrest. I don't like guys who beat people up for fun. I don't like people who pay for and support terrorism. I don't like guys who allow women to be gang-raped as punishment for their husband's/father's/son's/brother's activities. I don't like people who treat women as THINGS rather than people. I don't like guys who develop WMDs to use on civilians. I don't like guys who "disappear" their political enemies. I don't like guys who make cease-fire agreements and then flout the restrictions of those agreements and don't get taken to task for it. I don't like guys who live in the lap of luxury by stealing what others have rightfully earned. (A dozen guilded palaces, for G-d's sake... while his people starved to death and struggled for drinking water.)
THOSE are the reasons that I think that the war was legitimate.
The question that I have is why EVERYONE doesn't feel the same way... especially lierals who claim to be concerned with human rights and exploitation of the lower classes.
Elliot
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