<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.95px"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Dear Visionaries:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.95px"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.95px"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:18.4px;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">For those who do not get the Daily News, below you will find my Thursday column. Attached is the long version.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.95px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:16px;line-height:18.4px;text-indent:48px"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.95px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:16px;line-height:18.4px;text-indent:48px">Instead of yet again harassing Clinton, why doesn’t Congress put Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld in the hot seat?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.95px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:16px;line-height:18.4px;text-indent:48px"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Where is Our Iraq War Report?<br clear="all">
British Investigation Yields A Damning Verdict</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">By
Nick Gier</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">After
seven long years of investigation, a British commission led by Sir John Chilcot
has issued its findings on the British participation in the Iraq War. The report, 2.6 million words in 12 volumes,
concludes that plans were “</span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">seriously
flawed” and that the war “went badly wrong, with consequences to this day.” <br clear="all">
As an example, Chilcot
mentioned the recent ISIS car bombing in Baghdad that claimed 250 lives. There would be no ISIS today if President
George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had not taken their nations into
war.<br clear="all">
</span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">
The inquiry has led to the release of secret memos between Bush and
Blair in which both, as early as October 2001, agreed that Hussein should be
removed from power. In a declassified “Note on Iraq” (7/28/02) Blair promises
Bush that “I will be with you, whatever,” and he offered this prediction: “<span style="border:1pt none windowtext;padding:0in">If we win quickly, everyone will be our
friend. If we don't, recriminations will start fast.”<br clear="all">
</span> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">The initial ground war did indeed go quickly,
and Bush celebrated “Mission Accomplished” with a stunt landing on the USS
Abraham Lincoln. But the Chilcot Report found that plans for a post-invasion
Iraq were “wholly inadequate.” On the American side, Bush political appointees
with little or no training in nation building and ignorant of Arab culture made
fatal mistakes.<br clear="all">
</span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">
Major among these errors was the decision to disband the Iraqi army, many
of whom joined Al Qaeda and then ISIS. Early
on Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, future head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, joined Ansar
al-Islam, but he and these Kurdish Islamists had, contrary to claims by the
Bush administration, no relationship with Hussein.<br clear="all">
The Pentagon wanted to take
out the Ansar al-Islam base in Northeast Iraq prior to the invasion of Iraq,
but this idea was vetoed by the National Security Agency. Tragically, Zarqawi was then free to lead a
brutal campaign against Shia Muslims and Coalition forces until he was killed
in 2006.<br clear="all">
</span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"> It is clear that the invasion
itself caused the rise of Sunni jihadists and the Sunni/Shia civil war that
followed. Hussein was a moderate Sunni,
so sectarian tensions were held in check and attacks on Shia Muslims were rare.
His human rights record was of course horrible.<br clear="all">
Paul
Bremer, Bush’s top man in Iraq, has responded to the Chilcot Report by saying
that it is unfair to blame his boss for failed intelligence. A more accurate phrase is “cooked”
intelligence, many examples of which are found in former Secretary of State
Colin Powell’s infamous speech to the UN.
His own State Department knew that the aluminum tubes, which he said
were manufactured for nuclear weapons, were in fact rocket launchers. On other
allegations State Department officials warned Powell that they </span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">were “weak,” “not credible” or “highly
questionable.”<br clear="all">
</span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">
</span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black;border:1pt none windowtext;padding:0in">Parents of British
soldiers killed in Iraq are now considering law suits against Blair and
protestors in the streets are calling him a war criminal. The Chilcot Report maintains that the legal
basis for the war was “questionable,” but Chilcot said that jurists would have
to settle that issue. He seems to be unaware of the fact that the British
Foreign Office advised Blair that that it was indeed an illegal action. The
Justice Department decided not to pursue charges against the Bush
administration, so the legality issue has not been resolved in the U. S.
either.<br clear="all">
That there were violations of
international law is certain. In 2011 George W. Bush cancelled a trip to
Switzerland because a complaint had been filed in a Geneva court against him. Bush
has admitted that he ordered waterboarding, considered a war crime under the
Geneva Convention on Torture. <br clear="all">
<b> </b>Not only did Bush’s
prosecution of the war undermine our moral standing in the world, it also led
to the deaths of 4,502 U. S. service men and women. Although U. S. officials
were forbidden from tallying Iraqi fatalities, estimates run from 180,000 to 1
million.<br clear="all">
The 32,223 wounded Americans
(many of them severely injured) has put a huge burden on the Veterans
Administration even with increased funding. On average 20 Iraq and Afghanistan
War veterans take their lives every day. <br clear="all">
<b> </b>Finally, there is the
issue of billions and billions of dollars spent on this tragic and unnecessary
war. A report by Reuters estimated that the cost, including veterans’ benefits,
is $2.2 trillion, which would grow to over $4 trillion over the next four
decades.<br clear="all">
The GOP Congress has done
nine investigations of Benghazi, but there has been no comprehensive
investigation of the Iraq War. Instead
of yet again harassing Clinton, why doesn’t Congress put Bush, Cheney, and
Rumsfeld in the hot seat?<br clear="all">
Nick Gier of Moscow taught
philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. Read all of his columns about the Iraq War on
the appropriate links at <a href="http://www.NickGier.com">www.NickGier.com</a>.</span><b><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.95px">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"> </span></p><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:16px;line-height:18.4px;text-indent:48px"><br></span></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="height:auto;width:auto"> <div> <div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt"><div><span style="font-size:13.3333px">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. </span><br style="font-size:13.3333px"><br style="font-size:13.3333px"><span style="font-size:13.3333px">-Greek proverb</span></div><div><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
<br><br></div></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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