9/11 and Iraq

[jake-the-peg]

If 9/11 hadn't happened Would the Iraq war still have occured?

Perhaps this should be in History but with the Baha Mousa inquirey and all the 10 years on stuff going on it seems relevant

Not making any point - just interested in opinions and in particular why

[Gromit]

Yes.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and it was opportunism on Bush's administration to link the two events (even though there was no link).

Iraq was unfinished business (from the Gulf war). It had a leader not friendly towards the west. It had vast underground lakes of oil. In other words, it was a perfect target.

If 9/11 had not happened, another excuse to take the country would have been found.

[LazyGun]

Not sure - I think that the "war on terror" foreign and military policy inspired to a large degree by the events of 9/11 was needed to justify to the UN and US and global public opinion the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Without that figleaf of justification, it is difficult to see the UN sanctioning what was effectively military intercession to effect regime change.

There was plenty of backstory though, dating back to Bush Sr in the early 1990s, and it is difficult not to see the whole sequence of events as a means of accessing iraq oil and installing a regime more willing to co-operate with the West. On balance, I think that, without 9/11, Bush Jrs desire to finish what his dad started and the US hawkish foreign policy would have been insufficient on their own to gain any sort of support for military intervention, and the 2003 invasion probably would not have happened.

[rov1100]

Its amazing to think that there were no Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq or Afghanistan before the two wars which we blundered into.

The war in Aghanistan only help to move Bin Ladin from Afghaniistan over the border into Pakistan. So now Pakistan becomes a potential enemy and drones are deployed almost on a weekly basis to kill insurgents.

Iraq is still causing problems.

Maybe dictators are not so bad after all...at least they keep their own population in check.

[Gromit]

Rov1100

// No al qaeda in Afghanistan before the war? //

I think you will find there were.

[LazyGun]

@Rov - Not sure I could go along with the idea that "Dictatorships are a good thing because they keep the people in check" - Aren't you forgetting the personal misery that such dictators force the majority of their own subjects to live in, coupled with the fear of violence or imprisonment that such dictatorships use as tools of repression?

We who are fortunate enough to live in democracies, free ( for the most part) from such acts of state repression should never sanction tyranny of others just because it might make us slightly safer. Thats immoral.

[Gromit]

It wasn't in fact 9/11 which formed the excuse for the Irqi war, it was the fictional Weapons of Mass Destruction. It used our fear of 9/11 type events to make us believe in the non existant WMDs and the threat they posed (even though it wasn't a real threat), to convince public opinion that a pre-emptive invasion was justified (when it wasn't).

[tamborine]

If Iraq had not invaded Kuwait.......if if if

[Gromit]

// If Iraq had not invaded Kuwait.. //

...there would be no permanent airbases in Saudi Arabia, which is al qaeda's major beef. Without airbases in the region, the two wars would have been virtually impossible to fight, or at least considerably more difficult to execute.

[youngmafbog]

surprised to not hear from R1 on this one, or is he still banned despite it being your anti war rethoric he was bashing not the pilot?

[rich47]

Who was it who said that dictatorships are the only true democracies because they only exist as long as the people let them?