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Comment by divbyzer0 | Hacker News Reader

It was likely suppressed as it would have drawn attention away from Iraq, and the insinuated link between Iraq and 9-11.

The fallback argument was WMD, bring democracy and prosperity.

Instead we got ISIS.

I was very surprised that this was released as it adds to the evidence that the decision to attack Iraq and to dismantle its security services was based on lies and deception.

The timing of the release, when the repercussions of creating political and military instability in the region are becoming more frequent in Europe and the US is what surprises me the most. Perhaps the US has reduced its energy dependence on the middle east sufficiently to begin focusing on Saudi Arabia?

With this release and the Chilcot report, the leaders of US/UK have created a serious deficit in credibility and trust.

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> With this release and the Chilcot report, the leaders of US/UK have created a serious deficit in credibility and trust.

I don't feel any different before / after. As far as I'm concerned the whole thing was a set-up from day #1 (the Iraq war, not 9/11, obviously), after Dr. Kelly's death and the Plame affair there was very little doubt we were being railroaded.

I personally think there is enough evidence to at least begin inquiry into the possibility of foreknowledge within the Bush administration and/or some US intelligence agencies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-k...

There is an interesting book by a former US prosecutor arguing that there is a case for charging G.W. Bush with murder:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prosecution_of_George_W._B...

It wouldn't surprise me if there are private prosecutions of Tony Blair in the UK along similar lines [NB I don't think there is any chance of an actual prosecution of GWB in the US].

ISIS' rise to prominence happened under Obama, a long time after the invasion of Iraq.

ISIS' rise to prominence happened under Obama, a long time after the invasion of Iraq.

Absolutely true, technically. Also a completely useless and misleading statement.

The ISIS group splintered and grew out of the Al-Qaeda in Iraq after its defeat during the Anbar Awakening[1]. Ironically, the Iraqi goverment's behaviour towards the awakening groups[2] directly contributed to this.

Many of the same people involved in Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Anbar Awakening groups as well as the Ba'ath party ended up fighting for ISIS.

There is plenty of blame to go around, but the range of possible actions and outcomes Obama had was much smaller compared to that Bush had.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anbar_Awakening

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Iraq

ISIS could only rise to prominence because of the power-vacuum the Iraq war left behind.

The power vaccuum happened when the troops were withdrawn.

The troops would have been withdrawn sooner or later anyway, this was something that was known before the Iraq war was even started. Unless you want to argue that the US had plans for a permanent occupation of Iraq after getting rid of Saddam.

Please do not try to re-write history in a way that suits your narrative, it is pointless and counterproductive.

Define "permanent" and "occupation". You mean like the way the U.S. still has troops in Europe after 75 years, and Korea after 60? Do those count as "occupations"?

There's a lot of room between keeping support troops on hand and a full-scale military occupation.

US troops do absolutely nothing on Korea and Europe other than as stand-by and a geopolitical deterrent. The troops in Iraq were acting as the fighting force for the official regime. These are very VERY different things. US toops were occupying Iraq, they are not occupying South Korea.

That's more or less my point, isn't it? It would have been possible to (attempt to) hand over responsibility to the Iraqi military while still keeping troops there in case things went south (as they did).

This NYT article has some very interesting background:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/middleeast/united-st...

After reading the article and learning some of the intricacies I really don't feel ready to blame anyone in particular. It seems to be a "system outcome" of the interactions and the (local) conditions.

Let's not forget a lot of Irakis wanted the US to leave, fully and completely:

> Possibilities being discussed are for some troops to return in 2012, an option preferred by some Iraqi politicians who want to claim credit for ending what many here still call an occupation,...

That "some" is about the politicians, the mood in the streets wasn't just "some" people who wanted all foreign soldiers to leave, if I remember anything from the news we heard at that time.

Given the state of the Iraqi military, things would have gone south immediately, and the troops would never leave.

Would they, though? I think it is a plausible argument that things would have been less likely to go south if the opposing force knew the U.S. forces were there to step in if necessary. While things might still have ended badly, I think there's no question that pulling the U.S. troops out so soon made the collapse a certainty.

At the very least, ISIS would not have been armed to the same extent by fleeing Iraqi security forces.

You only get to shift blame to your predecessor if you predict and warn about the unavoidable problems and state your plan for how to handle it.

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