Why Did We Invade Iraq?

It remains one of the more pressing questions of our time. Daniel Drezner locates Richard Rose's account of Bush's take on this:

When the conversation became too academic, the President even began leafing through a book of mine that I had given him that ends with a chapter about America's victory over Iraq in Kuwait, a victory that left his father riding the crest of a wave--after which there was only a one-way option down.

The President listened far more than he spoke and when he did it was to make simple points that many critics dodge, such as: We had to do something after 19 young people blew up 3,000 Americans.

One might have thought that stabilizing Afghanistan under non-Taliban leadership and capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and Ayman al-Zawahiri would have counted as "something."

Comments

Americans elected, twice, likely one of the most intellectually deficient politicians available to be President. Watching Bush, analyzing his speech, mannerisms, diction and command of the language constantly leaves me perplexed as to how this all happened. You can see him flailing about, barely able to keep his nose above water, any time he's confronted with a question beyond the complexity of "What day it is today?" Dumb as a post might be too harsh. But not by much.

Posted by steve duncan | October 18, 2007 7:51 AM

"19 young people" -- he makes it sound like a band of hippy delinquents.

Posted by Ryan | October 18, 2007 7:54 AM

When you look at that question it is hard not to start thinking about war crimes.

Posted by theCoach | October 18, 2007 7:59 AM

When the conversation became too academic, the President even began leafing through a book of mine . . .

I'm sorry, is that plausible?

Posted by southpaw | October 18, 2007 8:09 AM

"I'm sorry, is that plausible?"

Maybe it had pictures.

Posted by Betty Cracker | October 18, 2007 8:13 AM

I know we've heard versions of this account before, but it's still amazing since it makes him sound retarded, delusional, or both. We have to react to 9/11 by zapping thousands of Iraqis who weren't involved in it, all to get a dictator who also wasn't involved in it. This shit is crazy with a capital C.

Posted by scott | October 18, 2007 8:25 AM

Maybe we should abandon trying to figure out why Bush invaded and spend more time pressuring the Dems to get us out of Iraq.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Posted by chrisfl | October 18, 2007 8:36 AM

I always thought that Bush saved such platitudes for when he was in front of the cameras and speaking to a compliant media and unquestioning public. However, now we have an example of his saying something so obviously stupid in front of a professional academic. Does this mean that Bush really believed what he said or that he considers Rose to be as stupid and as fawning as he thinks the press and public are?

Posted by Tyro | October 18, 2007 8:42 AM

When you look at that question it is hard not to start thinking about war crimes.

Yah think?

There are only two intellectually consistent possible answers tot he question of whether the top officials are guilty of war crimes:

(1) Yes, or

(2) There are no such things, there is no such thing as "international law" and the term is an oxymoron.

One guess which of those positions that I hold, but the second position is, while IMO abhorrent, at least defensible on a purely intellectual basis. But that's the only defense they have.

But even if one is inclined to bend over backwards to give the administration the benefit of the doubt in terms of taking their motivations at face value, and of assuming that (with regard to torture, nothing worse has happened than has already been admitted by the administration, they are unquestionably guilty of war crimes as defined under international law.

Posted by LarryM | October 18, 2007 8:51 AM

When the conversation became too academic, the President even began leafing through a book of mine . . .

I'm sorry, is that plausible?

You have the most knowledgeable experts in country flown in for a meeting. They discuss the most important issue that's arisen in the past twenty years, an issue that's critical to your career and to all of Western civilization, or so you believe. During the meeting you get bored and start reading a book. Sounds plausible to me.

Posted by RSA | October 18, 2007 8:58 AM

"Leafing through", not "reading". He was just idly flipping the pages.

Posted by ajay | October 18, 2007 9:03 AM

We had to do something after 19 young people blew up 3,000 Americans.

I wish he'd just gone to Disneyworld--it would have been a lot less expensive in money and lives, and it would have had as much to do with 9/11 as invading Iraq.

Posted by rea | October 18, 2007 9:13 AM

There is a simple, but far from benign, answer to the question that is dismissed by the press as too simplistic, but here it is:
(1) The 9/11 hijackers were arabs, and the majority of Iraqis are arabs;
(2) The 9/11 hijackers were Muslims, and the Iraqis are Muslims.
(3) Therefore, Iraq attacked us.
Pursuant to this (bigoted) equation, the conclusion would justify a US attack on Iraq.

Posted by DC | October 18, 2007 9:50 AM

The hijackers came from our "allies" Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. who are undemocratic and are not serving their people. After the Cold War ended, the Middle East was a mess b/c it was a major battle ground and front in the Cold War.

Saddam was one of the worst dictators in the Middle East and had stacks and stacks of UN resolutions against him which he was violating.

Regime change in Iraq is the beginning of the process of democratization of the Middle East. It will take a while.

Democratization is the only way the Middle East will stop producing kids who sincerely believe killing Americans will get them into Heaven.

Paradoxically, democratization won't produce things America especially likes, the election of Hamas for instance.

Bush has been slipping back into realist mode, which no doubt encourages MY and the commenters here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/world/africa/16cairo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Memo From Egypt: On Human Rights, U.S. Seems to Give Egypt a Pass
"In Egypt, there had been a quiet, and grudging acknowledgment that the marginal improvements in the political dynamics here were driven by pressure from Washington in the past few years. Some demonstrations were tolerated. The chanting of slogans against President Hosni Mubarak was also tolerated. In 2005 and part of 2006, even leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood said privately that Washington’s pressure was helping.

But that is over. In recent days the group Human Rights Watch has called on Egypt to free two men active in promoting the rights of the nation’s tiny Shiite Muslim minority. The organization said the arrests appeared to be part of a broad crackdown “on Egyptian rights activists, journalists, and other government critics.”

"Critics of the United States acknowledge that Washington faces resentment no matter what it does. It gets criticized for helping, and for not helping. In a public letter to Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, for example, an Iranian dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji, recently explained how Washington’s pro-democracy efforts — regardless of their intent — were not helping in Iran.

“The Bush administration, for its part, by approving a fund for democracy assistance in Iran, which has in fact been largely spent on official institutions and media affiliated with the U.S. government, has made it easy for the Iranian regime to describe its opponents as mercenaries of the U.S. and to crush them with impunity,” Mr. Ganji wrote."

Posted by Peter K. | October 18, 2007 10:15 AM

I love it when the trolls (ie Peter K) ooze out. So what's going on in Iraq is "democratization," huh? Sectarian militia gangs duking it out, parliament barely able to to be in session because of the violence, millions of Iraqi either fleeing the country or internally displaced, every day in Baghdad with a new harvest of bodies, savagely and wantonly tortured. I love the nice, clean, sweet-smelling euphemisms dreamed up by these guys. We invaded a country that was no direct threat to us and unleashed a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and almost 4000 of our own people. Yet Peter K and Ms. Rice can give us airy-fairy words like "democratization" and "birth pangs." What sanctimonious horseshit. I read content-less arguments like these that take no account of the grim human reality that we're responsible for and really despair. The Middle East and the people who live there, for Peter K and our own government, are nothing more than ciphers and abstractions that are less real than their own delusions about their ability to remake societies about which they know nothing. The arrogance and disdain here for the lives of others is sickening.

Posted by scott | October 18, 2007 10:32 AM

Re Peter K's comments:

1) "After the Cold War ended, the Middle East was a mess b/c it was a major battle ground and front in the Cold War."
It was a mess because the US Government has intervened --both openly and covertly --for decades on behalf of the oil companies.

2) "Saddam was one of the worst dictators in the Middle East and had stacks and stacks of UN resolutions against him which he was violating."

Our President has VIOLATED the most fundamental
law of the United Nations -- that a country may NOT attack another country except in self-defense and under imminent danger of being attacked. Bush's defenders keep ignoring this fact. Just as they keep ignoring the 100,000+ Iraqis who have died because of this unjustified aggression.
Bush has done the equivalent of shooting an unarmed man out of "bare fear" -- an unjustified attack -- and has also taken out many innocent bystanders.

3) "Regime change in Iraq is the beginning of the process of democratization of the Middle East. It will take a while."

"Democratization" is a lie that special interests use to cover their predatory agendas. Bush doesn't give a hairy rat's ass about democracy in America --why should he care about spreading it in the Middle East.

"Democracy" implies some respect for collective decision-making based upon informed consent -- Bush has gone out of his way --on multiple occasions -- to lie to the American people. Starting with his explanation of why Sept 11 occurred -- that it was because they "hate our freedom". The most casual inquiry shows that what Bin Laden/Al Qaeda "hated" was the US Government (a) killing 600,000 Iraqi children in the 1990s by bombing water plants and then banning import of water purification materials under sanctions (b) US providing Israel with hundreds of F16s and Apache helicopters so Sharon could bomb Palestinian civilians --including dropping a bomb on a crowded Gaza apartment building in the middle of the night and killing 6 children (b) US support for a Saudi kleptocracy which has joined with the US Oil Companies in stealing the only wealth the Saudi People have -- via a deeply oppressive dictatorship that ensures the people of Arabia will be condemmed to eternal poverty when the oil runs out.

4) All of the above facts were suppressed by our corporate-owned news media -- which tells you just how much "democracy" we have in the USA.

Posted by Don Williams | October 18, 2007 10:40 AM

Saddam was one of the worst dictators in the Middle East and had stacks and stacks of UN resolutions against him which he was violating.

During most of that time he was one of our allies in the Middle East.

Posted by croatoan | October 18, 2007 12:03 PM

Why did invade Iraq? The real answer to that is so shockingly cynical and depraved that hardly anyone is prepared to offer it, yet its the only one consistent with the facts: He did it for domestic political advantage.

Posted by Lee | October 18, 2007 12:41 PM

We had to do something after 19 young people blew up 3,000 Americans.

Isn't that what Kissinger said? "Screw the humanitarian, freedom-spreading, middle-east-transforming blather. The US simply had to shock-and-awe the arabs to show them who the boss is!"

For that, Iraq was good as any other country.

Posted by Patrick | October 18, 2007 1:15 PM

"I love it when the trolls (ie Peter K) ooze out"

You sound pretty upset. Look, South Korea took a while to develop into a stable democracy after war and (US-backed) dictatorship. That's just one example. As the guy who prompted MY's blog post, writes

"'It takes time for armed groups to exhaust their hopes that violence serves their ends and consider a political settlement. In Northern Ireland it took 38 years.

The glimmer of good news in the parable was also the bad news--peace and stability is eventually achievable--but warring Iraqis will do more to determine when and how this happens than will outsiders, such as decision-makers in Washington."

Have patience people. Many foreigners hate America but many love it, like Borat in the film of the same name. The US is the land of Baywatch and CJ (Pamela Anderson)! A little peace and democracy and they won't be flying planes into skyscrapers. That was Bush's point.

Posted by Peter K. | October 18, 2007 2:01 PM

Why did invade Iraq? The real answer to that is so shockingly cynical and depraved that hardly anyone is prepared to offer it, yet its the only one consistent with the facts: He did it for domestic political advantage.

Lee -- Different people in the administration had (and have) different purposes with this war/occupation, but for Bush, I've come to believe that was indeed his chief reason.

For whatever it's worth, the (conservative) historian John Lukacs came to the exact same conclusion in his book "A New Republic" roughly three years ago

Posted by M. Hunter | October 18, 2007 2:37 PM

A little peace and democracy and they won't be flying planes into skyscrapers. That was Bush's point.

Yes, a very stupid point. Many of the terrorists were/are based in (peaceful, democratic) Europe. They don't want peace and democracy, they want war and theocracy. Forcing democracy on them (especially when it's only a euphemism of something else) is only going to embolden them. Or didn't you notice, moron.

Posted by Bill | October 18, 2007 2:50 PM

Why did invade Iraq? The real answer to that is so shockingly cynical and depraved that hardly anyone is prepared to offer it, yet its the only one consistent with the facts: He did it for domestic political advantage.

A less simplistic way of putting this would be, he didn't not do it for domestic political advantage. But it can't have been the sole reason, unless he's a total moron. Besides he already had all the political advantage he could ask for after 9/11.

Posted by Bill | October 18, 2007 2:53 PM

bill beat me to it, peter k, but let me second him: you can't say something much stupider than "a little peace and democracy and they won't be flying planes into skyscrapers."

because, of course, when the oklahoma city terrorist bombing took place, we didn't have peace and democracy in america?

when the baader-meinhopf gang was blowing things up in west germany, they didn't have peace and democracy?

terrorism is a tactic; the idea that its power as a tactic goes away if your country is a democracy is immensely ill-informed.

and that's before we even get to the way that the invasion of iraq has, in peter k's mind, morphed into a 40-year project to make iraq the south korea of the middle east, a project that, of course, was never mentioned when bush was rushing around talking about the smoking gun being a nuclear cloud....

Posted by howard | October 18, 2007 3:26 PM

"and that's before we even get to the way that the invasion of iraq has, in peter k's mind, morphed into a 40-year project to make iraq the south korea of the middle east, a project that, of course, was never mentioned when bush was rushing around talking about the smoking gun being a nuclear cloud...."

Bush couldn't mention it, because Americans want a quiet life and don't want to pay taxes to nation-build half way across the globe, especially not for dusky foreigners who supposedly have always been killing each other. Iraq was done for domestic politics? The 2006 mid-terms is pretty stark evidence this is not true.

"terrorism is a tactic; the idea that its power as a tactic goes away if your country is a democracy is immensely ill-informed."

What about Northern Ireland?

Posted by Peter K. | October 18, 2007 3:41 PM

peter k, if, as you say, bush really all along had this brilliant notion that iraq becoming a rule-of-law-based democracy was somehow, any decade now, going to end the problem of jihadist terrorism (for which there is no evidence, mind you, but i digress), but simply didn't want to try and convince the american public of its brilliance, then why should we care?

all you're doing is saying that the man lied to the american public about why we undertook this splendid little adventure. meanwhile, now that the idea is on the table, we can call it what it is: profoundly stupid and totally without merit on a cost-benefit basis.

if you'd care to make an argument that it isn't profoundly stupid and with merit on a cost-benefit basis, have at it.

but your analogy to northern ireland suggests that you aren't capable of making that argument. what about northern ireland indeed? there were elections taking place in northern ireland even as terrorism was taking place in northern ireland. with the exception of the "troubles," ireland was at peace. exactly how does the experience of northern ireland tell us anyting of value for iraq? one really would like to know why right-wingers keep trying out arugments of this shallowness.

Posted by howard | October 18, 2007 4:11 PM

Re PeterK's comment "Iraq was done for domestic politics? The 2006 mid-terms is pretty stark evidence this is not true."
------------
Actually, no. You can plan to gain an advantage but still step in dogshit.

Try to court Israeli Billionaire Haim Saban away from the Democrats for example -- to the point that he only gives the Democrats $80,000 instead of $15 Million -- only to have Haim flip back to the Democrats a year later.

Why? Well, as Haim explained to Haaretz, Bush has been the best friend Israel has ever had but Bush no longer has any political capital. Not enough to now wage war on the next enemy: Iran. So now it's time to bring in a new shabbos goy -- Hillary.

The similar thing happens in corporations. To cut costs, The owners bring in a hatchet guy who "shows leadership" by laying off a large number of long time employees.

But the corporation then has to fire the hatchet man -- because the residual work force hates him and won't work hard for him but will give their loyalty to a "savior" -- a new guy who starts the old con of "we're all part of a family" all over again.

Posted by Don Williams | October 18, 2007 4:22 PM

What about Northern Ireland?

Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis.

Posted by josephdietrich | October 18, 2007 4:26 PM

Howard

"all you're doing is saying that the man lied to the american public about why we undertook this splendid little adventure. meanwhile, now that the idea is on the table, we can call it what it is: profoundly stupid and totally without merit on a cost-benefit basis.all you're doing is saying that the man lied to the american public about why we undertook this splendid little adventure. meanwhile, now that the idea is on the table, we can call it what it is: profoundly stupid and totally without merit on a cost-benefit basis."

Yeah I'll agree, they didn't make the case very well. And they didn't execute the plan very well, to put it mildly.

" cost-benefit basis" is very right-wing and conservative. Why stop the genocide in Darfur when we can use the money on policemen and firemen at home? It's really, really sad to see the so-called left talk this way. It's nativist and borderline racist.
It's nationalist in the worst way possible.

Posted by Peter K. | October 18, 2007 4:32 PM

Peter K, you obviously don't understand cost-benefit analysis.

You look at the costs, you look at the benefits, you determine whether they are proportional. period.

what you're talking about is zero-sum analysis: if i spend money on darfur, i can't spend the money on something else.

since that's not what i'm talking about, you can take your "borderine racist" and "nativist" remarks and stuff 'em. i don't mind critical back-and-forth in the slightest; i mind people who don't know what they are talking about making ill-informed remarks that make no sense.

so the cost-benefit question is very simple: is the amazing amount of blood and (borrowed) treasure being poured into iraq in any way improving american national security commensurately.

and it ain't.

there is nothing "racist" about noting that.

and no, sorry, bush didn't "not make the case very well." he didn't "make the case" at all. he made a case that iraq was on the verge of nuclear weapons that they were going to hand over to the terrorists and blow us all up if we didn't invade immediately.

the case was a lie, but he made it very, very well: it's the case he wanted to make. that the man lives in a fantasy world and now thinks he made a different case, or doesn't mind (since, after all, he thought it was so frickin' funny to make a little film about looking for the wmds around his office) that he made a phony case, or whatever his motivation may be is neither here nor there.

calling it a case not "made very well" is simply borderline delusional.

Posted by howard | October 18, 2007 4:48 PM

Actually, cost benefit is nationalist in the best way. It would suggest, for instance, that we measure a war that has killed nearly a million people and displaced three million to an equivalent amount of money spent on, say, economic aid to developing world. Morality is not separate from the world of costs and benefits, but implied within it.

The idea that Iraq has encouraged democratization seems to exist in your head alone, Peter K., since, from Egypt to Libya to Saudi Arabia to the elections in Iraq in 2004, there's zip evidence of democratization. And if that term isn't entirely hollow, many parts of Iraq have suffered from actual curtailment of freedom when Saddam was in power, as incredible as that seems - thus, the festering Talibanization of Basra and much of Southern Iraq.

However, if your answer to all the disasters in Iraq is to point to a long distance future and various not so relevant analogies, anybody can do that. Leaving Iraq alone would have led to the downfall of Saddam - look at Romania! - and the sorting out of the ruling elite over a period of time, with little loss of life. And as for the almost childish argument that in the long run, look what happened to mexico, bolivia, or pongo pongo, well, anybody can base arguments on a future that hasn't happened, in which tooth fairies become the mainstays of the economy - but it is an argument that is almost painfully ridiculous.

In fact, producing a huge exile community at the heart of the Middle East has been done once before - in 1948. Hmm, wonder how that worked out?

Posted by roger | October 18, 2007 4:59 PM

" Leaving Iraq alone would have led to the downfall of Saddam - look at Romania! - and the sorting out of the ruling elite over a period of time, with little loss of life"

Easy to say, hard to disprove, except that's what was argued after Gulf War I and Saddam hung on to power through Madeline Albright's sanctions which killed 500k Iraqi children.

"thus, the festering Talibanization of Basra and much of Southern Iraq."

Actually Iran and China are building power grids in the south. I thought Iraq was now a US colony?

Iraqi Contracts With Iran and China Concern U.S.
"BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 — Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/world/middleeast/18grid.html?ref=world

Boy, the US isn't a very effective imperial superpower....

Posted by Peter K. | October 18, 2007 5:08 PM

LarryM

There are only two intellectually consistent possible answers tot he question of whether the top officials are guilty of war crimes:
(1) Yes, or
(2) There are no such things, there is no such thing as "international law" and the term is an oxymoron.

Oh please. What "war crimes" are these top officials guilty of? State your charges and cite the relevant provisions of "international law."

By the way, were Churchill and Roosevelt guilty of war crimes for the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo? How about Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Do you think those "top officials" should have been hauled into court at Nuremberg and tried for war crimes alongside Goering and Speer?

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 5:13 PM

howard,

so the cost-benefit question is very simple: is the amazing amount of blood and (borrowed) treasure being poured into iraq in any way improving american national security commensurately.

This is nonsense. Why is "american national security" the only potential benefit in the cost-benefit calculation?

Even Bill Clinton apparently believes that more Iraqis may have died if we had not invaded and occupied Iraq. Why isn't that a potential benefit that should be factored in to the calculation?

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 5:18 PM

" with the exception of the "troubles," ireland was at peace. exactly how does the experience of northern ireland tell us anyting of value for iraq? one really would like to know why right-wingers keep trying out arugments of this shallowness."

A) I'm not a rightwinger. Politics (i.e. democracy) plus improving economic conditions helped end terrorist bombing. People who once would have become bombers, ended up doing something else. Why is this so hard to understand?

I guess the old addage is true:

"Winning an argument on the internet is like winning the special olympics, even if you win you are still a retard!"

Posted by Peter K. | October 18, 2007 5:35 PM

Even Bill Clinton apparently believes that more Iraqis may have died if we had not invaded and occupied Iraq.

EVEN BILL CLINTON. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yes, there's no man alive who opposed war more vigorously, and told the truth about Iraq more forthrightly, than BILL CLINTON.

Oh man, that's funny. It's even funnier that you don't even know what Clinton actually said, you fucking moron.

Posted by grh | October 18, 2007 5:43 PM

I'll resist the tu quoque on Peter K.'s incoherent last remark, and note that he hasn't presented any argument to defend his analogies, and the intellectual low wattage of bringing in a contract with China regarding electricity to discuss the issue of what has happened to the political atmosphere of Basra is simply bizarre. Many an american corporation was prepared to make contracts with the Taliban too, but this is irrelevant to any matter under discussion.

I do think it is interesting that PK's disdain for cost benefit analysis is amply born out in his comments, since he evidently thinks that 500,000 Iraqis dying over ten years due to sanctions is worse than a million dying in five years due to war.

Posted by roger | October 18, 2007 6:41 PM

Sigh.

Once again, people are reading into the words of a guy who DOES NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK more than is there.

Bush is ARROGANT. He does not care what you think about him, and he does not care what he says to you.

He babbles because he does not care.

Also he CAN'T tell you the REAL reasons he does things, but it's obvious even to him that nobody would accept those real reasons.

So he babbles. He makes stuff up. He resorts to "bullshit".

This is common in political leaders. John F. Kennedy used to make up statistics from thin air to answer questions at press conferences.

It's an act. It's intended to show "Hey, I'm the alpha male, you're the beta follower, you don't question me about anything! If you do, I'll lie to you - and you'll lie down under it!"

And just about everybody does, including Matt.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 6:49 PM

that 500,000 Iraqis dying over ten years due to sanctions is worse than a million dying in five years due to war.

Where are you getting these numbers from? The U.N. estimated that more than 500,000 Iraqi children under 5 died because of the sanctions just through 1995. The sanctions continued for another 8 years after that. And this is just children under 5, not total Iraqi civilian deaths.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 6:54 PM

"He did it for domestic political advantage."

Sigh.

No, he did not. While his ratings might have been down before or after 9/11, attacking Iraq did nothing for that except temporarily.

Also, the plan to attack Iraq was in discussion within DAYS of his inauguration! How the hell did he need "political advantage" after he just became President?!

It was done to implement a scheme for INTERNATIONAL political power based on the schemes of the neocons, and for lining the pockets of his cronies in the oil business, the military-industrial complex, the financial community, and who knows what other war criminals and war profiteers.

And, yes, if he could get local political advantage out of it, he would do that, too. But that was not the primary motivation.

And all the acts taken to destroy the civil rights of Americans, while also done for political advantage, were also done for the purpose of establishing and keeping state power.

But the fact is it was not done - as a PRIMARY reason - for narrow political advantage for the Republicans.

People who believe Iraq is all about national politics just don't get it. If it was all about national politics - just beating the Democrats - we'd have been out of there two or three years ago! Bush would have declared "victory" and left. Where would that have left the Democrats? With nothing to complain about, that's what.

Bush isn't leaving Iraq despite the low poll ratings for him and the Republicans because a) he doesn't want to; and b) he can't - both because of the overall objectives he's following there - which have little to do with national politics and everything to do with money and power.

Oh, I suppose you could say that getting along with the war profiteers is a matter of "national politics". Sure it is. It's the source of the politician's power - taking bribes and doing what the rich want done. But that is NOT the same as saying that it's all about the elections, which is usually what is meant when one says "domestic politics." It isn't.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 7:02 PM

Peter K bloviates as follows:

"Many foreigners hate America but many love it, like Borat in the film of the same name. The US is the land of Baywatch and CJ (Pamela Anderson)! A little peace and democracy and they won't be flying planes into skyscrapers. That was Bush's point."

This is one of the more ridiculous statements posted here lately.

There is ZERO connection between foreigners liking Pam Anderson's tits (and here Muslims actually might have a problem) and the actions of the US state in relation to their own states and their own economic situation.

Foreigners can love Americans and American culture (although not all do - even a lot of Americans don't like American culture, after all) and STILL hate the United States government for its actions in the ME.

Also, you don't get a "little peace and democracy" by invading a country, killing up to a million of its civilians (especially in a society that allows revenge, like much of Muslim society), wrecking its infrastructure, stomping around like Nazi storm troopers and treating the local populace with contempt as "benighted hajis" and expecting to get anywhere.

Really stupid post.

There is only one way to get people to adopt democracy - prove it works by not being an asshole democratic state. Be a rich, peaceful democratic country whose people represent themselves well when overseas and which doesn't throw its weight around with its "moral superiority".

Bush and the rest - including all the "Truman Democrats" - fail miserably on that score.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 7:11 PM

You really gotta laugh at how these right wing nuts can't even do basic reasoning.

To wit:

"Actually Iran and China are building power grids in the south. I thought Iraq was now a US colony?

Iraqi Contracts With Iran and China Concern U.S."

What part of "Concern U.S." doesn't Peter get?

Then he says the US isn't a very effective imperial superpower...

News flash, Peter. That is precisely the point.

How do you get "a little peace and democracy" into a country if you're a "not very effective imperial superpower"?

It's amazing - this guy can't even see that his own arguments support the opposite of what he's claiming.

If the US isn't a "very effective imperial superpower", THEN STOP TRYING TO BE ONE.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 7:18 PM

Mixner the torture expert weighs in:

"What "war crimes" are these top officials guilty of? State your charges and cite the relevant provisions of "international law.""

Start here, moron:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/lawindex.htm

You'll like this one from that page:

"A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferenccz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars - Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq."

" Ferenccz believes the most important development toward that end would be the effective implementation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands. The court was established in 2002 and has been ratified by more than 100 countries. It is currently being used to adjudicate cases stemming from conflict in Darfur, Sudan and civil wars in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But on May 6, 2002 - less than a year before the invasion of Iraq - the Bush administration withdrew the United States' signature on the treaty and began pressuring other countries to approve bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender U.S. nationals to the ICC. Three months later, George W. Bush signed a new law prohibiting any U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The law went so far as to include a provision authorizing the president to "use all means necessary and appropriate," including a military invasion of the Netherlands, to free U.S. personnel detained or imprisoned by the ICC."

Take your fucking torture ass somewhere else.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 7:27 PM

Here's another one for Mixner from GlobeLaw.com:

‘Preventive War’ and International Law After Iraq
http://www.globelaw.com/Iraq/Preventive_war_after_iraq.htm

"The International Commission of Jurists denounced the attack as an illegal invasion of Iraq which amounts to a war of aggression. [26] Sixteen senior teachers of international law from the United Kingdom and France [27] wrote a statement stating that “[o]n the basis of the information publicly available, there is no justification under international law for the use of military force against Iraq…. Before military action can lawfully be undertaken against Iraq, the security council must have indicated its clearly expressed assent. It has not yet done so. A decision to undertake military action in Iraq without proper security council authorisation will seriously undermine the international rule of law.” 31 Canadian law professors said that US attack “would be a fundamental breach of international law and would seriously threaten the integrity of the international legal order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War,” [28] and 43 Australian legal experts said that the initiation of a war against Iraq by the self-styled ‘coalition of the willing’ would be a fundamental violation of international law and said that the United States doctrine or preemptive self defence contradicts the cardinal principle of the modern international legal order and the primary rationale for the founding of the UN after World War II - the prohibition of the unilateral use of force to settle disputes. [29] On March 11, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that "[i]f the U.S. and others were to go outside the Council and take military action it would not be in conformity with the Charter." [30]

Briefly stated, it is clear from Article 2(4), Article 42 and Article 51 of the UN Charter that Member States are to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State. Force may only be used if specifically approved by the Security Council or proportionate force may be used in self defence when a threat is imminent. In the latter case, in the words of the Nuremberg Tribunal, “preventive action in foreign territory is justified only in case of ‘an instant and overwhelming necessity for self-defense, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation’.” [31]"

Have a nice day, Mixner...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 7:33 PM

Hack,

"... both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" war ..."

Ha ha ha ha ha! "Starting aggressive war." Is that the formal charge?

You didn't answer the question about Churchill and Roosevelt and Truman. Are they war criminals too, in your world?

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 7:35 PM

Mixner - I'm getting the numbers from the Opinion Research Business poll, which is built on the Lancet survey, which used the techniques that the UN used to make its estimates of deaths from sanctions, except, of course, that the Lancet survey came from a much firmer data base and did not use Saddam's officials to help make the count. Matt Welch did an article about the sanctions deaths, and noted:

"In August, 1995, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gave officials from the Iraqi Ministry of Health a questionnaire on child mortality, and asked them to conduct a survey in the capital city of Baghdad. On the basis of this five-day, 693-household, Iraq-controlled study, the FAO announced in November that "child mortality had increased nearly fivefold" since the era before sanctions. As embargo critic Richard Garfield, a public health specialist at Columbia University, noted in his own 1999 survey of under-five deaths, "The 1995 study's conclusions were subsequently withdrawn by the authors.... [Yet] their estimate of more than 500,000 excess child deaths due to the embargo is still often repeated by sanctions critics." -national post,

Those people who quote the UN survey blindly while pretending that the Lancet survey is full of holes are telling us, in essence, that they believe Saddam was tellin' the truth on this one, while survey techniques that have held true elsewhere are magically wrong in Iraq's case.

But grant for the moment that the sanction death toll is true. Let's see, how could you get that death toll down? How about - remove the sanctions! Or at least revamp them to remove the unwanted mortality effects. There is something totally brainless about quoting the toll of a sanction policy imposed by the U.S. to justify an invasion by the U.S. To make that argument, you need to do more than have drunk the koolaid, you need to have swallowed a koolaid factory.

Posted by roger | October 18, 2007 9:28 PM

Mixner - I'm getting the numbers from the Opinion Research Business poll, which is built on the Lancet survey, which used the techniques that the UN used to make its estimates of deaths from sanctions, except, of course, that the Lancet survey came from a much firmer data base and did not use Saddam's officials to help make the count. Matt Welch did an article about the sanctions deaths, and noted:

"In August, 1995, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gave officials from the Iraqi Ministry of Health a questionnaire on child mortality, and asked them to conduct a survey in the capital city of Baghdad. On the basis of this five-day, 693-household, Iraq-controlled study, the FAO announced in November that "child mortality had increased nearly fivefold" since the era before sanctions. As embargo critic Richard Garfield, a public health specialist at Columbia University, noted in his own 1999 survey of under-five deaths, "The 1995 study's conclusions were subsequently withdrawn by the authors.... [Yet] their estimate of more than 500,000 excess child deaths due to the embargo is still often repeated by sanctions critics." -national post,

Those people who quote the UN survey blindly while pretending that the Lancet survey is full of holes are telling us, in essence, that they believe Saddam was tellin' the truth on this one, while survey techniques that have held true elsewhere are magically wrong in Iraq's case.

But grant for the moment that the sanction death toll is true. Let's see, how could you get that death toll down? How about - remove the sanctions! Or at least revamp them to remove the unwanted mortality effects. There is something totally brainless about quoting the toll of a sanction policy imposed by the U.S. to justify an invasion by the U.S. To make that argument, you need to do more than have drunk the koolaid, you need to have swallowed a koolaid factory.

Posted by roger | October 18, 2007 9:32 PM

roger,

Mixner - I'm getting the numbers from the Opinion Research Business poll, which is built on the Lancet survey,

The ORB poll is not a scientific estimate and has not been published. Even the 2006 Lancet estimate was only about 650,000. The methodology of the Lancet studies has been strongly criticized by other reearchers. Most or all other independent estimates produce figures much lower than even the Lancet number, let alone the ORB one.

Those people who quote the UN survey blindly while pretending that the Lancet survey is full of holes are telling us, in essence, that they believe Saddam was tellin' the truth on this one, while survey techniques that have held true elsewhere are magically wrong in Iraq's case.

I don't "blindly" quote anything. Your carefully-truncated Matt Welch quote omits the fact that he goes on to say: "The other, far more credible source of the 500,000 number is a pair of 1999 UNICEF studies that estimated the under-5 mortality rates of both Iraqi regions based on interviews with a total of 40,000 households."

But the exact figure doesn't really matter to the point. Authoritative estimates put the number of deaths in the hundreds of thousands. And that is just for deaths of children under 5, and just for the period from the start of the sanctions to the mid or late 1990s. Large numbers of older children and adult Iraqi civilians, especially the elderly, also died as a result of the sanctions. All told, the sanctions likely caused as many or more Iraqi civilian deaths as have been caused by the invasion and occupation.

But grant for the moment that the sanction death toll is true. Let's see, how could you get that death toll down? How about - remove the sanctions!

The sanctions were removed after we invaded. I assume you mean "remove the sanctions, and take no military action." That would have returned to Saddam the power to pursue his genocidal policies against his own people, and his endless military aggression against his neighbors in the middle east.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 10:10 PM

Actually, Mixner, your idea that Lancet has been scientifically criticized is bogus. The strongest criticisms of the statistical model were by a man whose real problems were with the confidence interval, which he didn't seem to understand - the Delta thread has an exhausting discussion of this, at the end of which pro-war people re-assumed their blinkers.

As for Welch's article, you also skip the next paragraph - which substantially modifies the paragraph you quote, since, of course, the 'whole country' includes the North, which actually had improved health care, since it wasn't covered by the sanctions. Plus the sanction regime changed in 1997, so the continuing toll was not linear.

But I find most amusing the idea that removing the sancitons would have allowed Saddam to continue his genocidal ways, the proof of which is - the deaths from the sanctions. In fact, Saddam was not prevented by the sanctions from his genocidal ways, but by quite effective air power that shielded the north and that put a crimp in any operations in the South.

So - we have a Lancet survey that has survived much more scrutiny than the U.N survey. We have a U.N. survey that admittedly estimated over a territory that did not have a sanction regime; we have revamped sanctions from 1997 that lowered the death toll of the earlier regime; and we have no reason whatsoever to think that Saddam Hussein had the capability to pursue his genocidal policies against his own people" - a role that the U.S. has taken over quite well, initiating an occupation that has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did, and produced 3 million Iraqi refugees, which is comparable to the Rwanda massacres and larger than the number involved in the 1948 war in Palestine - the last time such a number of refugees ended up scattered through the Middle East.
But hell, who needs cost benefits when the warmongers have such big, big hearts? And that they have profited, by and large, hugely from the grossly distended expenditures on this criminal and unnecessary war is just, I guess, good luck - God shines his light on the virtuous!

As it happens, I actually thought the U.S. should devise better policies to make Saddam fall too. They would have included ending the sanctions on Iran - recognizing the Iranian government and establishing strong economic bonds with the country - and giving Northern Iraq three or four times the amount of foreign aid we were givin them, to establish an attractive alternative. These policies would have been aimed at increasing the dissatisfaction with Saddam felt by the often Ba'athist professional class, and would have taken time, but they were a much better bet to achieve a minor American foreign policy objective.

Posted by roger | October 18, 2007 10:43 PM

Re Mixner's comment "I assume you mean "remove the sanctions, and take no military action." That would have returned to Saddam the power to pursue his genocidal policies against his own people, and his endless military aggression against his neighbors in the middle east. "
---------------
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit!!

The purpose of bombing the water plants and to then use the dual-use excuse to block import of water purification materials was NOT to deal with a credible military threat.

Rather, it was a dirty, underhanded means to goad the Iraqi people into rebellion against Saddam Hussein --by forcing them and their children to drink polluted water. No other choice when your land is a desert.

It was not necessary to inflicit massive death and misery on the population of Iraq in order to deal with Hussein's military.

The fact that the US news media still refuses to inform Americans WHY the Sept 11 attack occurred --even though Bin Laden's 1998 complaint re the above deaths was in the news media's own databases -- shows just how goddamm deceitful our news organizations are.

And if you think our political leaders -- and the news organizations -- are any more merciful and truthful when it comes to attacks on US citizens, you are full of shit. Anybody remember Waco and Ruby Ridge??

Posted by Don Williams | October 18, 2007 10:45 PM

Lancet is not the only source of info re Iraqi children deaths from the sanctions. The US Physicans for Human Rights warned the US Government is 1991 that its plans were likely to increase the Iraqi infant mortality rate by 67,000 PER YEAR.

The Red Cross confirmed in 1999 that the death toll among young children had more than doubled in the 1990s due to polluted water and malnutrition. See
http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList74/4BBFCEC7FF4B7A3CC1256B66005E0FB6#a1.

It seems to me that any honest person discussing this topic would already have done the research and know this.

Posted by Don Williams | October 18, 2007 11:06 PM

roger,

Actually, Mixner, your idea that Lancet has been scientifically criticized is bogus.

Yes, I guess everyone just imagined, say, this scientific critique by three British science professors, to give just one example.

As for Welch's article, you also skip the next paragraph - which substantially modifies the paragraph you quote, since, of course, the 'whole country' includes the North, which actually had improved health care, since it wasn't covered by the sanctions.

Your argument here is completely incomprehensible. Yes, the 500,000 infant deaths were concentrated in the south. So what?

Plus the sanction regime changed in 1997, so the continuing toll was not linear.

Yes, the oil-for-food program significantly reduced the loss of life caused by the sanctions. But Iraqis continued to die in huge numbers from disease and malnutrition. 8 years of sanctions had done enormous damage to Iraq's infrastructure and public services. And OFF created other problems and provided Saddam with a new source of income with which to pursue his genocidal ambitions.

But I find most amusing the idea that removing the sancitons would have allowed Saddam to continue his genocidal ways, the proof of which is - the deaths from the sanctions.

I never said or implied that the deaths from the sanctions were proof of anything about Saddam. Removing the sanctions would obviously have allowed Saddam to resume his genocidal policies by providing him with the ability to import weapons, or the resources needed to develop them, and with the income to pay for them from oil exports.

So - we have a Lancet survey that has survived much more scrutiny than the U.N survey.

The quality of the methodology and the accuracy of the findings of the Lancet survey are vigorously disputed by other researchers.

The point of all this is that there were no good options for dealing with Saddam. If we had continued the sanctions the Iraqi people would have continued to suffer and die in huge numbers, the country would have continued to deteriorate towards third-world levels, and Saddam would have remained in power. His eventual successor would likely have been one of his equally murderous sons, or some other thug in his inner circle. He had a 20-year record of mass murder of his own people, and military aggression against his neighbors. He had already invaded two countries and started two wars, one of which killed a million people.

Posted by Mixner | October 18, 2007 11:22 PM

actually, mixner, it's simply not true that the lancet study has been vigorously disputed by other researchers, and the issues cited in your link have been (in reality) vigorously disputed themselves as bogus.

as for the notion that there were no good options for dealing with saddam, this suggests that it was a requirement that we find a good option for dealing with saddam. it further suggests that dealing with saddam was a pressing matter for the united states in the aftermath of 9/11.

and if i have to hear, one more time, from an idiot right-winger about how saddam had invaded one country with our blessing and another with what he thought was our blessing and that, therefore, we had to "deal" with saddam, i will find a way to punch that person in the nose.

Posted by howard | October 19, 2007 2:58 AM

Mizner:
"You didn't answer the question about Churchill and Roosevelt and Truman. Are they war criminals too, in your world?"

Sorry, forgot to.

Yes.

So is Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan - uh, who did Carter bomb, anybody? - Nixon, Kennedy - maybe not Eisenhower, I can't remember that far back...oh, wait, he was a gneral in WWII - ok, add him to the pile...

Basically, any US President who authorized military attacks on countries which resulted in US forces killing civilians via aerial or artillery bombardment, or otherwise.

Yes - war criminals, the lot. Execute the lot.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 19, 2007 3:09 AM

Mixner is a serious piece of shit. He makes Chris Ford look rational.

The sanctions did nothing to Saddam, and would be irrelevant even if they did. Anybody wanting to take Saddam out could have done so with the appropriate tactics. Nobody has that tight security - certainly no head of state. Saddam could have been killed at any time and nothing had to be done to the Iraqi population to do so.

Certainly no invasion was necessary. And even had an invasion BEEN necessary, nothing more than going in, throwing him out and then turning around and leaving would have been far more effective.

Even if you remember that Saddam hid himself for months (supposedly - I still think Putin knew where he was all along), and would pop up again once the US left, the US could have just turned right around and thrown him out again.

NONE of that would have required an occupation OR sanctions.

And it's irrelevant in any case because it all depends on the notion that the US has the right AND DUTY to throw out every bad guy in the world - which is utter nonsense.

Mixner is just a right wing moron - or a troll - or both.

And in all cases, he's a piece of shit.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 19, 2007 3:19 AM

FWI, the Lancet / Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health study was performed using the same statistical models (and many of the same researchers) that the US government used to determine the number of deaths in Bosnia and Kosovo due to Milosevic's genocides.

"You sound pretty upset. Look, South Korea took a while to develop into a stable democracy after war and (US-backed) dictatorship. That's just one example."

South Korea was pretty stable for the period of dictatorship. There were only a couple of periods of instability, 1) the brief democratic period of 1960-61 and 2) the period between the Korean Central Intelligence Agency's chief's assassination of former president and military dictator Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan's consolidation of power after his coup. In all, these events add up to about 3 years of some form of instability. Korea is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries on Earth. It is one of the oldest nations, going back to at least the beginning of the Choson Dynasty. Iraq, as Bill Maher pointed out, is a younger country than Paul Newman. Korea at its most unstable under dictatorship was a good day in Iraq. In Korea, everyone knows about the Kwangju Massacre carried out by Chun Doo Hwan (and Korean troops that could only act under US orders) against student protesters, killing about 200 students because in part, by the standards of Korea's history since the end of the Korean War, that was one of the worst events. In Iraq, such a death toll happens practically daily. Iraqi democracy is probably most comparable to the first Nigerian Republic, which ended in a coup and a civil war that left about 1 million people dead in the Southeast due to the government intentionally starving the separatist population (that wanted independence because they sat on almost all of the oil) to death.

Posted by Reality Man | October 19, 2007 5:05 AM

Reality Man:
"There were only a couple of periods of instability"

If you start your timeline after the Korean War... Gotta love the morale-equivalency folks, they know they're statistics and facts, but always, always cherrypick, slant, etc.

Iraq borders Turkey, a fairly stable Muslim democracy which is a member of NATO and potentially a member of the European Union.

Saddam Hussein and the Baath party were behind many of the "instabilities" of Iraq. The Iran-Iraq war, genocide of the Kurds, UN sanctions. Do you seen Iraq starting another war with Iran? I don't. Howbout another genocide of the Kurds? Probably not.

In fact if Turkey invades Iraq, it will cause the central government to fall, which will lead to Kurdish independence. The Turks know this.

Posted by Peter K. | October 19, 2007 11:05 AM

sheesh, peter k, you really don't understand the english language very well, do you. first you demonstrate your ignorance of cost-benefit analysis; now you come up with some stupid remark about "moral equivalency" that actually is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

nor do you understand northern ireland (i got bored with you yesterday).

as for your discussion of "instabilities" in iraq, there weren't any under saddam, so that's another word you don't understand, which is consistent with your ignorance about the iran-iraq war.

really, you're just typing words, peter k, but there is no thought associated with them.

Posted by howard | October 19, 2007 11:30 AM

Mixner,
a. The Welch article doesn't say that there were 500,000 deaths in the South. Read the paragraph again.

b. James Watson, who is a scientist, regularly says racist things - but that isn't the same as saying racism is backed by science. The scientific case against the Lancet report can refer only to the statistical models it used, or the way the survey was carried out, and the argument there has been won every time by the Lancet supporters. The British government admitted this, as we've known from last spring, when the New Statesman published internal memos in which it was admitted that the Lancet's methods were right, and there was a search to spin some other set of casualty figures to confuse the issue.

But while you try to throw dust at a standard, scientific survey of deaths in Iraq -showing a typically selective regard for Iraqi life and limb - you do find it certain that Saddam Hussein would be buying the weapons of mass destruction if the sanction had been revamped so as not to kill masses of Iraqis. For, let us remember that it was the U.S., not Saddam Hussein, who imposed the sanctions, and thus the deaths of those Iraqis are as much the fault of the U.S. as of Saddam. Now, add on the deaths of the Iraqis - the more than 675,000 killed over the last five years - and we find that the U.S.'s mighty Christian mission and glorious moral virtue has been almost too much for the poor Iraqis to comprehend. They never had so much help before. Gee, just a little more help and maybe we can kill another half a million.

A vile and disgusting war, supported by vile and disgusting war mongers spouting lies, avoiding responsibility for their actions - such as the campaign against the Lancet survery - profiting hugely from it - as in the swollen coffers of the various merchants of death that have given D.C. such a humming economy over the last six years - has opened up a moral abyss that the U.S. will never make up for. But Americans can learn something - for instance, never again to operate as mass murderers. We can even learn that, if there a no 'good options' in a situation that America has actively created, there is a worst option, which is unprovoked attack on another nation. Germany in Poland in 1939, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1980, the U.S. in Iraq in 2003 - it is a rollcall of shame.

Posted by roger | October 19, 2007 1:06 PM

howard,

actually, mixner, it's simply not true that the lancet study has been vigorously disputed by other researchers,

This is nonsense. It is absolutely true that the Lancet study has been vigorously disputed by other researchers. See my link for just one example.

as for the notion that there were no good options for dealing with saddam, this suggests that it was a requirement that we find a good option for dealing with saddam.

No, it doesn't suggest any "requirement." It suggests that whatever policy we had followed regarding Saddam and Iraq, lots of people would have suffered and died. There is no credible evidence that the amount of suffering and death resulting from invasion and occupation is clearly less than the amount of suffering and death that would have resulted from continuing the sanctions, or ignoring the problem and allowing Saddam to continue slaughtering his own people and attacking his neighbors.

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 1:32 PM

roger,

a. The Welch article doesn't say that there were 500,000 deaths in the South. Read the paragraph again.

I didn't say it did. Read my post again.

The scientific case against the Lancet report can refer only to the statistical models it used, or the way the survey was carried out,

Ha ha ha ha ha! Yes, the "only" problem with the Lancet study is its seriously flawed methodology. Although, actually, there is also evidence that the study's authors have fabricated or manipulated their data, such as their claims about death certificates.

Posted by Mixner | October 19, 2007 1:42 PM