"Saddam is gone. It's a good thing, but I don't agree with what was done," Clinton told students at a forum at the American University of Dubai. "It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors ... one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country."
Clinton's remarks came when he was taking questions about the U.S. invasion, which began in 2003. His response drew cheers and a standing ovation at the end of the hour-long session. Clinton said the United States had done some good things in Iraq: the removal of Saddam, the ratification of a new constitution and the holding of parliamentary elections.
"The mistake that they made is that when they kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure of Iraq. ... We never sent enough troops and didn't have enough troops to control or seal the borders," Clinton said. As the borders were unsealed, "the terrorists came in," he said. Clinton said it would have been better if the United States had left Iraq's "fundamental military and social and police structure intact."
Where does one even begin? No doubt things would have been a lot more peaceful if we'd left the Baath torturers and hacks in power. We could have openly sipped mint tea with them in cafes on the boulevards of Baghdad and never worried about assasinations and car bombs. Some new strong man would have taken the place of Saddam (doubtless there were dozens of them clamoring for the job during the first few months after the invasion) and suppressed and bribed the other tribes and factions into some form of the status quo ante. As far as the "too few troops" charge, I am now convinced that the only way we could hav prevented the Sunni revolt was to come in Soviet style with lists of Salafist mullahs and Baathists to arrest and with our own cadres in the wake of the invading forces, ready to take control of the municipal governments and functions. We would have had to put 100,000's in camps and then do what? Congress and the NGOs would have soiled themselves.
I'll leave it to others to deal with Clinton's lack of loyalty and opportunism. I tire of these fools. |