Motives for Iraq war

The British were allowd to shoot at combatants, ask the Duke of Boots. They were known as shoot back (all the other battalions were known as Spa batt, Spain. Mal batt Malaya etc). They came under sniper fire and returned with several warriors.

Taken from

http://wikipedia.pavelreich.com/Duke_of ... s_Regiment

Bosnia (1994–1995)
In March 1994, the 'Dukes' deployed to Bosnia, with an area of responsibility covering Bugojno, Vitez, Travnik and the besieged enclave of Gorazde. The latter was under siege for much of the war. It was declared a UN Safe Zone in that year. The 'Dukes' were one of the first units to enter the town. The Regiment pushed the Bosnian-Serb Army from their positions around the town to a distance of over one mile. Their objective in doing this was to create a safe zone for the town. While at Gorazde, Private Shaun Taylor of C Company was killed during an engagement with Bosnian-Serb forces while manning an observation post. The engagement lasted fifteen minutes, with over 2,000 rounds of ammunition being expended by the 'Dukes'. Seven of the Bosnian-Serb soldiers were killed in the fire-fight. Gorazde remained a safe zone, being held by British troops from 1994-95. It was the only safe zone to survive the war and avoided the tragedies that occurred in other UN safe zones such as Srebrenica and Zepa.

 

Pretty well... Roel did not give Holland's reason for joining, just stated that they joined.

:angry: :angry:
Does nobody read a word I post?
:angry: :angry:
While I may or may not be a supporter of the war (I'm not telling! ) I have given a reason for it. A legal, UN-backed reason.
Sure, there will have been self-interest in there too. There always is. But...

 

Moderator's Hat in postion.

Ok gents, just a gentle reminder to keep this thread nice.
I know that nobody is particularly out of line yet, but this is an emotive issue and one that somehow tends to become very 'US vs Europe' - which is wrong for oh-so-many reasons.
Forgetteth ye not to keep cool.

I myself got a wee bit annoyed, as you may have seen...


So just a gentle reminder to stay polite.

 

I did mention oil but I appear to have got away with it.

:smok:

 

No, that was me. I called GWB a "Texan idealist". And while in this post I merely stated that Europeans, including Dutchmen, were also involved in the Iraq war, I could also have added that it asn't their business at all and that you can't accuse them of doing nothing while they help the US fight its wars.

Ricky:

 

I do read your posts Ricky.
You were talking about some UN resolution.

From as far as I know, to juristically justify the war, Bush, Blair and others invoked 2 reasons:

1.Articel 51 of the UN charta which says that a nation or a group of nations have the right to self defence.
They argued that Iraq was directely threatening their respective countries, and that they had to attack before Saddam could attack them.(The so called "preventive war".)

2.Resolution Nr 1441 of the UN security council(voted in november 2002), which stated that Iraq had to unconditionally collaborate with the UN weapons inspectors.Should the iraqis not do so, resolution 1441 threatened them with "serious consequences".
Now, US+ UK interpreted those serious consequences as "war" while the majority of the security council interpreted them as another resolution in which the word "war" would then clearely be mentionned.
But the resolution also said that it was up to the UN inspectors and later the security council to decide when Iraq fundamentally had violated the resolution.
If Uk+US really believed that resolution 1441 gave them the right to go to war, why did they try to get another resolution as late as some weeks before the war?
To the opinion of the vast majority of members of the security council as well as independent jurists, resolution 1441 under no circumstances allowed any country to go to war, but had to be followed by another "war"resolution.
But as the inspectors did not find any traces of WMD, more and more countries were convinced that there weren't any and so saw no reason for another resolution.

 

Grieg wrote:

This is a topic about the reasons for the Iraq war.
I wrote my opinion, and as I think that it was a mistake, I criticised the decision for the war.
That has nothing to do with generally criticising the USA.
I mean, no british forum member accussed me of criticising Britain generally, nor did a dutchmen do so(altough these countries too participated in the Iraq war).

You have of course the right to have any opinion about Europe you wish to have.
But if you think that European nations "cannot act but just criticise"how come that a lot of european countries are involved in Iraq:Britain, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Portugal....

How come that there are more european soldiers in Afghanistan(5500 french, over 5000 germans), Bosnia, Kosovo than americans.

How come that France is militarily involved in several african countries such as Ivory Coast, Tchad, Mali, as well as in other parts of the world.

I do know that Europe does not have the muscles the US has, but that does not mean that europe does nothing.
Since we still are allies we should remember that the real big achievements were accomplished when we worked together.
The biggest threat of our time is probably islamic fundamentalism, and I sincerely hope that in that fight US and Europe will stand together.

 

The three main reasons were.

1 Oil

2 Oil

3 Oil

There, now I've said it!

 

Castelot wrote:

But what makes you think my comments were directed at you? There are others posting in this thread as well:

canadiansuperpatriot wrote:

Tiso wrote:

 

That episode really wasn't glorious.
It ofter reminds me of the red army stopping before Warsaw in 1944 and ledding the germans finish of the rebellion of the polish patriots.

But of course US and UK are not the only ones to be blamed, all other members of the Desert Storm coalition(Turkey, France....) are as much responsible

 

Grieg we do have a bit different philosophy about war than our friends across the pond. I don't know but could that be becouse we are butchering eachader for about 2000 yaers?

 

Thanks!

You even got the right resolution for me! I remembered it as 1442..

Now, Article 51 is no justification at all, really, short of an extraordinary leap of faith. I think we can all see that.

Resolution 1441, which everybody in the UN signed, was not agreed at the time (AFAIK) to be a resolution calling for a further resolution. Pieces of paper are hardly serious consequences - ask any dictator .
You could argue that it was understood to mean war, but that France & Germany later changed their minds... I would not presume to state categorically what happened, as I do not know.

It is one of those gloriously under-defined pieces of writing, examples of which should be eradicated, in my view. But I digress.

As to the second resolution, weeks before the invasion - probably because they realised that there was a difference of opinion within the UN about the nature of the 'serious consequences', and tried to get a unified answer (pro-war, obviously, as that was their preferred option).

But then, why the heck did they bother with Article 51?

The entire bloomin' conflict was mis-handled from PR build-up to 're-building Iraq'.
:angry:

 

I got me the text of resolution 1441.(voted unanimously by the UN security council on november 8th 2002)
Under point 4 it is said:

" The security council decides that false statements or omissions in the declaration submitted by Iraq pursuant of this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment...."

Under paragarph 13 are the famous "serious consequences" to be found:

"Paragraphe 13: Recalls that the council has repeteadely warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of it's continued violations of it's obligations"

The UNMOVIC inspectors, as well as the 2/3 of the security council members (not just Germany and France) did not think that Iraq repeteadely violated it's obligations after resolution 1441 was voted.
Question is, was it up to US/UK to decide when there is a material breach?
I don't think so. As I quoted it was to be reported to the security council.

The majority of security council members considered that Iraq's collaboration was of course not perfect but was in the tolerance margin of resolution 1441.
The inspectors just asked for more time to be able to say certainly if there were unallowed weapons or not.
Most countries less and less believed in the WMD(rightfully as we know now).

 

Then I bow to your argument.

Just to clarify, France, China, Russia all said 'no'?

 

UN security council consists of 15 members.

5 of them are constant members with Veto power: China, Russia, USA, Great Britain and France.

10 of them are elected for a 2 years term.
During the Iraq crisis there was Germany, Spain, Pakistan, Syria, Chile, Cameroun among them
Don't remember the others.

From what I know, Russia, Germany, France, China, Pakistan, Syria and Cameroun as well as others which I do not remember said no.
Spain and Chile supported the US and UK.

Russia and France had stated that they would use their veto should a majority of the council support the invasion of Iraq.
I don't surely know for China.

 

Thanks.

Ok, so that is the legal, UN/world-backed argument gone.

Any other reasons?

 

4 missing members were Angola(no), Mexico(no), Bulgaria(yes) and Guinea(no).

 

Indeed? And just where is all this oil that we've gone into Iraq for? It sure as shootin' ain't coming into *this* country! :-?

 

I have a feeling that right people end up richer (including Mr Cheney).

And don´t expect there´s going to be a new stand at your tank station, saying:

"Buy Iraqi - We´ve fought like hell for it, after all!" :lol:

No offence intended.

 

Agreed, what is certain is that it will take a very, very long time for the US to make more out of Iraqi oil than it spent on the war and occupation