Iraq inquiry: Pentagon was convinced Army would be greeted with 'flowers on rifles'

[sabra]

Source: UK telegraph

Pentagon officials naively believed coalition troops would be greeted with "flowers on the end of rifles" when they invaded Iraq in 2003, the former head of the armed forces has told the Iraq Inquiry.

Admiral Lord Boyce said he tried in vain to persuade defence officials in Washington that the coalition forces would not be greeted as liberators.

He told the inquiry: "I could not get across to them the fact that the coalition would not be seen as a liberation force and that flowers would be stuck on the end of rifles and we would be welcomed and it would all be lovely...

"This was absolutely not accepted. I think, as far as the Pentagon was concerned, both the civilians in the Pentagon and the uniforms, they just thought that Iraq would be fine on the day."

Sir Kevin Tebbit, who was permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence at the time, said "idealistic" neo-conservatives in Washington were listening to Iraqi exiles who promised them that a "flowering of democracy" would follow the invasion.

He said: "They had a deep faith in the democratic nature of man, which probably proved to be a little over-optimistic."


Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/6717529/Iraq-inquiry-Pentagon-was-convinced-Army-would-be-greeted-with-flowers-on-rifles.html

[Christa]

1. I have a bridge to sell to them

:P

[LynnTheDem]

3. You could sell a dozen bridges to every republican. They are dumber

than a box of rocks.

How many times can Fox "News" trick con dupe them before they stop allowing themselves to be tricked conned duped? We dunno yet.


Republicans; dumbest MFers on the planet.

[saigon68]

4. A Rose Petal Parade

[Winterblues]

9. If you can convince them it will kill people it should sell quickly..

:shrug: the "Pro-Life" people just love things that kill people..

[LynnTheDem]

2. The best understated sentence ever...

"...probably proved to be a little over-optimistic."


Gee. Ya THINK???

[oldironside]

7. That's the most wonderful example of...

... Whitehall understatement I've heard in a long time.

[surrealAmerican]

20. I think we have the understatement of the decade there ...

... and it's been quite a decade.

[Solly Mack]

5. Oh, it wasn't the democratic nature of men they had faith in

It was their arrogant belief that everyone wants to be like America that they had faith in - that everyone would be grateful to have an American savior...and that's not the same thing at all.

K&R

[MrCoffee]

6. "neo-conservatives in Washington were listening to Iraqi exiles"

Iraqi exiles who only had their country's best interests at heart, I'm sure.

[TheEuclideanOne]

8. I suspect that the soldiers all let out a collective

"Ru Roh" when they saw the reality. I recall that Papa Bush made a similar bad decision not to invade Iraq thinking that the people would over throw the government and do the job instead of the military.

[KansDem]

10. For having five sides, they sure are "square"

Pentagon officials naively believed coalition troops would be greeted with "flowers on the end of rifles...

They sound like those poor schmucks in high school who keep calling the same girl over and over for a date, only to be told each time "I have to wash my hair that night." They come away thinking "Wow! When we do finally go out, she'll have really, really clean hair!"

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. It's also called "camouflage" all them flowers and shit.

[Peace Patriot]

12. "They had a deep faith in the democratic nature of man"?? Ahmad Chalabi??

I don't doubt the Pentagon's ability to spout utter bullshit. I've been listening to it since the Vietnam War. But there is something fishy about this account--something CYA fishy--in the ridiculous notion that CIA-funded/created Ahmad Chalabi (wanted for bank fraud in Jordan) had a "deep faith" in anything but filthy lucre, and that Donald Rumsfeld gave a goddamn what Chalabi believed in, as long as he provided bullshit "evidence" to bolster the bullshit lies that formed the bullshit narrative for the slaughter of one hundred thousand innocent people to steal their oil. The Pentagon was PAYING Chalabi multi-millions of US tax dollars to invent these lies!

I don't know if the "uniforms" and the "suits" spouting this bullshit to the Brits (if true) were "true believers" or just protecting their careers, but I strongly suspect the latter in most cases. And it was certainly NOT "true belief" on the part of most Bushwhacks and top military brass. This was a treasonous plot to invade Iraq with no justification, and to commit mass murder, and to furthermore terrorize the population with torture and with Blackwater, for the purpose of grabbing an oil asset on the Big Board. Nothing more, nothing less. There were no "illusions" on the part of the perpetrators of this war. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Pentagonspeak is why the Founders of this country put the military under total civilian control. Our problem now is that the reverse has occurred. Our actual rulers are war profiteering global corporate predators who choose the leaders and write the scripts for their own domination of the world. Civilian control of the military is a farce. Welcome to the Corporate Empire!

[UpInArms]

23. +1000

n/t

[StarfarerBill]

13. "They had a deep faith in the democratic nature of man",

by invading a country without provocation and killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens?

Somehow, I think the neocons' faith was placed somewhere else besides in "the democratic nature of man"...in the profitability of endless war, perhaps.

[Downtown Hound]

14. I guess this means that apparently I am smarter than all the people at the Pentagon

I was a lowly college student when the Iraq War broke out, and even I knew that we would be facing stiff guerrilla resistance and the whole, "we'll be greeted as liberators" was a bunch of crap.

So either the Pentagon brass is lying, or the state of our national defense in in even more dire straights than I thought.

[Brother Buzz]

15. Cheney was doing all the connvincing and floated the meme, not the military

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." - Vice President Dick Cheney, Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

Lots of stovepiping and cherry picking convinced a lot of sheeple but the military.

The military was prepared with gas masks and full protective body suits.

[parts]

17. agree, BS

I find it hard to believe the Pentagon's experts - people who really know the ME - believed in this "liberators" nonsense. Probably a case of top brass overruling their knowledge in favor of "gut feelings" - flavored with Protestant theology, no doubt.

Creates a giant echo chamber - overrule and replace the experts with people and opinions that you want to hear.

[Tikki]

27. Hey, parts....Welcome to DU...

bush and buddies believed Iraq was an ancient
culture that needed updating by the force of the gun...

Hope to see more of your posts here at DU. :hi:


Tikki

[parts]

32. thanks

Thanks, Tikki.

I'm not American, but I like it here already. :)

[canadianbeaver]

28. Yes..that was after he was against it many many years back....

I remember reading on DU about his comments he made years earlier about Iraq, and how foolish it would be to invade...sorry no link to supply..just a partial memory.

[Brother Buzz]

29. He worked for and did GHWB's bidding

GHWB made the decision not to invade Iraq.

Cheney, under GWB is another story.

[No Elephants]

16. I don't believe for 5 minutes that "the Pentagon" thought this. They were not born yesterday.

[parts]

19. same post same time, No elephants

jinx :P

[wtmusic]

18. How many f*cking investigations do they need

to send all the perps to the Hague? Blah, blah blah.

[hayu_lol]

22. Newcomers here will not remember...

but the 'war at any cost' chickenhawks(Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Pearl, and the like)fired all the dissenting generals back then including Clark.

What was left was just the fundie generals and those brownnosing for more rank/medals.

[No Elephants]

21. Rumsfeld said Iraqis would hang flowers around the necks of our troops, apparently

confusing Iraq with Hawaii. Now, Admiral Lord Boyce is babbling about flowers stuck in the ends of rifles, apparently confusing Iraq with Haight Ashbury.

Maybe if our leaders knew geography....

[Altoid_Cyclist]

24. The Cheney WH allowed the sycophants to cause so many deaths and ruined lives.

As hayu_lol said, the military and civilian people who knew the truth were banished or negated in some way so that only the people hungry for war were heard from. Thanks again "Liberal Media".
:sarcasm:

From Wiki:
In a modern context a sycophant (from the Greek συκοφάντης sykophántēs) is a servile person who, acting in his or her own self-interest, attempts to win favor by flattering one or more influential persons, or by saying lies against a fellow citizen for gaining a kind of profit. These actions are executed at the cost of his or her own personal pride, principles, and peer respect.

This is what we were left with in the decision making preocess.
That definition seems to fit so many people in the run up to Iraq that I wouldn't even know where to start naming them. Everyone in the reign of error was in it for their own financial gain and blood lust.

[mbperrin]

25. I'm insulted that they think I'm stupid enough to believe one fucking

word of this shit.

No sarcasm implied or intended.

[Arctic Dave]

26. A different version of, " yeah, I screwed up but I did it for a good reason so can't hold me liable"

wink, wink

[The Stranger]

30. Paul Wolfowitz knew that flowers in rifles was a lie.

But he wanted to commit the war crime any way.

[MisterP]

31. the old "the people want us to rescue them from their government" argument

we heard it in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the CIA revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, Lebanon, Iran...

of course, when people DO want their government gone (Uzbekistan), we prop up the tyrant in charge