Actually you keep making the same misinterpretation, my apologies if I was not clear. No-immunity was an initial Iraqi position. Negotiating away their position is in reference to the Iraqis wanting no-immunity but eventually granting it, *not* in reference to the US position of requiring it.

Of course, the point is that the 2014 agreement proves that the Iraqis were and still are flexible. That the problem was an insufficient counteroffer from the US.

No. The new agreement over a residual force was an entirely separate agreement. The Bush administration thought that a future President deploying US troops to Iraq should be doing so under an agreement that this future President had negotiated.

Well, yes, he was overly optimistic that the next administration would negotiate in good faith rather than engage in political theatre.

Again, the Bush administration felt that since those forces would go into the field under then next President's watch that the next President should negotiate the terms.

You misinterpreted my previous statement, apologies if I was not clear. My reference to negotiating away the immunity issue was in reference to the Iraqis do so. Of having the Iraqis eventually agree to immunity as they had always done in the past and have done as recently as Dec 2014.

As for Obama's negotiation. They were a farce, political theatre. He wanted out entirely, the Iraqi initial position suited this goal. Therefore the Iraqis were not offered a sufficiently sweetened deal as was done in the past.

Yes. The point is that the Iraqis were and still *are* flexible on the question of immunity. The 2011 failure was one of offering them an insufficient deal. The 2011 negotiations were a farce on the US side.

No, you are misunderstanding the second. Apologies if I was unclear. When I wrote "Fact 2. No immunity was an opening position in past deals and was negotiated away." I was referring to the Iraqi position and their eventual acceptance of immunity in past deals, and which by the way they just did in Dec 2014.

No, the CIA gave him faulty information. New York Times journalist has been researching how she got the WMD story wrong in her reporting back in the day and she writes in http://www.wsj.com/articles/th...

"There was no shortage of mistakes about Iraq, and I made my share of them. The newsworthy claims of some of my prewar WMD stories were wrong. But so is the enduring, pernicious accusation that the Bush administration fabricated WMD intelligence to take the country to war."

"My sources were the same counterterrorism, arms-control and Middle East analysts on whom I had relied for my stories about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s growing threat to America—a series published eight months before 9/11 for which the Times staff, including me, won a Pulitzer."

"Another enduring misconception is that intelligence analysts were “pressured” into altering their estimates to suit the policy makers’ push to war. Although a few former officials complained about such pressure, several thorough, bipartisan inquiries found no evidence of it."

"The CIA repeatedly assured President Bush that Saddam Hussein still had WMD. Foreign intelligence agencies, even those whose nations opposed war, shared this view. And so did Congress. Over the previous 15 years, noted Stuart Cohen, the former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, none of the congressional committees routinely briefed on Iraqi WMD assessments expressed concern about bias or error."

"Hans Blix, the former chief of the international weapons inspectors, ... told the U.N. in January 2003 that despite America’s ultimatum, Saddam was still not complying fully with his U.N. pledges. In February, he said “many proscribed weapons and items,” including 1,000 tons of chemical agent, were still “not accounted for.”"

"Years would pass before U.S. soldiers found remnants of some 5,000 inoperable chemical munitions made before the first Gulf War that Saddam claimed to have destroyed. Not until 2014 would the U.S. learn that some of Iraq’s degraded sarin nerve agent was purer than Americans had expected and was sickening Iraqi and American soldiers who had stumbled upon it."

"A two-year study by Charles Duelfer, the former deputy chief of the U.N. inspectors who led America’s hunt for WMD in Iraq, concluded that Saddam Hussein was playing a double game, trying (on the one hand) to get sanctions lifted and inspectors out of Iraq and (on the other) to persuade Iran and other foes that he had retained WMD. Not even the Iraqi dictator himself knew for sure what his stockpiles contained, Mr. Duelfer argued. Often forgotten is Mr. Duelfer’s well-documented warning that Saddam intended to restore his WMD programs once sanctions were lifted."

Oops there is a 3rd fact. Fact 1. No immunity was a deal breaker. Fact 2. No immunity was an opening position in past deals and was negotiated away. Fact 3. The Iraqis granted immunity in Dec 2014.

You are mistaken. Even the article you cite states that immunity for US troops was a deal killer. No immunity was a starting position in previous deals. Iraqi politicians preferred not to have the US around in those time frames too. Yet with sufficient money and resources added to the deal those politicians reversed themselves in the past. Which in Dec 2014 they did again. In Dec 2014 they voted to grant immunity to US troops due to the ISIS problem.

The fact remain that Obama wanted all out at any cost and the immunity was the perfect deal breaker. All he had to do was to accept the Iraqi's opening negotiating position and say "don't want us". He'd have perfect cover for what he wanted all along. His negotiations were a farce.

You are absolutely mistaken. Bush 2 negotiated the withdrawal of the combat troops that he had put into Iraq, essentially an occupational force. The withdraw was on the next President's watch. What was left to that next President to negotiate was a deal for non-combat non-occupational troops. Advisors, instructors, anti-terrorist units, liaisons for Iraqi combat units (i.e. links to US air support), stabilization forces (ex Korean DMZ), etc. An important distinction being that this residual force would be functioning in a fully sovereign and fully independent state.

The negotiation was a farce. Obama wanted all out at any cost, he did not want a successful negotiation and acted accordingly. Taking the no immunity position as final, not something to be negotiated away as was done in the past.

Actually you ignore some facts. Fact 1. No immunity was a deal breaker. Fact 2. No immunity was an opening position in past deals and was negotiated away.

The problem was that Saddam was actively creating the impression that Iraq did maintain them and had new weapons programs. It was a disinformation campaign to keep the Iranians guessing for the most part, to maintain the illusion of being a regional power.

No one really knew whether or not Iraq had WMD until US boots were on the ground going into areas UN inspectors were never allowed. Those who had the no-WMD position before the invasion were just as in the dark as those who had the opposite position, it merely turned out the no-WMD crowd was accidentally correct.

That is not really true. Things like a lack of immunity for US troops were used as an excuse to leave. The Iraqis opened with such a position in past negotiations and gave in once sufficient money and resources were added to the deal. Its a negotiating tactic. The problem is the new administration did not want a deal, they wanted all out at any cost, so this initial position became a convenient impediment to a deal.

Its not that simple. Since the departure of the occupational forces was occurring under the next President's watch it was left to the next President to negotiate a residual force for ongoing stabilization and support of the new Iraqi government. Unfortunately that next President was not interested in leaving such a residual force behind, he wanted all out at any cost.

Apparently Hillary Clinton thought invasion was a valid option for regime change when it came time for her to vote in the Senate.

And if you want to blame someone over the original destabilization and insurgency that helped the original proto-ISIS / al-Quaeda in Iraq get started you really need to blame Paul Bremer. The career diplomat who was in charge of the Provisional Authority that originally governed Iraq. He disbanded the Iraqi Army on his own, without White House or Pentagon approval. So he is primarily responsible for US troops patrolling Iraqi streets and searching Iraqi homes. In past US wars and US occupations the US military removed high ranking officers of the enemy military and had some of its middle and junior ranking officers repot to US officers and these former enemy military officers and their enlisted men did patrols or searches on their own or jointly with the US. But Bremer f'd up such a plan and put disgruntled ex-army on the streets and out of work.

Want an example of how the US military normally handles such things when they are given the choice? After the surrender of German forces in his zone Major Richard Winters (of Band of Brothers fame) ordered the German commander to have his men collect all weapons in town and despot them at the town hall. German troops went from building to building, home to home, collecting weapons. A couple days later Winters went to town hall to inspect the weapons. He found that the German troops had collected every weapon, not just military, but civilian too. Hunting rifles and shotguns, antiques, etc. He told the German commander that he had only wanted the military weapons collected and ordered that the civilian arms should be turned over to the major's office and that civilians could come in and collect their property.

Also some patrols in the area were joint patrols. A couple of German troops would accompany a patrol and these German's would generally handle the stopping of vehicles and interacting with drivers, etc.

Things would have probably gone very differently had the junior officers and enlisted men of the Iraqi army been retained and employed for policing Iraqi's streets, under US supervision. As was done in Germany and Japan and in some areas liberated from Japan. The US used surrendered Japanese troops reporting to US officers to maintain the peace until local authorities could put together their own government and police forces.

Bush 2 defeated proto-ISIS (al-Quaeda in Iraq) with US troops and Sunni tribal fighters in the An Bar Awakening. Proto-ISIS sent word to al-Quaeda leadership to stop sending fighters, that the battle was lost.

Obama's desire to abandon Iraq, to not leave a residual force resurrected ISIS/al-Quaeda in Iraq. The departure of Occupational/Stabilization forces was negotiated under Bush 2 but since it would be occurring on the next President's watch it was left to that next President to negotiate any residual force that would be left. Obama had no interest in doing so. When the Iraqis said no immunity for US troops Obama used that as an excuse to bail. The fact is the Iraqis *always* open negotiations with that position and then they *always* drop it when the US adds enough money and resources to the deal. Its a negotiating tactic, but Obama didn't want a successful negotiation. If a residual force had been left behind they would not even have had to engage ISIS directly on the ground. Such a force would have access to air support and could have called in air strikes on ISIS convoys of pickup trucks with heavy weapons traveling down open desert highways. You can't really find a scenario more vulnerable to air power, see Highway of Death from the first Gulf War. So what ISIS personnel survived would have lacked heavy weapons and would have been far more easily handled by local Iraqi forces. Not to mention with US backing these same Iraqi tribal forces beat ISIS the first time around. Its only because of US abandonment and abandonment by Baghdad too did these tribal forces decide to flip and join rather than fight.

The circumstances that led to the resurrection of ISIS is entirely Obama's doing, not Bush 2's. At least for the US' share of the blame, Baghdad's treatment of the Sunnis is responsible for a share too. Of course with greater US involvement such things had been mitigated in the past, so US abandonment had a role in that too.

Thank goodness that you are here to straighten out the developers of a game that after nearly ten years consistently has over 7 million subscription paying players. :-)