Cobb

If the main reason to go into Iraq is to overthrow the Government then STATE that before you go into Iraq and have a true discussion about it. LET ME decide if it's worth the costs (In lives and Money) to liberate somebody else don't decide for me and don't hide your reason's behind the War on Terror.

If the Main Reason to go into Iraq is to protect ourselves and get rid of WMD's Then state that before you go into Iraq (Which is what we did) but then don't go back and say "The main reason we went to Iraq wasn't to protect ourselves/search for WMD's. It was to make the World a better place" and expect me to choke it down.

As a former soldier I look at it as this. I signed up for and was willing to give my life (Not that I wanted to) to protect my country. I might have been willing to give my life to liberate an oppressed people (If all other avenues had failed). I am NOT willing to give my life based on the Belief that we OWE somebody something. And if I am asked to lay it on the line for other folks I dang sure want there to be meaningful discussions ON THIS TOPIC and to make Dang sure ALL OTHER OPTIONS have failed (Look at what we did in Kosovo. Got rid of a maniac and we are NOT there with 100,000+ Troops Losing ~2-3 of them a day. We do not spend 100's of billions of dollars.)

If we did indeed go into Iraq/depose Saddam primarily for humanitarian reasons as you propose then IMHO it is clear that the administration avoided this discussion by not giving the new round of inspectors time to see if WMD's were there. Time to give the inspectors an honest shot at seeing if the "Tactical Information" that we had was Good enough (instead using this Intel to guide the Inspectors and then deciding when they don't find anything that Saddam must have moved it that it must be the Inspectors fault for not looking hard enough) And that by telling the American Public that we were primarily going into Iraq as part of the war on Terror not to liberate Iraq this administration did indeed "Break the Faith" They broke it when they decided that I wouldn't agree to conquer Iraq and by hiding the Morals and Reasons that you espouse here behind the War on Terror.

If Saddam had met the UN Mandate to get rid of WMD's AND THEN we had decided to go to war with him over humanitarian reasons FINE tell us that. Let us debate that and put it before the world AS THAT. Don't tell me that we need to go in there because Saddam is a Clear and Present Danger and then when we find out that he wasn't call me a Holocaust Denier because I'm #$#$ at being lied to.

There was nobody on the left, if I remember correctly, who was NOT saying that the American presence would destabilize the region. The term was 'Baby Bin Laden', so let's not pretend that there hasn't always been an association with terrorism involved with the Iraqi question. Where is this theory today?

All of the reasons to go after Saddam were clear as day, and in fact when those opposed to the president suddenly discovered the operating theories behind Cheney, Wolfowitz and the neocons of the Project for the New American Century, they were shocked! He's been planning this all along they say. Well of course. Such things require lots and lots of planning. But these were the people that Ahmad Chalabi had been talking to for years. Again, let's not pretend that the Iraqi problem began on 9/11.

I know a lot of Americans are frustrated and angry about GWBush's timetable and public rationale. I was one of those people myself. But there has been nothing about the prosecution of this very brief war which has compromised the principles of humanitarian relief. This isn't just spin. It doesn't "just so happen" that we are an occupying army - there's a humanitarian reason for that. It doesn't "just so happen" that we're not there for the oil, it was never economically justified in the first place.

Whether or not you like that we sent soldiers in the winter when we could have waited six more months for diplomacy and sent them to Baghdad in the middle of the summer, we sent them and they did their job. As I've said before:

The problem with parsing words on Bush's justifications is that geopolitically astute people should already have had their own reasons for toppling or appeasing Saddam Hussein. This is why the Bush Lied crowd is so annoying to me. Of course he lied, he's a democratic politician and half-assed emperor. Who are you to merit his full disclosure? The more important question is whether or not he is using the resources of the Empire properly. We won't know that until the new Iraq is done. It still makes sense to debate and discuss the proper direction and implementation of the Wars on Terror, but debating the ways and means of disclosure? Understand that it was inevitable the George W. Bush would not run a tight ship under these kind of crisis conditions, that we all should have known when he was elected. The bottom line is how much does our pacification of the Middle East cost and is it worth it? That doesn't seem to be the kind of debate we are hearing.

Furthermore:

Let's get this all straight. We Americans are continuing our ridiculous debates only listening to ourselves and not the rest of the world, and it is making us a truly sucky empire. Thank god Tony Blair has the guts and brains to say what's up and what's right about this expression of might. It's all about liberty, but not American liberty. It's about the liberty of people in the Middle East and that's why deposing Saddam was a key priority with or without uranium, scuds, chemical agents, bioweapons or terrorist ties. Iraq itself was wrong, and now it has another chance. But until we Americans grow up and shutup sometimes and listen to the cries for freedom elsewhere in the world, all of our justifications for everything in our foreign policy, military or not, will become a partisan sham.

What about our assistance in some of that genocide? If Saddam gets a true, fair trial, American pols and Bush Admin aides are at least partially responsible for some of the genocide. As are several other nations.

There was nobody on the left, if I remember correctly, who was NOT saying that the American presence would destabilize the region. The term was 'Baby Bin Laden', so let's not pretend that there hasn't always been an association with terrorism involved with the Iraqi question. Where is this theory today?

Who needs a theory? We're watching the region destabilize.

But there has been nothing about the prosecution of this very brief war which has compromised the principles of humanitarian relief.

10,000 dead citizens. VERY humanitarian.

Oh, Saddam killed Iraqis too.

Nice role model.

(Ack, Cough, Spit.)

You want to talk about Gitmo, we can talk about Gitmo but Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are not on your side against the American President.

FWIW start here:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/irq-index-eng

Cobb,

Wonderful piece. First, it is wrong to buy the line - as Jeff proposes - that Bush said this was all about WMD. He said that Saddam was a clear danger not only to the world but to his own people. The precise mechanisms of that threat were not as important as its long-term strategic nature. He didn't have a nuclear bomb but he clearly had plans and at least some of the equipment necessary to build one. We haven't found his bioweapons (stuff we knew he had when inspectors were kicked out in '98) but we've found his seed stock and the equipment needed to reconstitute this program...etc. etc. A good leader does not wait until millions are dead in a nuclear holocaust and then say "Gee, I guess we're justified in stopping this now" just to please his political enemies.

With respect to P6, I'm surprised that he stopped at the 10,000 figure. Since credible estimates of civilian deaths are much lower, he might as well have quoted 100,000 if he's just going to make stuff up.

It is also truly sad to read a leftist rant about the region becoming "destabilized" on the very day when the most liberal founding document in the entire Middle East is unveiled in Iraq.

To paraphrase Reagan: I'm still a liberal like I've always been, its just that the "liberals" are no longer liberal.

Reading myself I sound as though I knew what I was talking about. Scott Ritter on Feb 26th is vindicating my belief that the President did, and probably ought to have lied to the American people. Did I say that? Again, the logical consequences of the PNAC doctrine are clear. No we didn't vote for a PNAC president, Bush said he wasn't a nation builder.. but

Forward Reference

No, credible estimates of Iraq civilian deaths are from 40,000 to 200,000, with 100,000 being the value picked by the British medical publication Lancet as the most likely number.