IMHO In My Humble Opinion

The number one reason we should have invaded Iraq? According to Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal, "Saddam is dead. Had he remained in power, we would likely still believe he had WMD."

Excuse me? Did I read that right?

We were justified in invading Iraq a few years ago because we would still have the false belief that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? This seems ridiculous for a couple of reasons... For one thing, the UN had weapons inspectors in Iraq around the time of our invasion. I know that there are some that wouldn't believe the experts that were sent in (for example, this administration has a horrible history of making decisions based on solid evidence). There are people who currently still believe that Iraq somehow still has or was at least hiding weapons of mass destruction when the US invaded. But if we're going to argue about reality, let's try and use some facts and reason, shall we?

I like to think that the intelligence agencies would have been able to separate fact from fiction. I mean, there's evidence that even back at the beginning of the invasion, there were at least some elements of the intelligence community that were arguing against the existence of weapons of mass destruction. And that they were the ones that our policy-makers should have been paying attention to. Then again, maybe Mr. Stephens is correct, and by now they'd be concentrating more on spying on the American people than looking overseas.

There are some justifications for the war that are based on truth. Saddam Hussein was a horrible dictator. It wasn't clear that economic sanctions were going to work (or that the sanctions were doing more than punishing the people of Iraq more than Iraq's government). But it also seems that we ought to have, say, gotten the rest of the world to agree that we were justified before storming off and bombing. And maybe had a plan for the end-game. That's one of the things that really bothers me about this: the Bush administration was so eager to get into a war that they only planned out how to start it. Maybe if they had actually stopped and thought about it they would have realized what a mess they were about to get into.

Although I suppose I could say that about a lot of government policies these days.

Oh well, at least I can hope that by November that more of the US has come to its senses, and we might eventually have a government that responds a bit more rationally...