While it's great that Saddam is out of power, and we even get to leave Saudi Arabia, it's still not clear that there was an urgent reason to invade Iraq. (And shooting protesters isn't going to play well on TV or anywhere else.)
Meantime... did the administration stretch the truth or even outright lie in order to justify this war? Even some supporters are starting to wonder.
--> www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/opinion/29KRUG.html
--> www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,945381,00.html
Paul Krugman:
It's hard to believe that we won't eventually find some poison gas or crude biological weapons. But those aren't true W.M.D.'s, the sort of weapons that can make a small, poor country a threat to the greatest power the world has ever known. Remember that President Bush made his case for war by warning of a "mushroom cloud." Clearly, Iraq didn't have anything like that — and Mr. Bush must have known that it didn't.
David Aaronovitch:
At the United Nations in February, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, presented evidence claiming that there were mobile laboratories and showing clear signs that the Iraqis had moved material to escape inspection from UN teams. Put together, all this was argued as constituting a clear breach of UN resolutions that therefore required urgent action.These claims cannot be wished away in the light of a successful war. If nothing is eventually found, I — as a supporter of the war — will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere.
