8 October 2003

Iraq/ It was never about Sept. 11

The PNAC adherents also predicted that Russia, China and France would raise a stink about unilateral action, but quickly would come around when the dust settled. They also asserted that the other nations in the Middle East would demonstrate heightened respect for a United States willing to use its military power.

As is clear now, France and the others didn't come around. Nor have other nations in the region professed great admiration for the United States for its actions in Iraq.

As is clear now, Saddam was nowhere near achieving a WMD capability. The best evidence suggests his WMD programs ended following the Gulf War and the arrival of U.N. inspectors, and were never restarted.

As is clear now, Clinton's policy of containment had worked pretty well.

As is clear now, the American people were sold a bill of goods by a small cadre of PNAC ideologues, bent on attacking Iraq, who latched onto the opportunity provided by Osama bin Laden and his crew of suicidal, airplane-hijacking terrorists. The price? Scores of billions of dollars, hundreds of young American lives, the standing of the United States in the world, plus the credibility of President Bush and his neocon cronies.



Um, let us add the young British lives and the many, many more Iraqi lives of all ages. Let us also ask what happened to the neocon claim that the road to peace runs through Baghdad?

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