Hi Jos

I think all of your points are very well-reasoned and well-expressed and I agree with most of it.

I only question the premise that we were lied to about WMD. I don't believe stockpiles of WMD were necessary for the arguement that Saddam was a menace who had to be dealt with. I do believe that there was intelligence which has not been made public that made the case persuasively that the there was immanent danger. It was still a judgement call. I think Russia, France and China bear a share of responsibility in that their eagerness to let Saddam out of the box probably increased Bush's anxiety about delaying action. A united from from the civilized world against a most uncivilized regime would have allow for more patience.

I think think judging decisions in hindsight is okay, as long as one understands that when the decision is made we don't have that hindsight.

All that being said, I think it was a very large mistake to go into Iraq about 200,000 troops short. I am most concerned that the Syrian border was not effectively closed, and that places we knew were going to be a problem were not nailed down tight at the same time Baghdad was taken. I put some of this at Rumsfield's feet.

I think there is more knowledge about what happened to certain people and weapons than is public because that is just how intelligence works. Things you know are more valuable if people don't know you know. I also believe that whatever one thinks of Bush or Cheney, they are not driven by petty motives. If they knew in October that there were stockpiles of sarin in a cache in the Bekaa that had been moved a few days before the war, for example, they would still sit on it and take the political hit. This is serious stuff and I think a President Kerry would have done the same thing. Even a President Clinton. I have no doubt Tony Blair would.

This whole Iraq thing was political suicide. I know the public latched onto the pitch for WMDs as the sole justification for the war, but I think if one analyzes the case that was being made by the administration and others, there was lot more to it than that.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion on this. I think the concerns of the 'international community' would have more validity if the international community had taken more responsiblity. I have very little respect for the U.N. as an instituition, but i have a lot of respect for many of the countries involved. I would like to see more of them take responsibility for some of dangers humanity faces. I don't believe American can go it alone. And I believe we came up short in many ways in assembling like-minded nations to act with us to deal with all this. I'm not an apologist for Bush. I just feel the criticism should take into account something besides political cant, and that is why I find your approach refreshing.


>HI Charles.
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>First off let me say you have posted some interesting points which gave a lot of food for thought. However this post raised some questions with me:
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>>>I am not saying that some Candians don't think like you do. One third of the Canadians supported the War in Iraq before it started. The difference is that now that we have seen the misfire, most have changed their views.
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>>Yeah, people like to cheer for teams they think are winning. We have baseball fans like that in Cleveland. Their opinion doesn't mean much because they are not willing to get in the game. They have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines because they are not players. They have no responsiblity so they can have opinions without consequence. Teenagers are like that.
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>But of course the war in Iraq, although fought only by the "coalition of the willing", will have consequence for all of us. And because of that I believe that all of us have the right to question, to express an opinion, and even to criticize. I think this is a point often lost on America because they are doing the fighting and the dying. But all of us will have to bear the blowback to one degree or another, and in one way or another.
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>>>A question. I know its hard to get out of Iraq now that you are in. But if you were president and you knew what you know now about a) no WMD and b) no link to Al Qaeda would you still have attacked Iraq?
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>>I don't know what all the intelligence was. Neither do you or Michael Moore. We don't know what is in Iraq now or what was there then. And we don't know what the people who know know. That much I know <g> I don't know about 'no link to Al Qaeda' There were certainly enough links to people who wished us ill. Al Qaeda is not the only problem. Saddam had to go. The question was how.
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>>Would I have attacked when Bush did ? I don't know. A smart politician would have talked tough and stalled until after the election. I hope that if I thought it was what had to be done, I would have had the courage to do it. It was a very very tough call. The petty people who assume it was done lightly or without thought to the consequences tell me more about themselves than they reflect an understanding of how decision making works on the part of those with unimaginable responsibility.
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>This line of thought is that none of us laymen know the facts. OK, fine I can accept that. We are not privy to the "facts" known to a government inteligence community. This argument however raises several questions and points;
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>1) Niether the pro-war nor the anti-war laymen know the facts and therefore whichever side you "choose" is a choice made in ignorance - because we dont have the facts.
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>2) The politicians gave very clear reasons for going to war. These reasons have not been borne out by the discoveries. In fact several "intelligence" reports about wmd in Iraq were apparently even faked (why?). But ok, the reasons given were not the real reasons because the real reasons/facts are not disclosed to the masses. But this does mean, of course, that the politicians lied.
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>3) If the public dont get given the actual facts then effectively we hand over all control to the politicians who dont have to answer to anything becuase the masses dont have the facts.
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>The "we dont have the facts so leave it to those in power to decide" is a danagerous one in my opinion (although I am not so naive to imagine that this doesnt happen probably all the time anyway).
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>I suspect that most of us appreciate that decisions like this are enormously complex. However, once taken those who did the deciding must be held accountable for their decisions. Otherwise we have power without responsibility.
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>If wmd are not the reason for war then (a) they should'nt have been given as the reason, and (b) let's hear the real reason now that we are at war.
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>Thanks for your posts. Most informative.
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