Originally Posted by Charlatan

I have come around on this point of view. Yes, there was justification to take out Saddam. There was, on one hand, good reason to be optimistic that Iraq could have been just like Germany in post WWII. All it needed to set its people on the straight an narrow was new leadership.

Sadly, Iraq isn't Germany or Japan. Iraq is more like Yugoslavia and it required an iron-fisted Saddam to keep it together. With Saddam out of the way, the US has to be the new Saddam. The US does not have the stomach to be the new Saddam.

Bush should have listened to what Chaney was saying when he was working for Bush Sr.

A case can be made for invading Iraq but the US should never have gone alone. The US really needed to have many more allies going in to both share the cost, share the nation building and share the post-Saddam heat. The Bush administration's Yippie-Kai-Ay attitude prior to the war (you are either with us or against us, thumbing their nose at Kyoto, the stance on the international court, etc.) lead to some of the US's stanchest allies saying, no.

Add to this, the administration did very little to prepare the american public for the long haul. Rumsfeld was all parades and flower stewn streets. This was always going to have to be a nation building exercise. Nations are not built over night.

Yes, it was a good idea to see Saddam go, but at what cost? America experiencing massive and spiraling debt. They are mired in a seemingly impossible war with public opinion collapsing. The latest reports suggest that Al Queda is back and able to strike again.

There are many lessons to be learned and I am not convinced history will be kind to Bush and his Administration.