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Originally Posted by Willravel
The regime was gone literally overnight. That was a victory. Yay military. Leaving alone the fact we had no business removing the regime, it was done and it was done properly.
The problem came immediately after that. The military basically said, "Okay, what now?" Then there were some garbled messages about WMDs and al Queady links... then it was about liberation, then democracy. Now it's about ending the civil war we caused.
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I agree regarding the lack of clarity regarding the occupation. I think there were some in the administration who had no interest in occupying and re-building Iraq. On the other-hand we had Powell's famous line - "you break it, you fix it". I do think our objectives with the occupation evolved. In hindsight, I think we know that we should have committed more troops and resources or left and let the power vacuum be filled and let our response depend on what happened. Leaving a power vacuum would have been and would be un-humanitarian in my view. Initially I had mixed feelings about the occupation and later, I agreed with Powell regarding the occupation in the context of "fixing it". And I still don't see how a person, who says he cares about people, like Obama, unconditionally say that he will remove the troops from Iraq without consideration for a power struggle that could lead to who knows what. Prior to the surge I felt our national commitment to "fixing it" was lacking. Now that conditions are going well, I think we need to let the occupation run its course.
I understand the view of those who did not think we had the right to invade Iraq and then occupy the country. I also understand the dilemma with reconciling the concept of preemptive war with national defense as outlined in the Constitution. I think these two issues are still very compelling for discussion. We just can not seem to get off of the question about Bush being deceptive or not.