Why?

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by beej

And I'm no armchair warrior, I can assure you of that. Bush's stated reason for going in was the WMD which morphed into Iraqi Freedom.

Is the world better off without Sadam? Absolutely. Did we need to go in when we did the way we did? I don't think so and neither do a lot of other professional soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and diplomats infinitely more learned than I.

I don't think it's cut and dry that the world is better off without Saddam (though he was indeed an unsavory character). He was an effective counterbalance to Iran's primacy in the region. Now Iran has more influence with Iraq's Shia majority than we do. By a long shot, in fact. The Iraq War will go down as one of the biggest foreign policy failures in the history of our nation.