What I'm still trying to figure out is why we're in Iraq in the first place. Prior to 2003, U.S. and British forces controlled 2/3 of Iraqi airspace for a dozen years with not a single plane lost. The Kurdish region in northern Iraq was experiencing a true growth of democracy. Iraq was hardly acknowledged when leaders of the Gulf States would hold their annual meeting. Ok, so forget all that, we're there. Now I'm wondering, when did it become our job to ensure that a has been middle east country should become democratic? The most powerful Gulf nations, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are so far from democracy that there hasn't been a year where our State Department hasn't listed them as some of the worst countries regarding human rights. Saudi Arabia is the most important Islamic country with the most powerful military (after Israel) and we have been just hunky dory with its non-democratic, extremist, religiously repressive ways. Saudi Arabia throws the most weight and has thrown the most weight in the region since the 1930s. So why invade Iraq? To take down a dictator who used to be a pal of both the Reagan and Bush administration that became to big for his britches. It kills me when the talking heads of the present administration say "Saddam attacked his neighbors!" Somehow forgetting that the first neighbor he attacked was Iran, a member of the dreaded Axis of Evil, yeah, we really care that he went to war with Iran.
All of which brings me to my point, we went to war under false pretenses (ok, just how many fake stories about uranium does it take to justify a war) and now our brothers and sisters, fathers and uncles, etc., are getting killed in a war the we went into under false pretenses. But even more galling is that we went to war and were warned by our very own war specialists, [e.g., The Army War College, the last three commanders of U.S. Central Command (including Gen. Anthony Zinni, a life long Republican)] that we would encounter an insurgency and that we needed hundreds of thousands of more troops on the ground. Hell, the administration even fired a Pentagon official who claimed that the war would cost at least $200 billion. We keep getting lied to and have ridiculous statements thrown at us like "The insurgency is in its last throes" followed by a dozen U.S. deaths or, as we experienced recently, 21 U.S. troops killed in one week. August isn't even over and we have at least 50 combat related deaths. In 2004, we averaged about 25-30 deaths a month. Wow, sure sounds like the dying throes of the insurgency to me. Another thing, why in the hell did we send troops over to Iraq without enough properly armored vehicles?! You mean we couldn't wait a year when our very own esteemed administration said that Iraq was still years from a nuclear weapon? Puhleaze, that's just B.S. and it's our troops who pay for the hubris that defines this administration. Yes, I think it's great that we're building schools for Iraqi children. But how in the hell do we balance that with the deaths of our troops? What, is that our mission now, to not only bring democracy but also an infrastructure to Iraq? We are trying to rebuild at the same time that a war is destroying things. Hey, cool, have a neo-Marshall plan for Iraq. But can't it wait until after we kill the bastards? You cannot simultaneously have an already stretched fighting force engage in a humanitarian mission and fight a war. So yeah, support our troops by:
a) Bringing them home and directing our regional "allies" who receive billions of dollars of military aid to get Iraq back together [here's a thought, just what in the hell else is Egypt and Saudi Arabia going to do with all the fighter planes, attack helicopters and tank we give to them anyway?]; or
b) Stop bifurcating the mission and have our troops fight 100% and either leave the humanitarian infrastructure efforts to someone else or do after we've won; or
c) Get more troops on the ground like the Generals who had military responsibility for the 12 years prior to Gen. Franks had been advocating for and which was supported by the Pentagon's own internal analysis.

And before anybody talks mess about me being some namby pamby liberal, I'm a former Marine who served with the 2nd Marine Division, HQ Bn, Comm Co, in Desert Storm. I have no problem with using our military for the defense of our country and the present Iraq war just doesn't qualify.

I support the troops, and do not believe we should pull out now. ( All would be lost if we did) However, I agree with Phillip.

Pete,

I'll try to throw some light on your concerns. I was in the Middle for such wondrous events as the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the begginning of the Iran/Iraq war and various other adventures of the day. I'll admit to cold war thinking.

On Saudi Arabia -

Saudi Arabia is incapable of fighting it's way out of a paper bag. The "Inshallah" factor is a huge problem. If Allah doesn't will them to show up for work, they don't, and no one can force them.

Unlike the Catholic Church, where the Pope defines God's will, in the Sunni religion, the individual defines God's will. This problem cuts both ways, terrorists regularly get instructions from Allah, just as the shirkers do.

Contrary to various propaganda, Saddam was a construct of the KGB, not the CIA. The US did make "overtures" when our Iranian pal the Shah got chased off.

After the Shah got chased off, the US tried to make friends with Iraq, and the Soviets tried to make friends with Iran. To put it in scale, the US had a couple of dinners with Saddam, but Saddam was a full fledged whore to the Soviets.

During the height of the cold war, puppets had to ask permission from their masters in order to have a war. Saddam was a dangerous monster, but he minded his masters when he was told to.

The Soviet Union fell apart, they subsequently lost control of their puppet Saddam, who promptly invaded Kuwait. Just as Milosevic was a Soviet Era monster, so is Saddam.

Outside of Israel, there isn't an Army in the Middle East that could actually win against Saddam.

Saddam tried to build some nukes, and the Israeli's bombed his research facility. If Saddam was building nukes, then everyone else in the neighborhood needed to build nukes, either to protect against Saddam, or in the case of Qhaddafi, to not be the only kid on the block without nukes.

The UN sanctions against Saddam, which pretty much prohibited him from pumping enough oil to "Buy" a nuke, if he couldn't manage to build one on his own, clearly were not going to last. The humanitarian crisis created by oil for food would end in the lifting of the sanctions.

If you ask the Syrian, Iranian, Saudi, Kuwaiti,Eqyptian and Jordanian goverments publicly why they want Armies and Weapons, they will all say because they fear Israel

If ask the same question privately, they will all say that they fear Saddam.

There is no reliable way to prevent a country with a few billion in spare cash from building a nuclear weapon.

Iran,Libya and Saudi Arabia all have the spare cash. They ALL believed that Saddam was bulding a nuclear weapon. Saddam wanted them to believe he was all powerful and fear him.

Libya was building nuclear weapons, as were the Iranians. Without Saddam in power, Qhadaffi has decided he doesn't need/want nuclear weapons. The EU3 is busy trying to convince the Iranians that they don't need/want nuclear weapons. There is no evidence that the Saudi's or Kuwaiti's ever felt compelled to acquite nuclear weapons, given that they trust that the US would defend them.

Personnally, it is bad enough to live in a world with where Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons.

Living in a world where Libya,Iraq,Kuwait,Iran and Saudi Arabia have nuclear weapons is unthinkable.

So when Bush says it was about WMD, he is telling the truth. Not just Saddam's plans to build WMD, but everyone elses plans to build them if Saddam actualy managed to get them.

The only way to keep nukes out of the region, is to convince people that they don't want them!!!!

Soldier's Dad
That is one of the most coherent, comprehensive response to the WMD's ever. Thanks... hope you don't mind, I've made a copy.