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Let me be straight here, while I detest the forces controlling the anti-war movement, I have had a hard time seeing the strategic wisdom of invading Iraq. Iran, in my opinion, would have made a better strategic target in the war on terror.

Here are my foriegn policy reasons for having opposed intervention.

1)Thanks to the Clinton Administration, the American military lacks the manpower it had in 1989.
2)The British found they were unable to control Iraq after World War I and hastily withdrew leaving Prince Faisal as their puppet.
3)I was worried an Islamic regime could come to power through democratic means as almost happened in Algeria.
4)Iraq has a sizeable Catholic population that curried favor under Saddam that I was concerned would be severely persecuted.
5)I was worried that we would face a protracted guerilla conflict led by elements of Saddam's Republican Guard and other elements who didn't exactly like Americans.
6)Nation building as an exercise imposed from without has almost never worked: Bosnia, Somalia, Cambodia, etc.

At the behest of a senior-level GOP operative, whose name I would prefer to keep confidential on this board, I attended a conference with Karl Rove in March 2003, just before the war started. I asked Karl Rove what the administration's contingency plans were once they had toppled Saddam.

The first thing that came to mind was our young men and women getting sniped at by Iraqis and others who hate America. I asked Karl Rove if the administration had contingency plans for a prolonged insurgency.

He told me,"There won't be an insurgency. The Iraqis are an educated people, and they will welcome us a liberators."

Then I asked him if the administration was ready to protect Iraq's Christian minority. Rove then told me he didn't think anything would happen to Iraq's Christians.

Let me be clear, while the Iraq War leaves a sour taste in my mouth and I often question why we are there, I support fighting this war until we can somehow win it.

I don't believe Mr. Bush deliberately misled anyone, except for the possibility of the intelligence community having possibly misled him. The one thing the Left doesn't get is: intelligence is mostly a guessing game based upon the best evidence you have on-hand. The intelligence community has guessed wrongly in almost every major conflict we have been in since World War II.

The CIA's failure to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union was a prime example because it caught many in the intel community of guard.

I met the president on two or three occasions, and he always impressed me with his air of sincerity, and I voted for him twice.

If Mrs. Sheehan has some suggestions on how to withdraw without making the violence in Iraq worse, I am open to suggestions.

I simply fail to see the strategic connection between eliminating the Al-Qaeda's worldwide grasp. Iran would have made a far more logical target. In war there is no substitute for total victory.