From the NYT article:
"With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."WFB apparently was speaking in the context of the reasonable proposition that military interventions should occur only when vital U.S. interests are at stake. If we consider Iraq outside the context of the War on Terror, we could hold an honorable debate on whether or not Saddam was worth the blood of our soldiers.
However, the current war pits us against a regional foe, not a national one. Iraq is but one front, one operation in a much larger war that most certainly serves our vital national interest.
very well stated CC. The problem with many conservatives is they did not view Saddam's Iraq as a terror hotbed, despite the overwhelming evidence. As such, we had no choice but to knock him off. The WMDs themselves are a mysterious puzzle which I believe we will solve in due time.
Only the willfully blind right (ie Pat Buchanan) and the hate-America left think that Iraq's WMD were a fiction. The former head of Romanian Intel has stated time and again that Saddam had a KGB/Russian WMD disposal plan ready to go in case the heat turned up.
When Bush is re-elected (I predict 44 states to GWB), we will stay the course in Iraq and the middle east will slowly begin its ascent from the middle ages. There will be many Arab kids in 10 years with George for a first name.