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I think we would have been much better off had we never went to the UN with Powell and tried to make the case to go to war over WMD. We had no way to secure the weapons sites to ensure that nothing left and we never went into Iraq quietly so Saddam would have been idiotic to leave any trace of his weapons when we kicked in the door.

For me it boiled down to two things:

1. They tried to assassinate a former US president (As much as I do not care for Carter, had Syria put a hit out on him, I would expect us to make a strike and decapitate that country's leadership).

2. They were the only sovereign nation to formally congratulate the Taliban and Al Quada after 9/11.

When liberals try to make sell me that Saddam should have been in power after I inform them of may stance with the facts above, I have to look at them and laugh, or QUESTION THEIR PATRIOTISM (I love when they get their panties in a wad over that one).

And make no mistake, WMD do exist. Read this book and see for yourself. I met this man while in Iraq. He told some very enlightening (though very disturbing) stories. About $11 on Amazon....

I think we would have been much better off had we never went to the UN with Powell and tried to make the case to go to war over WMD. We had no way to secure the weapons sites to ensure that nothing left and we never went into Iraq quietly so Saddam would have been idiotic to leave any trace of his weapons when we kicked in the door.

On the other hand, the WMDs that exist (!) would have been used on our troops if they were not spirited away to Syria, Libya, and Iran. The pressure to hide them overthrew the pressure to use them in last minute desperation.

I never underestimate the strategy employed by the Bush Administration. Although I disagree with President Bush's defense of Islam as a religion of peace, I must applaud the strategic importance of his statement to disarm emotionally a portion of the world that could take offense to our WOT as a War on Islam.

I think we would have been much better off had we never went to the UN....

I disagree, but only in a fundamental way. The US, since the Declaration of Independence has always held that, "..a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them...".

I do agree that Powell's presentation was too detailed and pleading, rather than simply stating that Iraq would soon have WMD's and the present regime, Saddam Hussein's , is disposed to provide access to these weapons to Al Qaeda. That Iraq had been hostile to the US to the point of assassination and were corrupting America's European alliances through international organizations. I would not have mentioned France, Germany and the "oil-for-food" scheme with the UN. Powell should have concluded with invoking the Monroe Doctrine as being the interference in the Western Hemisphere by a foreign power in regards to the attacks of 911. No other details need have been offered.

After the above, those who asked the US for "Badges", should have been met with the response that after 911: "We don't need no stinking badges!"

I think we would have been much better off had we never went to the UN with Powell

Hard to say. The downside was that we twiddled our thumbs working through the UN. The upside was that either the UN could prove to be useful in the battle against Iraq or they could be shown to be at best useless and at worse co-conspirators with Saddam. The latter has shown to be the case and the country is better off for having a realistic appraisal of UN which it didn't have before.

Neither of your reasons is adequate. Study the neo-con philosophy, it darn near mandates a US altered Iraq as the first step in creating a new ME and hence global paradigm.