[RobbyS]

If you think the region was stable under Hussein, you are quite mistaken. After engaging a long, savage war with Iran, with the help of the USA and others, he turned on us by invading Kuwait and threatend the poorly armed Gulf states. After signing a treaty, he spent the next 9 years violating that treaty, and by 1998 he more or less had. Which is why the Clinton administration called for his overthrow. Meanwhile, by acting as the Saudis gendarme, we had intensified Islamists feeling by basing troops in Sauadia Arabia. Saddam was one of the main mischief makers in Palestinem as he noit only condoned by rewarded those who blew themselves up and made peace inpossible.

[The Old Hoosier]

A valid point on the Gulf War, but we did what we had to, and we still had twelve years after that of relative peace, intermittently broken by a plane being (unsuccessfully) fired on. Even in the final run-up to the war, there was no violent provocation -- just a persistent unwillingness to live by our terms.

Which is why the Clinton administration called for his overthrow.

You're not going to have to twist my arm to make me say Clinton was wrong.

We now know that whatever WMD Hussein had, it was pretty underwhelming. Even once we'd invaded, there was still hope that this would come out okay. As soon as we figured out the WMD situation, it was time to install someone we liked as dictator and go home. That's the way we used to do it.

[Brad from Tennessee]

You right. Because of Iraq we had a military presence over there after Gulf War I. We faced a growing threat to our personnel stationed around the Gulf region from terrorists. This manifested itself in Kohbar Towers and the U.S.S. Cole. The options we faced were pulling completely out of the region or regime change in Iraq. The clock was ticking on the UN sanctions. Europe, China and Russia were ready to lift them. Oil-for-Food turned out to be a sham. It was only a matter of time before Saddam got his full oil revenue back and started terrorizing his neighbors again. The Clinton Administration, in their last two years, formulated the regime change policy. It was supported by many Democrats and the policy was inherited by Bush. The case for invading Iraq was put forward in the book--"The Thundering Storm"--by Kenneth Polick who was a national security expert under Clinton. There has been a lot of historical revision in just six or seven years.