Replies

We went into Iraq for both strategic and tactical reasons.

The thing that we didn't think about is that there have been regional conflicts in this land for centuries that Sadham kept buried through the use of force.
What we did not anticipate was that these regional conflicts would break free in such a short time, and we didn't have a government ready to go that would put them down in a hurry.

We are there, we should not be leaving until there is a workable solution to this, and if we do leave we will be leaving a larger, and more dangerous, vacuum than when Sadham was in power.

Saddam started 2 regional wars, killed hundred of thousands if not millions and had drawn the USA into an open end military comitment to “Contanin” him.

Saddam was the biggest thread to the worlds political and economic stablity around. Even if we leave today, the world is much much much better off with him gone.

BEST answer is we stay and Iraq emerges as a viable stable democracy. But any answer that removes Saddam is a better answer then leaveing him around to make trouble.

The thing that we didn't think about is that there have been regional conflicts in this land for centuries that Sadham kept buried through the use of force. What we did not anticipate was that these regional conflicts would break free in such a short time, and we didn't have a overnment ready to go that would put them down in a hurry.

Well, I actually don't know to what extent these matters were or were not considered, pre-invasion. But, having said that, the concerns that you mention in your post do not, for me, outweigh what I consider to be the correct answers to the following questions.

1. After our nation was viciously attacked, why should Middle East regional conflicts have deterred us from taking quick, strong measures against those entities that our best intelligence indicated were serious threats to produce and/or abet even more serious attacks on the homeland? IMHO, they shouldn't have.

2. How much time did we have to overcome regional dysfunctions and prep standby governments-in-waiting for the day of liberation while our enemies were no doubt seeking access to the WMD that a mass-murdering, US hater of Saddam’s ilk gave every indication of holding/developing? IMHO, there was no time to waste trying to untangle the religio-political mess in the region.

As far as I'm concerned, more variety in the possible answers to these questions is perhaps understandable six or so years down the road; but things were much less flexible back at he starting point—9/11/’01.

We are there, we should not be leaving until there is a workable solution to this, and if we do leave we will be leaving a larger, and more dangerous, vacuum than when Sadham was in power.

We are in complete agreement on this point.