This piece is probably as close as anyone in Britain will probably ever get to admitting the war and its outcome were and are justified. The comments section is hilarious if only because the I-told-you-so crowd can't let go of its catchphrases. Illegal! Immoral! Bombing! Civilians! Occupation! Civil war! Ends justify the means!
But the anti-war types are always ready to have it both ways. According them, now that we're in Iraq we can't leave! It must be convenient to always be in the right!
Obviously there are plenty who demand Nuremberg-style proceedings in the States with Bush and Cheney in the dock but such a thing will never come to pass. Still, for those Americans who demand accountability why don't we start with anyone who wrote letters saying the war was doomed to failure from the start, who mocked (and misrepresented) the Mission Accomplished sign/visit, who said Iraq would be plunged into an interminable civil war, who said that free and fair elections were impossible and who said that democracy might not have been right for the Middle East.
I believe we long ago should have been forcing such people to defend the feeding of dissidents into wood chippers