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I tend to disagree. This article is factual, but it is shot through with negativity. I would guess it is the work of the left-wingers on the WSJ news staff, rather than the more conservative editorial page staff.

Pretty typical is the implication that the US made a bad mistake in not accepting the offer of NATO help. But, as the article itself admits, that turned out to be a French Trojan horse. NATO would have been--and proved to be--no more use than the UN, because the French intended from the beginning to veto any initiatives that might be taken.

Although the article doesn't use the infamous word "unilateral," it does strongly imply that the US screwed up and isolated itself. That simply isn't true. We made every diplomatic effort to bring about a consensus. Other than the central axis of Germany, France, and Belgium, and the mischief-makers in Russia and China, and the rogue states, most of the world is on our side. Muslims are not very happy, but that can't be helped, obviously.

The article says, "By the end of that day, the West was headed for a diplomatic train wreck on a scale not seen since World War II." That statement is accurate. And the perpetrator of the disaster was Jacque Chirac, although the writers do their very best to obscure that central fact.

I don't read the article as being critical of the U.S. or wolfy:

"The issue of whether the West would attack terrorism under NATO's flag was largely symbolic. The U.S. in any case would have provided most of the manpower and money. But France, Germany and other European countries felt spurned and bewildered by Washington's refusal to take them up on their offer.

Mr. Wolfowitz says any officials who felt that way misread his position. At the time, he adds, the U.S. "didn't have any notion what kind of military forces we needed" for a possible war in Afghanistan, "nor any notion that NATO as an alliance was prepared to commit to something as ambitious as Afghanistan." Mr. Wolfowitz also says that last December, he presented to NATO a detailed proposal for how it could help with a possible war against Iraq. "But what we feared in September '01 is precisely what happened: The French blocked collective action."

Once again: The French blocked collective action

I have a hunch that Russia is behind the French and German No vote. There was a lot of money coming out of Iraq for these countries and they were afraid that we would close the gold pot.

This morning Blair was moaning that we need the UN in the UN to participate in the resurrection of a free Iraq! He is pulling the UN into the picture so the socialist Parliment doesn't burn him at the stake.

Politics has a great deal to do with this mess. I still haven't determined exactly why we are in Iraq. Two choices, money and money.