I think it is time to play a strategy game called “what would you have done”. Had you been President at the time of 9/11 the world would have been a very dangerous place. Historically weapons of mass destruction were held only by nation states, all of whom could be counted on to have some interest in self preservation. Those weapons also required a complex, expensive and trackable delivery system, which only a nation state could provide. This produced a mutual chess draw environment with all players locked in place. But Islam smashed the board and broke the international stalemate. Islam provided a simple, self contained and suicidal delivery system. Suddenly every town and city in the country was open to attack with no available defense. Any President would have only one option. If attacks cannot be stopped, then they must be prevented. As a result, with every intelligence service in the world agreeing that Iraq had those weapons, a President could not take the chance of being wrong. The only sane choice would be to remove the supplier of the threat because the threat itself cannot be defended against and cannot even be traced back. If the Intelligence community was wrong, then the president would be pilloried, defamed and ridiculed by the press. And “journalists” are now enjoying every minute of it. But that is far better than being a president who sat placidly by while New York, Chicago or San Francisco disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Journalists” would have happily taken that risk, with your lives. Mistaken decision yes, wrong decision, no

What you say would be true if in fact, the Bush Administration truly believed that Iraq had WMD and that they were an imminent threat to the US. As I recall, every time the Administration made a wild assertion about either Iraq's culpability in 9-11, attempts to acquire uranium, or their existing arsenal, sober minds would dismantle their argument and in most cases, disprove them entirely. That didn't matter to Bush and Co. They would simply replace one rationale for war with another one, usually within a single day of their previous rationale being disproved. What I and possibly others though would happen would be that upon the invasion, the US Military would find enough WMD in the country to make a plausible case that Iraq had enough WMD to weakly justify the invasion, and during that time of extreme paranoia most of the US population would go along. It was amazing to find that the tyrant Sadam Hussein was more honest about the status of Iraq's WMD than George Bush. They have eternity to spend together.

A lot of, um, interesting opinions that you are attempting to pass off as conclusions. It is too bad that your inability to write English or, apparently, to think clearly in any language makes dicussing your views impossible.

Doesn't look like you are old enough to have experienced much of Pakistan's history.
Pakistan, from the morning after of its inception, has reveled in bigotry and hatred.
Educated and illiterate alike, have for over sixty years, had nothing else to do but practise hatreds. Religious hatreds, provincial hatreds, class hatreds and all other reasons not to tolerate each other.

Religious bigotry and intolerance is enjoyed by every Pakistani as fulltime indulgence.
Including people like you. When was last time, or the first time, you said anything against the proof of religious bigotry which appears on all Pakistani government documents?
You'll say what?

You can go here and read Section 16 of Pakistan's passport application, then come back and tell us how and why a state deep up to its eyeballs in religious bigotry will be around for much longer?

http://www.pakistan-embassy.org/forms/A%20form%20fillable.pdf

Pakistanis have cuddled with snakes, religious and provincial bigots, for all its life.
Now these snakes are biting back and Pakistanis are blaming everyone else except themselves, for their wrong choices and judgments....

"Doesn't look like you are old enough to have experienced much of Pakistan's history.
Pakistan, from the morning after of its inception, has reveled in bigotry and hatred.
Educated and illiterate alike, have for over sixty years, had nothing else to do but practise hatreds. Religious hatreds, provincial hatreds, class hatreds and all other reasons not to tolerate each other."

Not unlike India, just smaller.

China has always been an important power in international affairs, but it would be very funny to say China will bury us in a decade or so. China has very many structural problems. If anything, you'll look as funny as the guy who thought the Soviet Union or Japan was going to bury us.

Well, thanks, I guess.

Please pay little attention to people such as Freetrader. Your comments were pretty well understood, even though I'm sure English is not your first language. I welcome all comments and try to understand the commenters point, though I am not agree.

Your comments is premised on the idea that Bush and Co. truly believed that Iraq and its supposed arsenal were an immediate threat to the United States. Anyone who was objectively following the administrations actions during the buildup to the Iraq invasion could see that they were determined to go to war, regardless of evidence came out of the ongoing inspections of Iraq's potential WMD facilities and storage areas and interviews with credible Iraqi scientists who offered proof that there was, and for all purposes had never been a real nuclear program in Iraq. Furthermore, the Bush Administration openly bullied and threatened anyone who challenged them on any of their lies. These were not the actions of an administration that was soberly trying to size up the potential threat and take the wisest course of action. This was a belligerent administration with their eyes on the mid-term elections, control over vast reserves of oil, vengeance, and a place in history as a dashing military conqueror, like Napoleon.

1. As leader of the free world since WW2, the US has domestic and global security responsibilities. In our global role, the US was the main enforcer against Saddam's Iraq after 1991. 2. Saddam's Iraq was in violation since 1991. After the 1991 war, it was not the West's responsibility to prove Saddam's guilt. Rather, it was Saddam's Iraq's responsibility to prove its innocence - on multiple fronts, not just nuclear arms (and, yes, it is well-established that Saddam's Iraq had a nuclear program) or even WMD - according to the standards set forth by his surrender and the UN resolutions. Saddam's Iraq easily could have satisfied those conditions in 1991, but instead, Saddam chose to subvert the process in the 1990s and exacerbate his situation with actions against his own people. The standards were made increasingly stringent in response. (See http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/Chronology/chronologyframe.htm.) Saddam knew in 2002 he was being given a final chance to meet the standards, but Saddam's Iraq failed again to meet the standards required to prove its innocence. As you may recall, the debate in 2003 was not whether Saddam's Iraq had adequately met the standards, because it did not. While Saddam's Iraq was failing again, the debate was whether to allow more time than originally allocated. With a 300K+ multi-national force in position, President Bush made the decision to enforce according to the original timeline, similar to President Clinton making the decision independently of the UN to bomb Saddam's Iraq in 1998. Bottom-line is that Saddam's Iraq was in violation of its commitments and UN resolutions, and after 12 years of escalating enforcement and failure, the only level of enforcement remaining was regime change.

A tidal wave of democracy is not far from the Administrations actual statements in selling us the war. As I recall, Cheney said something to the effect that once democracy begins unfolding in Iraq, the non-democratic regimes in the region will fall like dominoes and a wave of democracy will sweep over the Middle East. I say that in the present context, falling like dominoes, waves of democracy and a tidal wave aren't too different. Its fair to hold them to the standards of the hyperbole they used in selling us the Iraq disaster.

President Clinton, Oct 1998:
The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a
freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that
of our allies within the region.
The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom
at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable
due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis
deserve and desire freedom like everyone else.
The United States looks forward to a democratically supported
regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the
reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.
. . . The evidence is overwhelming that such
changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.

That's exactly how I feel. W was basically an 11 year old kid strutting around in a military flight suit from 9-11 until the end of his first term, and Republicans nearly got his face on Mount Rushmore. Sadly, it took a disaster like Katrina in order for the majority of Americans to finally realize that he really wasn't up to the task of being president. Where were all of the Tea Baggers then?

They say, had Gore been president he might very well have gone after Saddam like Bush. He's said to be even more hawkish than Clinton.

I think where we went wrong was emphasis. Sure, Saddam was ripe for picking, but we had another score to settle first. How farcical to have called Pakistan an ally in the War on Terror, when it was and continues to be Pakistan, from civilians to military to government, that provides al Qaeda a safe haven.

Yes, it's Monday Morning Quarterbacking, but I'd love to have seen a joint American-EU-Indian squeeze of Af-Pak as soon after 9/11 as we could have mobilized. And by mobilization, I mean a genuine wartime footing, with sacrifices and commitment on the home front, not Bush's "Go out and shop."

And to the genius who says Pakistan is like a little India, that clever claim belies a total ignorance of the society, culture, history and facts on the ground of the world's biggest democracy. In fact, I envy the Hindu's refusal to put up with Islamist bs. They know their number. Unlike us.

"Invading Iraq was a non-sequitur to 9/11."

Not if you're a liberal. See http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/esquire2004.htm

I think the article you link to still addresses Iraq in terms of long-term strategic goals. If you want to engage in counter-history, then I agree the response from Clinton or Gore might very well have been the same as Bush's. And just as much a non-sequitur. To carry the analog with WWII further, one can compare Al Qaeda with Japan and Iraq with Germany. Of course, a big difference was Hitler's unilateral declaration of war against us. We had to invent a pretext to war on Saddam. Allusions to Hitler were the least dishonest, but that wouldn't have been enough, since the only regional threat one could come up with would be Iran. If Hitler had only invaded Russia, we'd never have intervened. 9/11 fell in our laps, like Pearl Harbor. It was as much serendipity for Cheney/Rumsfeld as Pearl Harbor was for FDR. And it was exploited just as fervently.

So, we needed a direct Iraqi threat to US. This is where the Nexus with 9/11 and WMDs came in. The Nexus was pure fabrication, though the public was eager to swallow it. The WMDs were a chimera if not a lie.

When one criticizes Cheney/Rumsfeld (after all, it was their war, not Bush's), it's not as Republican/conservative. One cannot be certain Democrat/liberal wouldn't have attacked Iraq, using the same war-on-the-cheap approach, of hiring it out to Haliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater and their ilk. There may well have been a right-left difference in approach to operations, but there may still have been an Iraq.

What we should have done -- and this is not Monday Morning Quarterbacking, because people were screaming for this at the time -- was:

1. declaration of war to shut up the lawyers
2. full homefront mobilization
3. Powell Doctrine, sending overwhelming force to pursue the 9/11 perps
4. being as good as our word, to pursue them wherever they fled, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, the TBA of S. America, etc.
5. deeming Pakistan not a "partner" but an accomplice to the jihadis
6. enlisting India, giving her carte blanche (including nuclear) to pursue her own strategic goals
7. letting Iran know that they are next
8. inviting the Russians to participate with the offer of a regional sphere of influence
9. expanding our garrison in Iraq, assuring Saddam we'd not topple him if he strengthened his Iranian flank (with those WMDs!) and kept his hands off Israel
10. kill and/or torture for information every jihadi terrorist, wherever they were found, until they all were dead or in custody
12. to prevent a war of attrition, ruthless, repmorseless prosecution of the war -- no "measured response," no "winning hearts and minds," end feckless debates, root out subversive academics, regarded media as the enemy, eliminate all Islamist media
12. capability to garrison all theatres indefinitely -- a tall order but not impossible.
11. a crash program to build out a domestic nuclear power grid

You may argue with the points, which I just throw out there, but they're neither conservative nor liberal, Republican nor Democrat, they're just how to win a war properly. Of course, it's too late know. We've already screwed the pooch. But there may well be a next time.

As politically disastrous as Iraq has been politically, the experience has been a boon for our defense. We have been bloodied in a long war, we have learned, we have toughened. Experience like this cannot be bought at any price -- not with maneuvers, not with war games, not with simulations. Congress hopefully understands this. With proper rotation and funding, our experience will make us the premier fighting force in the world for the foreseeable future. Without it, well, you know what happens to a defense that lies fallow.

Thanks for the link, it was a good read.