Well I certainly respect the views and have read the books of others, notably O'Neil, Clarke, Woodward, and Gary Aldrich, as insiders who I trusted as accurate reporters of what goes on behind the scenes. Press secretary's, not so much.

Might as well crosspost this link here too. Tangentially relevant.

Addressing Elder's article:

1. The Iraq War 'surge' should have been done five years ago. Either way, It is irrelevant to the fact that Iraq was no real threat, thanks to the sanctions already in place. As for no attacks on American soil since 9/11, US Embassies in foreign lands are considered on American soil.

Actually, the hundreds of violations of UN sanctions by Sadam were the ultimate reason for the Iraq invasion. Just because the UN was too spineless to enforce their own sanctions doesn't mean we had to be spineless also. How long were we supposed to wait while Sadam was firing at our planes in the UN's no fly zone? Where are all the naysayers who bitched about George Sr when he followed UN mandates and did not take out Sadam in the first Gulf War? For someone who was "no threat to us," he sure had a way of projecting the fantasy that he had the biggest military in the region, and apparently not supporting terror means paying huge sums of money to the families of suicide bombers is just being a friendly old guy. I guess his own people hung him because his was such a benign regime.

Two d's in Saddam.
As for your arguments, they've already been discredited and if you're still trying to make them, then you aren't going to listen now.

ORLY????

Ya rly. Saddam basically obeyed the UN sanctions years before the invasion ago by destroying and or burying his WMD program to the point of uselessness.

The ultimate reasons to invade Iraq were:
1) oil, as confirmed by McCain in a recent speech, only problem is that oil became a lot more expensive at the dealer end; Bush even couldn't hold down the price of oil;
2) revenge: W(the son) heard of arrests made on an assassination attempt on Sr.(the father) in Kuwait years back. W also heard of Iraqi connections to the assassination attempt. W wanted so badly to attack Saddam to avenge his father.

If he said those two reasons, his justification to invade Iraq might be slightly more credible, though insufficient to the UNand others. Then W heard from agents from Iran (Chalabi) about Iraq's bogus WMD program. After W prepped McClellan and Powell with the sexed-up reports, the rest is history.

Oh by the way, former exiles from Iraq hanged Saddam, not 'his own people'.

yawn.

You believe the dribble? Iraqi's executed Saddam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executi...Saddam_Hussein

Anyone who believes we invaded Iraq for oil or revenge or Haliburton is whacked.

Why then, did we invade? I can't seem to remember a particular reason that hasn't been based on lie.

:::crickets chirping:::

The last time Flint asked this exact question, which apparently will be asked ad infinitum for some reason, I pointed him to the Strategic Overview and all he could do it mock me for it. Here's the Iraq section.

1. Stage 2: Iraq
   1. Goal of Stage 2: we had to conquer one of the big antagonistic Arab nations and take control of it.
      1. To directly reduce support for terrorist groups by eliminating one government which had been providing such support.
      2. To place us in a physical and logistical position to be able to apply substantial pressure on the rest of the major governments of the region.
         1. To force them to stop protecting and supporting terrorist groups
         2. To force them to begin implementing political and social reforms
      3. To convince the governments and other leaders of the region that it was no longer fashionable to blame us for their failure, so that they would stop using us as scapegoats.
      4. To make clear to everyone in the world that reform is coming, whether they like it or not, and that the old policy of stability-for-the-sake-of-stability is dead. To make clear to local leaders that they may only choose between reforming voluntarily or having reform forced on them.
      5. To make a significant long term change in the psychology of the "Arab Street"
         1. To prove to the "Arab Street" that we were willing to fight, and that our reputation for cowardice was undeserved.
         2. To prove that we are extraordinarily dangerous when we do fight, and that it is extremely unwise to provoke us.
         3. To defeat the spirit of the "Arab Street". To force them to face their own failure, so that they would become willing to consider the idea that reform could lead them to success. No one can solve a problem until they acknowledge that they have a problem, and until now the "Arab Street" has been hiding from theirs, in part aided by government propaganda eager to blame others elsewhere (especially the Jews).
      6. To "nation build". After making the "Arab Street" truly face its own failure, to show the "Arab Street" a better way by creating a secularized, liberated, cosmopolitan society in a core Arab nation. To create a place where Arabs were free, safe, unafraid, happy and successful. To show that this could be done without dictators or monarchs. (I've been referring to this as being the pilot project for "Arab Civilization 2.0".)
      7. Not confirmed: It may have been hoped that the conquered nation would serve as a honey-pot to attract militants from the region, causing them to fight against our troops instead of planning attacks against civilians. (This was described by David Warren as the flypaper strategy.) It seems to have worked out that way, but it's not known if this was a deliberate part of the plan. Many of the defenders who died in the war were not actually Iraqis.

Well I don't see any lies below...:D
__________________

I'm not mocking you for it; because you aren't mockable for it. You didn't send our troops to Iraq.

The fact that "the war" can only be explained via anonymous hypothesizing on the internet indicates to me that there is a problem. Also, that I can pull a better reason out of my ass in support of the war than anything I've ever heard anybody say who is in support of it. It's the stupid reasons, and non-reasons that make my brain explode. We're doing something that nobody knows the reason for. And when I offer a good reason, they want to argue about it because that's not what they've been told the reason is.

People prefer a stupid reason, and reject a logical reason.

Were that any sort of official government document (Pentagon, Joint Chiefs, the Park Service), that would lend it some credence. However, it's a blogger making assertions. Further, it describes goals, not the reasoning behind the methodology to achieve those goals.
I have yet to hear the folks responsible for these decisions come up with a reasonable answer.