The problem I have with the anti-war crowd, particularly those who are on-line, is that I find them intellectually dishonest. When someone tries to say "Bush lied about WMD" or that the invasion of Iraq was largely because we believed Saddam had stockpiles of WMD they are really being dishonest. But dishonesty in debate is, sadly, a regular occurrence. But when it comes to blogging, blogs can be re-read from the time frame.  And those who favored going into Iraq have been consistent in the reasons why we needed to go after Iraq.

Let's recap why Americans favored going to war in Iraq:

After the first Gulf War (1991) Saddam had continually violated the terms of the cease fire. This culminated in 1998 when the inspectors were thrown out. At that point, Americans would have supported the use of massive military support to remove Saddam. But Clinton was mired in the impeachment and the issue just didn't seem imminent enough.

Then came 9/11.

After 9/11, Americans came to the realization that the United States could no longer afford a powerful open enemy in that part of the world. Saddam had a history of invading its neighbors. It had a history of trying to acquire WMD and occasionally using them on his own people.  Saddam, in short, was a ticking time bomb. He had to go.

So the US went to the UN one last time and essentially said "We need to put this guy on notice that we're not fooling around anymore. He's gotta comply with the previous dozen and a half UN resolutions or we're going to take him out." The UN passed resolution 1441. 

Most Americans, myself included, believed Saddam had stockpiles of WMD in the form of chemical weapons. We'd been told that for 10 years. But that really wasn't the issue. But few were sweating whether Saddam had mustard gas or Sarin or whatever in his inventory. The issue was what would Saddam do after the sanctions got lifted and the inspectors were gone. But 1441 would at least let us see if he had any genuine interest in cooperating with the UN.

It turned out he didn't. He screwed around with the inspectors once again. No fly-overs allowed, no talking to scientists without Iraqi officials present to intimidate them, no paperwork on where the missing WMD stockpiles had gone. And in the midst of this, Iraq continued to shoot at US and British planes patrolling the no-fly zone.

Again, Americans were faced with a choice. We could just throw up our hands and let this guy keep doing this until one day he managed to develop and smuggle a nuke or something to Al Qaeda or some other terrorist organization, or we could go and remove this guy. After all, this guy was actively paying terrorists in Israel for their efforts, it isn't a stretch to imagine Saddam providing help to those who wanted to kill Americans.

So the United States went to war with a primary and secondary goal.

The primary goal was to remove Saddam Hussein. Doing so would eliminate any stockpiles of WMD but more importantly, it would eliminate any programs he may have had to produce WMD in the future that could be provided to terrorists.  Like I said, it wasn't mustard gas that Americans were worried about, it was a future nuclear bomb or something worse that Saddam might produce in the future and turn over. In short, we would be removing a serious threat to the United States in the post 9/11 world.

The secondary goal was to establish a stable, prosperous democratic Iraq that would serve as an example to nearby countries as part of the effort to "drain the swamp" that creates the terrorists in the first place. An open, free society in Iraq might make the people of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Syria more inclined to move away from radical Islam and be more moderate.  As an added benefit, such a state would be friendly to the United States and allow it to exert pressure on the aforementioned 3 countries that produce a disproportionate amount of terrorists.

Since the war, the Kay report came out. And the report actually backed up much of what those of us who were in favor of the war believed -- Saddam was actively trying to obtain WMD and had every intention to build WMD on a large scale once sanctions were lifted. His strategy was to not have stockpiles of WMD but instead gear up towards the post-sanction production of WMD.

But many who have opposed the war, have demonstrated a dishonesty on this issue that I find staggering. They have focused on the stockpiles of WMD discussion in the Kay report and totally ignored the real issue - Saddam wanted to get WMD and was actively putting together such a program to be fully implemented once sanctions were lifted. The people who believe we should have done more to stop 9/11 suddenly turn around and believe that it was wrong to stop what could have been a far worse catastrophe 5, 10 years in the future. In other words, the fear those of us who wanted Saddam removed was totally justified. As I wrote before the war, my concern wasn't whether Saddam had chemical weapons, my fear was that it would be my son fighting on a nuclear battle field in Iraq because we failed to act now.

Here are some of my articles I wrote on the war back at the time:

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/InanidealworldBushcouldte.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/TheCaseforandagainstwar.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/AmericaattheCross-Roads.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/PrincipledPositions.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/TheLefthaslostitsvoice.html

https://www.joeuser.com/Articles/TheDebate.html

BTW, one thing you'll get from reading those old blogs (i.e. BEFORE the war) is that I didn't even believe Iraq had any WMD at the time (I don't usually consider chemical weapons to be WMD). So as you read the articles, not only are stockpiles of WMD not an issue, I didn't even think he had WMD at the time. My concern was that after 9/11, we couldn't mess around with this guy anymore. He had shown he wanted to obtain WMD if he could and with Al Qaeda he had a delivery vehicle.

My articles are no way unique either. They mirror articles written by others at the time who supported the war. No where can I find any articles that argued that the primary or even major reason for invading Iraq was to eliminate Saddam's stockpile of WMD. The reason we removed Saddam was because we believed he was a threat that we could no longer live with in a post-9/11 world. End of story.

Those who cling to the lack of stockpiles of WMD are overstating their case and being dishonest. Sure, I thought Iraq had chemical weapons in barrels somewhere. And they might. But it wasn't something keeping me up at night. What I knew and still know is that quite a number of people over in that area of the world are trying to murder as many innocent Americans as possible. And I knew that Saddam, being an open enemy of the United States was interested in acquiring WMD destruction. Time has shown that Saddam was trying to acquire WMDs. He just didn't keep stockpiles of them, he was building the programs to produce them once sanctions were lifted. As an American, I expect my government to protect me and my family. The federal government does precious little for me given the taxes it extracts. But I expect it to do this one thing damn well. And 9/11 was the wake up call so that I could avoid having my son fighting on a nuclear battle ground in Iraq 10 years hence.

Once Saddam was toppled, the mission was accomplished. The primary goal of the invasion was completed a year ago. Now we wrestle with the secondary goal of trying to establish a stable, peaceful democracy. How that will turn out is anyone's guess. As a hawk, I'm not going to lose sleep whether Iraq ends up a democracy or not as long as it doesn't support or harbor terrorists or try to develop a WMD program. Ironically, it should be the doves hoping that the US is successful from here on out. As far as I'm concerned, our main job is done. The point of staying now is to help the Iraqi's that we have a moral responsibility to do. But that should be the argument the left is making because I'm not going to make it for them.