Nobody wants to admit their side makes mistakes in judgment. Usually both sides in an argument share some part of the blame. But in my experience, one side usually has more of it shoulder than the other.
In terms of dealing with Iraq, it strikes me that the left has been the most cynical in dealing with the whole Iraq situation. Some of you probably disagree and are prepared to hit the comment button and paste in Anti-Bush quote #2921 that you found on some website.
So let me put forth my case here and decide for yourself:
In 2000, Russia and France not only weren't interested in "letting the sanctions" do their work, they wanted them lifted. They wanted Saddam's regime off the hook even though they had kicked the inspectors out in 1998 and were regularly shooting at US and British planes.
But they weren't alone. The left was making powerful arguments that UN sanctions were killing 72,000 Iraqi children per year! The left was demanding removing the sanctions entirely because of the humanitarian cost.
So there were 3 realistic options:
(a) Keep the sanctions despite Russia and France's desire to lift them and the left's insistence than they were murdering thousands of innocent Iraqi's.
(
Lift the sanctions on Iraq leaving Saddam free to do whatever.
(c) Remove Saddam and lift sanctions.
Now, if someone in 2000 said that you could remove Saddam and have a new Iraqi government with no sanctions within a year or so of work many people would have said that's optimistic to the extreme. And if they said it could be done with fewer than 1,000 coalition and fewer than 15,000 Iraqi civilians killed total in the whole thing then that would have been considered misleading right-wing propaganda.
In fact, if some recall, the left was claiming such an intervention would likely cause half a MILLION Iraqi civilian casualties (I've got dozens of links from the time claiming the same thing).
But when the Bush administration started asserting that after 9/11, we needed to remove Saddam (argue WHY Bush wanted Saddam gone elsewhere, let's stick with the facts here) France and Russia started a new thing "Let the sanctions work." Huh? They wanted to lift the sanctions. Oh, I get it, let the sanctions work until the Americans elect a more reasonable President. Gotcha.
The left, meanwhile, argued that going into Iraq would cause half a million civilian casualties (sorry, wanted to use one more of these great links) so we shouldn't go in. Besides, the left argued, containment was good enough. Containment would do the job. Containment? Wait a second, I thought the sanctions (now called containment) were killing 6,000 babies a month! We were starving the innocents. Now you're okay with this?
Of course, ultimately the US invaded. And what was learned was shocking. First, it looks like there were no stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. At least, none that we've found. They may have been moved, they may still be hidden, or they may simply not exist.
Secondly, it turned out that France and Russia, you remember them right? The ones who wanted to lift sanctions? Turns out that they had secret agreements with Saddam for massively lucrative oil contracts. Turned out someone's position about Iraq was about "the oillll". It just wasn't the US.
The third thing we learned is that 6,000 Iraqi babies weren't dying each month. That was just propaganda. Civilian deaths due to the sanctions are still not known but it's likely a figure close to 0.
Fourth, not that it matters given the third thing but it turned out that Saddam was taking that oil for food program and using it as his personal wallet. A billion in cash was found by US soldiers in canisters. Money siphoned off the oil for food program. Of course, the palaces alone should make it clear to anyone that there was plenty of money available.
Fifth, instead of half a million casualties, there have been fewer than 15,000. Incidentally, I'm trying to use left-wing sites for most of my data, lest I be accused of being biased for the right on this. So I am using data that is intentionally biased the other way. I highly doubt 15,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed but if left-wingers will concede that only 15,000 have perished, that's fine since it's only 3% of the half million estimate they claimed.
And so here we are, in 2004. Iraq has a new government. Relative little damage was done to Iraq in removing Saddam and the sanctions are lifted. But based on the behavior of the left, it's hard to conclude anything other than that they were pro-Saddam. They wanted sanctions removed because they claimed 6,000 children died a month on it. But if the choice was between 6,000 dying per month just from the sanctions (let alone the atrocities Saddam committed himself) or removing sanctions but Saddam had to go they preferred Saddam apparently. Even if the left really believed half a million would die in the invasion and occupation, that's only 7 years of casualties from "containment" of just small children let alone the tens of thousands Saddam was offing each year.
What gives?
So the left has a new strategy it seems, to try to deflect away from their own embarrassing errors, they focus on the one apparent mistake by the Bush administration: No WMD stockpiles found. The left didn't want to do anything constructive about Saddam (other than support him, sometimes outright) but they'll nitpick the WMD stockpiles and try to claim that THAT was why the US went in despite the people who favored going in never having made that a big issue (go ahead, there's plenty of right-wing sites on the net, go look at the articles written in 2002 and see how many even give a rip about WMD stockpiles
Sure, the links between the terrorist organizations and Iraq seem pretty solid according to the bipartisan senate report on the CIA (which slammed the CIA on pretty much everything else).
And fine, the Kaye report stated found plenty of evidence of WMD programs existed. And that Saddam's strategy was: Wait for France and Russia to get the sanctions lifted and then go whole hog.
But Bush said Iraq had X tons of mustard gas and you know, that was the real reason we went in. Right? It has to be right because the left-wingers say it is and it's not like they've been wrong before...
Life rarely works out perfectly. But if events were put into a Choose your own Adventure and we had done what France and Russia wanted and lifted the sanctions on Saddam's Iraq OR we had done the US route which is remove Saddam and lift sanctions, which path do you think, 10 years from now, would yield better results?