The Iraq War Was Justified

While I agree that the media and Democrats (in rare cases where the two don't overlap) are making something out of nothing in the Russia bounty faux scandal, I strongly disagree with the author's comparison to pre-2003 Iraq WMD intelligence and reporting.

Iraq had chemical weapons prior to the Persian Gulf War and we know they were at one time close to nukes and had a bio weapons program we hadn't known about.

Yes, one major human intel source was wrong. But signals intelligence backed it. Saddam's generals believed Iraq had chemical weapons because he was bluffing to hold off the Iranians. So we heard them talking about WMD as if they had them. And our allies agreed Saddam had chemical weapons.

So yes, the intelligence was wrong. Which normally would absolve the Bush 43 administration from the false charge of "lying us into war." So we should learn lessons from that failure. But that's not the slam dunk on judging the war.

Remember that Saddam kept his WMD personnel on standby and had lots of raw materials to restart production quickly. See how Iran is ramping up nuclear activities now despite the Iran nuclear deal and despite accepting Iran's claim that they never had a nuclear program? Saddam could have done the same. Obama even boasted of his failed Syria WMD deal in 2013 because it eliminated raw materials for chemical weapons along with actual poison gas.

In addition, there were many reasons to get rid of Saddam in the declaration of war (well, AUMF). Sadly, the intel community was so sure of the chemical weapons issue ("a slam dunk") that Bush 43 emphasized that reason above all others.

I went through a lot of the defense of the war after we'd won but before the rise of ISIL--which in its own way proved we'd achieved a lot just by Obama initiating Iraq War 2.0 in 2014 to restore that victory that both he and Biden boasted about.

And no wonder they boasted when you consider what we would have chosen by not destroying the Saddam regime.

The war was justified. And we won it. I don't understand why conservatives run from what we achieved.