Well, Doug, like I said...it's naive to make a blanket statement either way about it. Obviously certian Iraquis are better off in one respect or another (and perhaps simultaneously worse off in some respect or another), while others are just worse off period, and still others are just better off period.

So, any blanket statement that someone makes about it is just a way they have of beating their favourite drum, and ignoring the rest of the picture.

The USA fought this war for a variety of reasons, and I would suggest that betterment of the Iraqui people was way, way down near the very bottom of that list, although I don't doubt that many supporters of the war DO hope to better things for the Iraqui people.

Well, let's see what the Iraquis have to say about it as the next few weeks and months unfold...I believe they will want US soldiers out very soon.

It's a complicated situation, to say the least.

By the way, I doubt that they had any "weapons of mass destruction" worth worrying about...or they would have used them. When you are being completely overrun by a foreign invasion you do not hold back...you use everything you've got. The USA would. Russia would. Canada would. North Korea would. Anybody would.

They do not appear to have had anything more than tanks, artillery pieces, soldiers, small arms, and airplanes which they did not dare to even fly...they were totally outmatched in every way except raw manpower.

This indicates to me that the WMD issue was almost certainly a red herring, but the Bush administration had to publicly justify what it was doing somehow, because the World does not consider it legal for anyone to unilaterally invade a country when that country has not attacked them first.

It was a case of realpolitik, that's all. Public relations. And it was primarily aimed at getting domestic support in the USA, I think, because the World in general did not buy it.

Now, if you think there were strong and pressing reasons for attacking Iraq that justified taking such an action, then you can argue that if a phony WMD accusation is needed to do it, well then, lying is the best policy...and will be seen as having been necessary in the long run.

I could understand it if you truly believed that. I don't believe it, but that's because I don't believe Iraq was a real threat to the USA, period. They weren't strong enough really to threaten anybody, after the First Gulf War in '91 was concluded.

I think this war was launched for larger strategic reasons...having to do with: oil, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and the whole Middle East region. Saddam was a mere convenient scapegoat, and it was all the the advantage of the USA that he was such an obviously "bad guy". It made the war much easier to sell to the American public. There is only one opinion crucial to the US State Department...that of the American voters. The rest of the World can clearly go screw itself, to use the common expression.

This is what has the rest of the World nervous.

- LH