You earned it... go ahead!

Go ahead and gloat... you've waited long enough.

We need to keep in mind that, while you did defend the decision to invade Iraq with all your heart, mind and soul… you consistently did it from the position that the Bush Administration was correct in ALL its actions leading up to the invasion.

I do not.

In fact, I am all the more convinced that the actions of the senior Cabinet members are so questionable in their judgment that I fail to see how the President’s legacy CAN’T be effected by them… whether he made the mistakes or was simply misled. Ultimately, the “buck stops” at his desk. Bush appointed those men to the offices they held… each and every one. Tenant, Cheney, Wolfawitz, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice (not a man, I know). As the Chief Executive, he had the responsibility to make the choice between which advice he would follow in his determinations… and he chose the Cheney-Rummy camp.

So, while I am admitting, openly and with a humble and contrite heart, that I was wrong to suggest that the invasion of Iraq was the wrong thing to do at the time, I expect… nay, I demand, that my elected leaders and their closest advisers are ready to stand and answer for their actions while leading the free world on MY time and MY dime.

The flat-out misuse of information and intelligence leading up to the invasion, and the criminally bad policies and decisions since the invasion have, as yet, gone unanswered by the Bush Administration (outside of a few pat responses to reporters questions or a couple of dismissive statements in the odd speech here and there). I’m more than willing to let you gloat now… just know that my time will come to have the chance for ME to grin, while YOU simply bear it.

Oh, and one more thing… you mentioned “preemption” again. From as far back as the humid nights we spent on your patio back in 02-03 discussing the invasion, I maintained that the “fact” that the Administration was hanging its hat on was the threat of WMDs. This was the basis for their claims that Saddam was the single greatest threat to US interests. I also recall saying that if the Administration had ME to ask advice of, they’d have focused on the non-compliance issues since 1991… and simply included the “possibility” of WMDs within that broader topic. There is no question that Saddam was NOT complying with UNESCO or any of the independent inspectors, and he wasn’t following the ’91 ceasefire agreement either. His SCUD missiles were a direct violation of the ceasefire accords, and we knew he had them. We didn’t NEED the fudged intel that Tenant gave Powell for his UN speech. We didn’t need the ’03 SotU address as a platform to give the Iraqis their ultimatum. No one needed to foist false yellowcake paperwork into the public’s face and say “There! See now? THIS is why he has to go!!!”

Iraq was only a “pre-emptive” action if our basis for the action was questionable in its proofs. Had we based the action on the premise of non-compliance, then it would not have been considered a preemptive action AT ALL, BY ANYONE. He simply wasn’t complying with the UN resolutions or the ’91 accords. It is considered preemptive because we chose to make the conscious decision to justify our actions with questionable facts. It does not matter to me how many people believed it… for every assertion that it was true, there was another from another source that said it was false. We have shown this from both sides since July of ’03.

All that aside, there are no caveats in my statements. The overthrow of Iraq's Ba'athist regime and its leader, Saddam Hussein was the most expedient route to building a functioning representative democratic government in the region, and the regime had given the Coalition every excuse in the book to invade with a clear conscience. No alternative policy has presented itself to me as offering the same degree of success at a lower cost to America and her allies. All the risks involved pale in comparison to the potential rewards of success.

Now, we just have to succeed.