To: michael97123 who wrote (145127 ) 9/8/2004 6:45:54 PM From: GST Read Replies (1) | Respond to We had very viable alternatives and chose war. The alternatives were not only viable, they included options that would have provided ways to go to war with a lower loss of American lives and without mission creep. That is what is so awful about this war -- we had choices, we made bad ones. We violated all three of the areas of restraint I mentioned -- we chose war when there were better options, and in choosing to invade when and as we did under a policy of unilateral action we forced other countries that could and should have been with us to back off, this cost us dearly in every way, and continues to cost us dearly to this day. We could have and should have had a broad coalition. This would have required extending the period of inspections. There was zero need to curtail inspections at the time we decided to invade instead. The inspections would have shown what we now know to be true -- no WMDs in Iraq. This would have thwarted the call for war -- a good thing with hindsight. If Saddam had played his cards as he had played them, it could also have been the basis to build a coalition to remove him -- less likely but also possible. Invading in this way, under the flag of the UN, would have had obvious and profound advantages. In the meantime, we could have made far more progress on our real national security priority -- the real war on terror. Instead, we have engaged in constant mission creep, where at this point nobody really knows what the missionis or how long this mess will be dragged out. To make matters worse, the region is showing signs of disintegrating as we have destabilized not only Iraq, but the power balance and opportunities for other players to exploit the mess we have created. We have shown no restraint whatsoever.
