Unlike some out there, I don’t conflate Iraq and Afghanistan. I fully support our attacks and ongoing nation building efforts in Afghanistan.

My support for the Iraq war was based on a much more than GWB’s contentions. I recalled his real nuclear program the Israelis bombed. I was thinking of how the removal of Saddam had been official US policy since Clinton signed off on that policy. I was aware of Saddams record of not just making WMD’s but using them on his own villages and in war. Just that fact alone lent credibility to the accusations from curveball. The guy had a proven WMD use record. Was it such a stretch to think he rebuilt at least in part what the UN destroyed? Not really. The neocons were the architects of the previous war with Iraq That went well enough that lent Powell and Cheney credibility. I was aware of the passing / passport alleged connection to the ‘93 trade center bombing. I recall what Schwarzkopf said about the end of the first Gulf War, how Saddam snookered him into allowing helicopters. And how those helicopters may have been the very thing that kept Saddam in power way back then. How we were not going to remove him but clearly hoped his regime would in fact fall.

I said at the time again and again-Those weapons better be there or else. To my extreme dismay and shock-They were not there. We fucked up. As did I.