U.S. invasion of Iraq unjustified, but has good, if unintended, effect

As of seven months ago, conservatives and liberals alike knew that we were going to invade… As of seven months ago, conservatives and liberals alike knew that we were going to invade Iraq. Conservatives proclaimed that, in doing so, we’d discover vast stockpiles of serious weapons. Liberals warned that the war would undoubtedly leave Iraq in a bloody civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in the south, making a successful reconstruction nearly impossible.

Well, the weapons aren’t anywhere to be found and outside of Baghdad things are pretty much at ease. Even in Baghdad things aren’t all that bad.

What the hell?

I’m not sure if our government actually thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or not – no one is, really. There’s a case to be made that they did. There are even people willing to say Saddam thought he had weapons but was being lied to by his scientists. Regardless, it’s safe to say that they couldn’t have been as sure about it as they acted. I believe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, point-blank, “Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction.”

This, combined with the government’s repeated assurances that the weapons will come in due time, only leads clever, discerning college students like me to conclude that the government consciously and systematically worked to both deceive us, as Americans, and the rest of the world.

The print media lately has made this point pretty soundly – and most literate Americans should now agree that Bush was wrong. But from this, many people have concluded that that means the pre-war liberals were right in all that they said.

Finding someone ready to recite that we’ve made a mess of Iraq, that they don’t want us there and our forces do nothing but antagonize the local population, is as easy as taking a stroll through Oakland.

These ideas are just as unfounded as the government’s assurances that the war was justified.

Iraq is better off now, just five months after Bush declared the end of combat, than it was under Saddam. True, 196 coalition-force soldiers have been killed since Bush’s May 2 declaration. But that doesn’t detract from the good that has occurred there – which passed under the radar of the mainstream media.

The Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger cites the Iraqi paper Iraq Today, reporting that it was Saddam’s regime that helped fuel sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. Today they are working together to help create joint self-help societies in Basra.

And in Baghdad, Iraq’s main civil court is already at work instituting legal reform to help resolve debt and property disputes created by Saddam’s regime’s habit of confiscating property.

Before the war, The Lewisville Leader, of Lewisville, Texas, reported, Saddam had laws that required all medicine used in hospitals to be Iraqi-made. Now nearly all of Iraq’s hospitals are operational again and the shortages aren’t nearly as bad.

The markets in Baghdad are teeming with people. And Internet cafes are now common in this city where the Internet was illegal just seven months ago. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kelic now heads the police academy in Baghdad and can boast more than 37,000 police officers trained since the war.

Visiting U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said of the police station that, “The level of organization was impressive.” Adding later, “The methods used previously by Iraqi police were those of brutality and intimidation. Kerik is helping them learn police procedures that respect basic human rights as well as teaching them to deal with the criminal element.”

But what about actual Iraqi sentiments towards the coalition forces occupying their country? Well, a recent government report by the National Democratic Institute, headed by Democrats, surveyed the country and found that in every community Iraqis are grateful for the ousting of Saddam and there is now support among Iraqis for the attacks being sustained by coalition forces.

A separate, more recent survey conducted by Physicians for Human Rights found that over half of the 2,000 households surveyed reported that they, personally, had suffered human rights abuses by Saddam’s regime. Ninety-seven percent of respondents felt that respect for civil liberties would be crucial for reconstruction.

So, what I’m getting at is this: the government’s main sentiment towards Iraq, now that its pre-war harmlessness has been revealed, should be a resounding, “Oops.” It turns out that we had no business going in there. But it also turns out that, though it will be at the expense of the American tax dollar, Iraq will be much better off in the long run and, in many ways, already is.

Question, comments, insights or suggestions? E-mail diva@pittnews.com