...Iraq was NOT a problem for the US, and was only an irritant in that it was a pety and impotent third-world power that persisted in denying our will and that of the UN.

...Saddam was contained and in a box.

...no real problem.

This is a statement of faith that still flabbergasts me based on decades of past and proven history.

- Saddam attacked neighbor nations with the intent of conquest,

- He constructed weapons of mass destruction and USED them on his enemies, both domestic and foreign,

- He doggedly pursued nuclear weapons even after the Israelis blew up the first attempt, and afterwards developed a new and more clandestine program in the face of U.N. inspections, a program that the U.N. would never have found if not for the first Gulf War.

- He supported terror movements in Israel and elsewhere, and engaged in actual terrorist activities including an attempt to kill a former President, which qualifies in my book as an attack on U.S. interests.

- He killed more than a million of his own people, but we all know that doesn't count unless it's in Kosovo.

- There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that he and his sons would not have continued along these lines given the slightest opportunity. If a rattlesnake has bitten thirty people, you don't pick it up and pet it, saying "well, he hasn't bitten anyone today."

And if you meant he was "contained" by thousands of American troops and tons of military equipment surrounding Iraq, how many years do you think we could have sustained THAT? Aren't you one of the ones bitching about how much this is costing us?

Face it. Your only real alternative, same as that of many others, was to ignore Saddam, and hope that the shit hit the fan on someone else's watch. Hell, it worked for Clinton, didn't it? He did the same thing with North Korea, and now look where we are. And we KNOW they are building nukes.

Bush's approach was not the normal "business as usual" approach. It remains to be seen how long it will take to work, or if the results will be permanent. At least someone finally changed a variable. And yeah, reasonable people can ask "why Iraq? Why not North Korea, or Iraq?" But the idea of actually removing a threat instead of trying to talk it to death is still valid.

By the way, the "exit strategy" is the same as it has been for every damn war we've had to fight and win in two hundred years. Keep beating on the bastards until they can't fight any more.

Good God, did you ever see ANY war with a workable "exit strategy?" What was the "exit strategy" for WWII? There were plans, to be sure, but when they went tits-up, they went on from there, and didn't call the goddam war off.

In the early parts of the war, the Japanese took Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore, and many other territories.

The U.S. lost the Phillippines. MacArthur's retreat. The Bataan Death March.

The Germans tore through Europe, Africa, and the U.S.S.R. 25 percent of Soviet shipping was sunk by German submarines.

Dunkirk.

The Blitz in London.

This kind of crap went on for over many, many months. In hindsight, knowing we won, it loses a lot of impact. Imagine living through it, when you weren't absolutely sure the Nazis and the Japanese wouldn't win. I can just imagine what the current crop of whiners would have said back then. "Better Nazi than dead," probably.

The very concept of "exit strategy" is probably originally an invention of the anti-war Left. I'd love to know who first used it. Had you ever heard the term before the Vietnam War? People who think in terms of "exit strategies" are usually politicians looking to save their own asses, throw an opponent's ass in the fire, or both.