Let's look at some of these asserations:
"What first upset her was my suggestion that, looking back, the French were right. They tried to stop the United States and Britain from rushing headlong into this mess."
This of course is untrue. France stopped the discussion by declaring it would veto any resolution which would lead to UN supporting war. Obviously, France must have thought "severe consequences" was going to be some form scolding of Saddam or perhaps some other palatable half measure.

"Many more say, “Why didn’t the press warn us?”
We did, of course. Many of us who cover the region—along with the CIA and the State Department and the uniformed military—have been warning for at least a year that occupying Iraq would be a dirty, costly, long and dangerous job."

Obviously dealing with an uninformed audience. The Press gave all kinds of dire warnings- and of course they were all wrong. But there was absolutely no shortage of warning. Though perhaps the audience didn't regard reporters and talkingheads franatically yelling about the sky falling as serious warnings. The other part of the answer is that CNN and others were restrained in their reporting by "minders" and "were forced" to be mouth pieces of the Saddam's regime- real information was withheld, mostly state approved information got out.

"Thus the “real” reason for taking out Saddam Hussein, some say, was to eliminate this man who rewarded the families of suicide bombers and posed as an implacable enemy of Israel. (Yet the bombings go on there, and surely the chaos in Iraq does nothing for the long-term security of the Jewish state.)"

No one was claiming Saddam was the sole supporter of suicide bombers.
The question is, would Saddam ever want the conflict to end. Saddam own people were under worse oppression than Palestinians (and he could do something to stop this). The Palestinians wasn't a "cause" that Saddam supported, but were merely fairly cheap weapons to be used against Israel

"Or the “real” reason for invading Iraq was to intimidate Syria and Iran. Yet Tehran, if anything, has grown more aggressive, and may actually have stepped up its nuclear weapons program to deter the United States. "
Iran has signed agreement NOT to have a nuclear weapons program- that is the condition in which Russia is providing them nuclear technology. Therefore being aggressive is meaningless, Russia would stop giving aid to Iran if it was proven that Iran was pursuing neclear weapon program. So far he has proven he is a complete idiot. But let's continue.

I love this:
"But the real problem with such “real” explanations is that they were not the ones cited by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the compelling reasons to rush to war last March. Then, they talked about weapons of mass destruction, and the fight against terrorists."
Ok, so he gives a paragraph to the "real reason", but that must be too hot so he morphs it into:
"Which brings us to the grandest illusion of all: the link between Saddam Hussein and September 11."

Then drops this jewel, showing even more complete stupidness:
"A Washington Post poll published earlier this month concluded that 69 percent of Americans thought it “at least likely” that the former Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There’s nothing to back this up. So puzzled political scientist and pollsters, with evident disdain for the public, suggested the connection is just the result of fuzzy thinking: Al Qaeda is evil, Saddam is evil, the attacks on 9/11 were evil and folks just draw dumb conclusions."

Yeah, the folks are dumb, and this fucking journalist is some goddamn genius.

"Other analysts pointed the finger at the administration, which spins harder and faster than Hurricane Isabel to convince us the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror begun on September 11, without quite explaining where it fits in."

Right adminstration is spinning & this guy is giving the dummies the real dope. Now, I admit that this guy's spin is really lame and unbelievable- obviously he has gone to lot of trouble to have it tailor-made for the dummies.

"Yet just this week President Bush himself (and Donald Rumsfeld, too!) admitted that information to substantiate this popular fantasy just doesn’t exist. “We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September 11,” Bush said flatly, almost matter-of-factly, on Wednesday."
Well, this is not the first time the president and adminstration has said this. And they have never said there is a direct connection.

"Bush knows what a lot of his critics have forgotten: the Iraq war is not just about blood and treasure, or even about democracy or WMD or terror. It’s about American pride."

Well, it's not about the abnegation & narcissism of nihilism. Most people want to make the world a better place. When you actually accomplish something, you have a tendency of having some pride.
Hopefully, Iraq can become a country in which the Iraqis are proud and other countries of the world can be proud of having done something to assist them. [Instead of being solely interested in the debt in which Saddam created in order to curry favor with countries by buying their weapons and their souls. Btw, none of this debt was for the benefit of the people of Iraq- where is the JUSTICE of having Iraq pay this debt of a very evil man who's position was bolstered by foreign powers]