"Former White House Adviser Karl Rove said last week that if pre-war intelligence on the Iraqi WMD programs had been accurate, the United States likely would not have entered the war. But asked about Rove’s comment during an interview with ABC News Monday, Cheney said “I disagree with that.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16609.html

When we first went to war with Iraq in 2003 I supported the action because I felt the US had the right, if not the obligation, to act on incontrovertible evidence of an imminent attack on us or our allies with weapons of mass destruction. It is simply not realistic in the modern world to wait until after WMDs are unleashed to respond.

When WMDs were demonstrated to be non-existent, I felt the US had no right to be there any longer, but I did give the administration the benefit of the doubt that at least they honestly believed that WMDs had been there and their use imminent. This led to tacit congressional approval of the action, making the invasion unfortunate, but justified by America's right to prevent a deadly aggression given what it thought it knew at the time.

Cheney's comments now lead me to believe that not only were the intelligence assessments wrong, the administration knew them to be wrong, in fact, they probably deliberately cooked them to justify war. At any rate, Cheney himself admitted there would have been war simply because Saddam had the ability to make those weapons in the future. Rubbish. The world is full of potentially hostile states with the potential to develop WMDs. Some even already have them. The Bush gang simply wanted to invade an economically and militarily weakened Iraq for the usual geopolitical reasons: take out the most powerful Arab state, surround Iran with American armies, get a guaranteed source of cheap oil, and set up an American garrison in a puppet state that bordered every Arab country in the MidEast. It was naked aggression pure and simple, for the same reasons all aggressor states routinely invade countries they find strategic or possess valuable resources. As of that moment we became an outlaw state.

If the war in Iraq had turned out as Cheney and Rumsfeld expected, I'm sure Iran or Syria would have been next. In fact, I can see that to be the most likely scenario and one that certainly fits the Bush Doctrine perfectly. In other words, what our enemies in the region were saying was true. America would in one stroke eliminate or intimidate its enemies and guarantee itself an infinite source of oil for the indefinite future. This is naked aggression for political and economic reasons. In short, imperialism.

It's just weeks before the Inauguration, and it may be old news to some of the posters here, but to me, personally, this was a line we hadn't crossed since the 1890s or even the 1840s, and that I was convinced we would never cross again. Even Reagan fought his illegal war with proxies. Those of you who have followed my posts here for the last few years know that I have wrestled with this fine distinction between a just and unjust war for a long time. But this was the last straw for me.

I believe an investigation must be launched to uncover the events leading up to this war, and any other crimes I now believe this administration is perfectly capable of having committed, and if Cheney's statements aren't merely outright self-aggrandizing lies, but had roots in actual policy, then there should be war crimes trials. No, there must be war crimes trials.