Michael writes:

> Seems like Denys predictions aren't very good either.
>
>  http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2003/01/20/story5.html
>
>  and still no WMD found nor any terrorist from AL-Quaida in Iraq.

I don't remember ever saying anything about pollution in Texas, but I do very
clearly remember writing the following on February 25th, at the height of the
administration's campaign of nonsense, long before the war started:

=======================================

Life is not nearly as simple as the current administration is making it seem.
Perhaps more relevant, nothing Iraq has done lately has posed any threat to
either the United States or any of Iraq's neighbors. Saddam is 65 years old
now, he has no active WMD programs, and he governs an army that is only 30%
to 50% the size it was during the 1991 invasion of Kuwait. The situation in
Iraq will come to an end in another 10 years of its own accord. Containment
as a policy worked for the Soviet Union, for Libya, and it would work for
Iraq. The most pro-western Islamic country in the region is now Iran, and it
became so on its own, primarily because we left it alone.

 --http://raven.utc.edu/cgi-bin/WA.EXE?A2=ind0302D&L=hp3000-l&D=0&P=10673

=======================================

Although that statement caused the list to erupt in squabling as to what
constituted a weapon of mass destruction and how many cubic football stadiums
Saddam's current biological weapons production could fill, I only all the more
resolutely stand by my statement. The war in Iraq was not only a great waste of
money, lives and international credibility, it has done a significant amount of
harm to the long-term prospects of peace in the region.

As the occupying power, we are now obligated to rebuild Iraq as well as we
can, but that remains something that I have gave doubts that we will see through
to even a mediocre end. If we had left the situation alone, to evolve on its
own, we -- and the people of the region -- would certainly have been better
off.

Wirt Atmar

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