War in Iraq is finally over - sort of

News service labels war “stunning ignorance”

This editorial was provided by Scripps Howard News Service.

In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration assured Americans with absolute certitude that:

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had vast hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction;

He had a secret ongoing program to build or acquire nuclear weapons;

Saddam was in league with al-Qaida;

The Iraqi people would welcome us as liberators;

Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war;

On May 1, 2003, it was "Mission Accomplished."

None of that turned out to be true. But leading up to the invasion, the Bush administration and its bellicose neo-con allies dismissed domestic opponents of the war as, at best, soft on terrorism and, at worst, unpatriotic. The swaggering Bush White House dismissed the failure of international arms inspectors to find any sign of weapons of mass destruction with, in essence, "What can you expect of wussy foreigners?"

The actual invasion went faster and better than anyone expected, and U.S. troops were in Baghdad and pulling down Saddam's statue seemingly in no time flat.

And then it all started to fall apart -- through an almost complete lack of post-invasion planning, a series of bad decisions and unfortunate incidents like Abu Ghraib and, for the most part, a stunning ignorance about the country we had invaded...

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http://www.newschief.com/article/20111219/NEWS/112195011