Eroding Support

Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter, who is retiring this year, now considers the Iraq war to be a mistake:

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.

That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," the 1st District congressman said.

"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."

As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."...

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said...

Despite acknowledged intelligence failures and failure to locate weapons of mass destruction, President Bush continues to forcefully argue the war was justified because Saddam represented a threat to the United States, his neighbors and the people of Iraq.

Recall what Bush said: "Saddam Hussein was a threat. And I want you to remember, he was a threat because he behaved like a threat." Hmmm. Bush, as I noted a week or so ago, has the circular reasoning thing down pat (even if he resembles no one so much as his own father when it comes to "the vision thing.")

For once, I'd like to see the wingnuts actually produce SPECIFIC EVIDENCE to prove that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. Something, anything. The whole "he was a threat because we said he was a threat" is just more mindless, racist bullshit. Was he a despot? A disgusting murdering dictator? No doubt he was (which makes the wingnut support for him throughout the 80's more a testament to their own contempt for democracy than anything else). But a threat to the United States?

I wonder if Bush and his wingnut supporters are afraid of small dogs...