This month marks the fifth anniversary of the United States’ invasion of Iraq. Until this war is over, I need to repeat once again the obvious: This war was wrong in the first place and continues to be wrong. It was based on lies at worst or faulty intelligence at best, neither of which speaks well of the present administration and those in Congress who support this war.

The President and his top advisors during his first term (Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and others) naively thought that the Iraqis would seize the opportunity and magically govern themselves. At the same time they would use the oil revenues to pay back the United States and build a prosperous Iraq. None of that happened and it isstill not happening. And we are paying for this war on borrowed money, thus adding another trillion dollars to our national debt. Their war plan sounds more like a living room board game than real War.

Background

These top advisors and others in the Bush administration were key members of the Project for a New American Century which published in 2000 the document Rebuilding America’s Defenses. That document called on the United States to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq and was critical of Iran and North Korea. These are precisely the countries Bush has been focusing on during his presidency.

We destroyed not only the infrastructure of Iraq but any government it had by expelling all government administrators, leaving a leadership gap. Then we set up a puppet government. In the midst of war we are building an extravagant US Embassy at the cost of three quarters of a billion dollars. (Yes that is billion, not million.) Now that opposition to the war is growing in the United States, our leaders are demanding that Iraq take charge of its country. How can Iraq do that when our military and non-military security forces are occupying the country and telling them what to do?

Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain has supported the war from the beginning and still supports it. He maintains that we must fight the war until we succeed. We must not allow our troops to come home in shame and dishonor. He has implied that the war very may well continue for many years and he is happy with that.

Sen. John McCain

McCain said on the Larry King show, " both Sen. Obama and Clinton want to set a date for withdrawal -- that means chaos, that means genocide, that means undoing all the success we've achieved and al Qaeda tells the world they defeated the United States of America. I won't let that happen." (CNN, February 15, 2008).

With these words McCain perpetuates the lie that this war was initiated to fight al Qaeda. it is only a war against al Qaeda because our war opened the borders of Iraq to bin Laden’s followers and other terrorists.

Osama bin Laden couldn’t be happier with the results of his attack on the United States on 9/11. regardless of the outcome of the Iraq war he has already won. Instead of the US seeking out and capturing bin Laden and his followers, we diverted our attention to Iraq. Instead of having only 3,000 Americans dead as a result of 9/11, we now have another 3,973 Americans dead (as of March 4) and nearly thirty thousand injured and traumatized as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and millions displaced. And we devastated a country that bin Laden had considered an enemy anyway. I am sure he is laughing at us in his secret hideaway while we fight an indefinable war in Iraq.

Challenge and Solution

The challenge we face now in Iraq is finding a solution to the terrible destruction we have caused, not the challenge of finding an illusive undefinable success by continuing to increase the numbers of dead on both sides. Apparently bringing our troops home in body bags or in hospital beds is a sign of honor.

The solution involves the engagement of all the major nations of the world and all the nations in the Middle East. Such an action will not occur under a McCain presidency who supports the failed Bush Doctrine. We need to have a change in leadership to convince the world that the United States is changing its imperialist ways and will become again a member of the family of nations instead of a bully cowboy brandishing a six gun and lariat.

© 2008 Norbert Bufka. Used here with permission. Norbert Bufka is a columnist, author, and speaker in Midland. Email him with feedback on this column or visit his web site for information about him.