Spreading Democracy

Watching the Iraqi people vote over the weekend was an inspirational, powerful moment that has already been cheapened by those with the pomposity to suggest a successful election in Iraq somehow justifies the 22 months of lies and duplicities that preceded it. The democratization of Iraq was never the goal of the invasion, it was seen as the fortuitous by-product of removing Saddam, whom -- we were told -- was an imminent threat. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz listed the rationales for war in a May 2003 interview with Vanity Fair.

There have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people.

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The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.