El, We had sound humanitarian reasons to seek the removal of Hussein, and a legitimate strategic interest in neutralizing him militarily. Had Hussein ever acquired nuclear weapons, he would have posed a mortal danger to Israel and other Mideast nations, and to the world's energy supply.
However, Bush did not build the case for war primarily on these concerns. Rather, he said categorically that Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons, that he was prepared to use them or give them to terrorist groups, and that he had links to al-Qaeda. Though these charges seemed plausible at the time, all later turned out to be wrong.
When Bush had a chance to confront this head-on, in his State of the Union address, he chose instead to gloss over the issue.
Similarly, he and his advisers believed the war could be easily won and Iraq quickly secured afterwards. The first assumption proved right, the second horribly naive. American and coalition soldiers are now fighting on two fronts, U.S. and Iraqi casualty rates are soaring, and the spectre of Vietnam is at the top of people's minds in Washington and London. Criticizing with hindsight is easy. It is fair to say that had Bush made a concerted effort early on to internationalize the rebuilding effort (for example, by extending construction contracts to all nations rather than restricting them to U.S. and coalition firms), the current insurrection have been prevented, or at least mitigated
