Wait A Minute, Didn't we Invade Iraq?


Thomas Friedman decries the focus going into attacking President Bush's possible misdirections leading up to the recent war in Iraq, but, unlike many others, he has a good point.

"For me, though, it is a disturbing thought that the Bush team could get itself so tied up defending its phony reasons for going to war — the notion that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction that were undeterrable and could threaten us, or that he had links with Al Qaeda — that it could get distracted from fulfilling the real and valid reason for the war: to install a decent, tolerant, pluralistic, multireligious government in Iraq that would be the best answer and antidote to both Saddam and Osama."

This is a fair point. And if a pluralistic democratic society arises from the ashes of Iraq, than that will stand as a proud legacy of President Bush. But I'm not sure that the current focus on the veracity of Bush's claims will really distract the administration. I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't this, it would be something else distracting us.