Poor decisions about Iraq

Re “Wrong war, right idea,” Opinion, Oct. 19

Jonah Goldberg, in attempting to rationalize his own considerable errors in judgment, makes the claim that “antiwar types” object to “wars that advance U.S. interests.” This is some of the most preposterous drivel I have ever seen in a major U.S. newspaper. I and nearly every longtime Iraq war critic I know have been firm supporters of Operation Enduring Freedom. We also insisted back in 2002 that the Bush administration was overhyping the Iraq threat; that a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq would lead to years of bloody conflict and thousands of U.S. deaths; that such a move would greatly magnify anti-American sentiments worldwide and become a gigantic recruiting poster for the international jihad. We were right on all counts and have been vindicated, whether or not people like Goldberg can bear to acknowledge it.

K. ALAN KRONSTADT

Washington

*

If we restrict ourselves to what we knew about Iraq before invading, the decision to invade was still painfully and obviously wrong. We knew Iraq’s secular leader, Saddam Hussein, would never have shared weapons of mass destruction with fanatics who could turn on him. We knew Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We knew President George H. W. Bush declined to invade 10 years earlier because the power vacuum would have destabilized the region and increased Iran’s influence.

False choices and bogus evidence were used to rush the U.S. into a war we knew to be ethically dubious. Deep down, most of us knew this, which is why there is so much anger at neoconservatives and the rubber-stamp Congress.

CHRISTOPHER HARGET

Campbell, Calif.

*

Goldberg is wrong. There is no such thing as finishing the job in Iraq. The longer we stay there, the more we compound the mistake of going there in the first place. There is no end for the Iraqis until we leave their country. They will continue to oppose our presence. We may kill more of them than they kill of our soldiers, but they will not yield to our way of government. By staying the course, we are only showing them and the world that democracy is brutal. The only way we can redeem ourselves and democracy is to impeach the president for tricking us into invading their country.

DOROTHY NICHOLSON

Inyokern, Calif.