Conventional Wisdom?

[dogman]

We hear many excuses for the IWR and what was known and not known. This is a reprint, in a local labor paper, of an article written in 1993 by a local lawyer, Gary Shilts. Gary ran for office a few times in Illinois, most recently in 2002 as a Libertarian candidate for AG. Gary is the brother of Randy Shilts, writer of "And The Band Played On".

http://www.foxvalleylabornews.com/news/news.asp?id=1888

Snip>We never will have a stable foreign policy in the Middle East until we decide what it is we want there.
Snip>We built up Iraq and Saddam Hussein as a counter-weight to the Ayatollah in Iran. When the Ayatollah died and Iran faded as our local bad boy, we were left with an over-powered and over-ambitious Iraq.
Snip>Who rules Iraq is the business of the Iraqis, not the Americans. Even though we are far more powerful than Iraq, we have learned that American missiles cannot dictate internal politics.
Snip>We should never again permit ourselves to become involved in the personality conflicts that the Bush administration allowed to develop. That only sets the stage for the embarassingly-true bumper sticker: “Saddam still has his job, why should Bush have his.”
Because oil always will be for sale, we should never have to fight for it.<snip

Remember this is following the first Bush and the first war with Iraq.