The orginal reasons for the Iraq war, are easy. 1.) MI6, CIA, NSA, Interpole, the U.N. the KGB(or whatever the hell it is called now) and numerous other Intelligence agencies had evidence that Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass destruction (key word there is HAD), 2.) Those same intelligence agencies had evidence of the Hussien Regime seeking/purchasing Nuclear material. 3.) Those SAME intelligence agencies had no evidence of Saddam destroying, removing, or selling the WMDs they KNOW he had. A fact that should scare the ****** out of everyone. 4.) Saddam constantly made it difficult for the UN inspectors to do their job, giving cause to think that he did, infact, have weapons of mass destruction.
Other reasons the war could have been for, and should have been for, his genocidal killing of the Kurds. His Tyranical regime in general (Tyranny is not a form of government that should be allowed). His intermediate to short range ballistic missiles that could be used to attack our friends in the Middle East. The possible destablization of the entire region should Saddam have attacked a neighboring country again.
The reasons we actually went to war with Iraq, are enough to go to war, in my mind. The fact that we have not found the Weapons he did have, nor records of them being destroyed, yet scientists saying they did indeed have them, scares me to death, because i want to know where they are, and what he did with them. If they are in the hands of terrorists now, we should have acted earlier.
And you cannot compair going to war with Germany with the Iraqi war. They are completely different scenarios. Germany had taken control of all but one of our allies in Europe, they where sinking supply ships in the atlantic, AND, they declared war on us, after we declared war on Japan. In Iraq, we went in (PROVOKED), to stop the possible use of weapons of any kind against us or our allies. The war is not even compairable to Vietnam. The number of dead in Vietnam numbered around 4,000 a year, while, over 3 years, there have been about 2100 deaths in Iraq. Far from the same numbers.
Now, Im a republican, and, if you think i am a Bush cheerleader, your mistaken. Bush is an idiot, who should not be in office. I do beleive this war was right, and moral, and ethical, but i do not think the planning was proper. The initial attack was incredible (mutliple M1A1 Abrahms tanks rumbling across the Desert would have been incredible to witness), but the planning for the restoration was faulty. They did not plan for the insurgence who would cause problems. They where not ready for the amount of things they had to do, The planners did not take into account many of the things they should have.
My final comment, is in response to the 'flowers' comment earlier. The reason everyone in this country thinks they do not want us there, is because the MEDIA portrays only the bad from Iraq. Spend time over there, or with someone who was over there, and you will find the majority of the Iraqi's want us there, they want the protection and training of the most powerful nation/military in the world. And if they do not want us there, it doesnt take much to make us leave. Take a popular vote that the majorty wants us to leave, and we would. But until that time, we wont, and we will continue spending money and lives there, until the country and protect and support itself. T