I just heard the tail end of an interview with Perle on NPR. The very last question he was asked was (paraphrasing) whether, looking back ten years later, he felt the Iraq War was worth the cost.
He refused to answer the question, saying (again, paraphrasing) that we did it because at the time we thought it was necessary, and that there was no point looking back and trying to figure out if the war was worth pursuing.
Even leaving aside the matter of whether or not we truly "thought it was necessary", what sort of person flatly claims that there is no point in looking back and assessing our actions and whether they were sensible or not? How can we prevent ourselves from making future mistakes if we aren't willing to learn from earlier ones?
I think you're confusing two different things here.
The specific question he was asked and addressed is was it worth the cost? This is different from the question of whether there's any merit to looking back for lessons to be learned (I am on record here saying there is).
As to the question of was the cost worth it, I think it is unknowable. We basically know what the cost was. To answer the question of whether it was worth it we would need to weigh the benefits, if any, to that cost. The question of what were the benefits requires that we know what would have happened in the alternate universe where we didn't go to war and remove Saddam. But that is unknowable.
No one can know, but it is my belief that had Saddam remained in power we may well be looking at a much different world. Could Saddam have gotten a nuclear weapon? IMO, it's not out of the realm of possibility. Dr Khan and Pakistan were running a nuclear black market. IIRC, that's where North Korea is suspected of getting theirs. I don't see why it's inconceivable to think one or the other wouldn't have sold to Saddam. And I must wonder what Saddam would be doing now about Iran. Given the historical animosity between Iraq and Iran I cannot see him sitting still while Iran gets nukes. But no one can know with any certainty what would have happened, so there is no way to measure any benefit against the cost.
As to lessons to be learned; they are numerous. How reliable is our intelligence? Can disgruntled foreigners providing intel about their home countries be trusted? How about a damn exit strategy? In fact, how about exit strategy plan A, B and C? Since WWII have we ever been successful at nation (re)building?. The list is quite long and has really nothing to do with the question of whether the cost was worth it. If these lessons have anything to do with cost, it only concerns our ability to accurately forecast such costs. Clearly the Bush admin did a bad job as regards estimating the costs. They underestimated badly. Maybe the real lesson is that with a complicated country like Iraq, sitting in a critical geopolitical and economic area, the complexities are simply too great to allow for accurate estimates. It's simply beyond our ability. (Although I'll say again that Sen Byrd nailed it in his remarks on the Senate floor.)
Fern