The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
When U.S. President George W. Bush launched Stealth bombers at Saddam HusseinÕs regime on March 19, 2003, roughly 60 per cent of Americans backed the war. Most were convinced Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Most believed he had ties to Osama bin Laden, their 9/11 nemesis. And most felt sure Iraqi democracy would rise strong from the cinders. Those certainties have long since been exploded. In the twilight of the failed Bush presidency Americans are left contemplating a ruinous $3 trillion bill for a war former defence secretary Don Rumsfeld breezily predicted would cost $60 billion. The U.S. soldier death toll has hit 4,000. And U.S. credibility internationally has suffered a devastating blow. Iraqis, meanwhile, mourn 151,000 violent deaths by their own governmentÕs estimate, as they struggle to patch together the broken political pieces, rebuild a civil administration and economy, bring home millions of refugees, and fend off a stubborn insurgency. Bu there never was a pressing need for war, beyond BushÕs demand for Òregime change.Ó And most Canadians and much of the world knew it. The UN inspectors were right. Saddam had long since given up his nuclear, biological and chemical ambitions. Nor did he have ties with the 9/11 attackers. Finally, while IraqÕs new democracy is incomparably better than SaddamÕs murderous Baathist autocracy, it is also fractious, unstable and weak. It has yet to agree on laws to hold Kurdish, Sunni and Shia regions together in some kind of federation, or on a plan to fairly divvy up IraqÕs oil revenues. Many Iraqis now live in mortal fear of a U.S. military pullout and the breakup of their nation. The Iraq war has also been a costly distraction from the effort to repair Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai presides over a democratically elected but desperately weak government, with insufficient military forces to preserve order. Bin Laden is still on the loose. And the Taliban remain a threat. Meanwhile, 157,000 U.S. troops are too busy in Iraq to help in Afghanistan. When the history of BushÕs years in the White House is written, he will get due credit for rallying a shaken nation after 9/11 and for confronting Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts. But Bush will be remembered as well as the president who scare-mongered Americans into a debacle in Iraq that sapped their nationÕs psyche and treasure, eroded its political and moral credibility, and misdirected resources that were needed elsewhere to fight terror.
