QUOTE: Had all of the intelligence provided been accurate there would have been no question that going to war was the right choice.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, really, but I firmly believe there is and was quite a different agenda than belief in the presence of WMDs.  You just don't have that level of intelligence blunder.  There must have been enough doubt to at least give other options a chance, such as covert actions.  I'm not sure what's going to happen with Iran, but it looks as though the foreign policy dealing with North Korea's development of nuclear weapons has worked well.  We simply did not try hard enough to find out the real danger Saddam posed to the world before taking military action.

Al has a great point: how many deaths?  I sorta focus on the monetary cost, because part of me is a little angry that we can't take a few billion dollars to restore the wetlands here on the Gulf Coast (a natural buffer for hurricane storm surges) to, you know, actually protect citizens with tax dollars.  I mean, I'm glad that some Iraqi children get to attend a better school or Iraqi citizens get to vote, but not at the expense of not rebuilding the Gulf Coast and a slew of other domestic problems.  As for the death toll, I think there are 3000+ American soldiers dead, and perhaps dozens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers dead (mandatory military service- I'm not defending the fact that "enemy" soldiers die in combat, but for what reason in this case?) and who knows how many Iraqi citizens.  We need to reduce our presence to a couple thousand in the Middle East, focused on striking against Al-Qaeda bases and training camps with ordnance from the air.  Occupations will not work against terrorist cells.

You just don't have that level of intelligence blunder.

Living on the Gulf Coast (Louisiana if I recall correctly) and you question the ability of this administration to blunder!?!?!?  These guys blunder awesomely.  Dubya's MBA is in blundering.  Cheney ran the Blunder division of Kellog Brown and Root.  Other than dodging service in Viet Nam blundering is what these clowns have done best!

Anyway...Obama's response to McCain on this should be: Well, we wouldn't have needed a surge in the first place if you and your colleagues had voted like me and we hadn't gone into Iraq in the first place! 

Obama is saying it but if he does so too strenuously (and made it a big deal) he stains more than half his party as well in an election year.  Its not a very bright political move on a large scale.  And he is an exceedingly bright politican.

Edited to add:  He also could turn off voters who favored going in but now want to get out (a great many people I suspect).  Calling the voters stupid (or saying they were fooled) is not politically very bright.

QUOTE: These guys blunder awesomely.

Lol, you're probably right!  I should have worded it: this type of extensive military action shouldn't have been based on information that turned out to be completely wrong (in other words, there must have been enough doubt to delay the action).

Bah. I hate politics.

The Ron Paul slogan!

(Said with a great deal of admiration!)

Living on the Gulf Coast (Louisiana if I recall correctly) and you question the ability of this administration to blunder!?!?!?  These guys blunder awesomely. 

Yes, they do...but remember, the Clinton administration thought the exact same thing about Iraq and WMDs. That's what I think made many (including me!) give it more credence (not so much that they trusted Clinton...more from a - well if BOTH admins thought so, then there must be something to it!)

Based on the intelligence provided to Congress, going to war was the correct choice, making Obama's foresight faulty there as well.

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This was a war at our convenience - that should have been obvious to anyone, even people worried about reelection, from the very first swing of the bloody 9/11 shirt.  The naked lying that went on to put us in Iraq should have lead to mass resignations and/or arrests, and we should be ashamed of it for generations.