Americans Can Agree that the Iraq War Was a Mistake

Americans Can Agree that the Iraq War Was a Mistake

by John Nagl

The Telegraph

This was a preventive war designed to prevent Iraq from using or proliferating its presumed weapons of mass destruction to terrorists or terrorist states, but those weapons did not exist. Ironically, if they had, we did not even send enough troops into Iraq in the first place to properly secure the supposed weapons sites.

We fought a far longer war and far costlier war than we ever could have imagined.

This has been enormously expensive both in terms of lives and treasure. If we had known in 2003 what it was going to cost and what we were going to get for that cost we certainly wouldn't have gone into Iraq. It's reminder of the extraordinary risks one takes when one chooses to roll the iron dice and that it is impossible to predict the long-term results of war.