Throughout the presidential election, the war in Iraq has been used as a pawn in both the Bush and the Kerry campaigns.
Because George W. Bush has made many controversial decisions on this war, he has been widely criticized.
Some people believe that more diplomacy should have been used before going to war with Iraq and he should have brought in more allies.
Others believe that Bush lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Many believe that Bush is picking and choosing which opressive regimes should remain and which regimes can be removed.
Still others think that it was, "the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time."
To understand why Bush decided to go to war, I will now go over the events preceding this war.
According to the Doelfer Report, Saddam Hussein's mission ever since the Kuwait war was to reconstitute Iraq's WMDs. He was concerned primarily with his survival, regime and legacy.
But in order to foster a grand image of a leader to the Middle East, he needed WMDs. So, first he had to end the U.N. sanctions.
Saddam saw these sanctions as one thing: an enemy. He did everything he could to get past them and tried to carry favor with some members of the U.N. Security Council in an attempt to divide them.
He planned that after the sanctions were lifted, he would come out with a much stronger Iraq and be able to immediately go back to amassing military strength.
How did he plan to do this? By exploiting the Oil-for-Food program. The OFF program was supposedly to help Iraq because it was decimated by sanctions and war.
Because of corrupt French and Russian officials, Saddam received in some circumstance hard cash for which to buy weapon systems.
Even with the legitimate money, he was able to buy dual-purpose machinery that could be used for military and non-military purposes.
Also, since Iraq was still allowed to develop weapons with a range of 150 km, it was still able to invest money into weapons development.
Because of this type of diplomacy and underhandedness, Iraq was able to build up 400,000 tons of munitions and that was just what we could secure post-war.
Iraq may not have had WMDs, but because of all these back-room deals, everyone from Bush to Blair to Putin to last year's Kerry thought that they were there.
Even without them, Iraq still had an impressive arsenal.
Still, some say Saddam had no link to terrorism and was not a threat. Yet, he was fostering terrorism within his borders.
Furthermore, if Iraq ever acquired the means to create WMDs, it would most likely use it against its enemy Iran or against Isreal, in a hope to gain favor in the Muslim World.
If either of these situations occurred, it would mean complete destabilization of the whole
Middle East. So long as we are a country dependent on oil, this cannot be allowed to happen. Some will then say that with that reasoning we should take out Pakistan. The difference between Iraq and Pakistan, though, is that Pakistan is willing to give up terrorists within its borders and is not lead by an anti-American fascist.
The war on terrorism is very simple: other countries should stop harboring people bent on destroying America and we will leave them alone.
It has nothing to do with that county's internal affairs or its form of government. Because terrorist groups are such a large threat to American stability, we cannot tolerate them anymore.
So as long as there are world leaders bent on their own goals and stock piling weapons in order to gain more power while harboring our enemies, we are not secure.
That is why we must support our troops and support our president in war.
If we end this war haphazardly, we will make the whole situation worse off than when it started and lose any potential of creating any good from it: the creation a free democratic country. So, it is my hope that the president will continue to rebuild Iraq and to defeat terrorism wherever it is.
Our security should be the first concern because without it all other issues do not matter.
Instead of bashing the Bush administration and constantly calling for an immediate end of the war, please think on the best way to come out of the situation, not the easiest.
Above all, be respectful despite the political climate. We are at war and useless politically-driven quarrels will just make it last longer.
