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Clinton should rightly be castigated for 8 years of uninterrupted bombings in Iraq and an embargo that killed 500,000 Iraqi children. The sufferings of the Iraqi people in the last 10 years have a lot more to do with U.S. interferance than with Saddam Hussein.
Had we not interfered with Iraq immediately after the first Gulf War, Saddam would likely have been deposed. The Kurds would have formed their own country, Iran would have grabbed Basra, and the Baathists would have been left with a country half the size. Or alternatively, he dies of cancer in a few years. Sure, Clinton was talking WMD. But there's a small difference between talking and invading a country. Saddam had been contained. He wasn't going anywhere and his grasp on power was tenuous. He was already done.
Here is something you should consider: It's easy to sit back in the U.S. and SAY that we should send troops hither thither when neither yourself nor your family is personally at risk of dying in combat. The ultimate test for how willing America is to conduct this global war on terrorism can easily be measured by it's enthusiasm to enlist for it.
Not very.
Not only is nobody enlisting, but those who have enlisted are desparate to get out. 40,000 soldiers have been put on stop loss. Those are men and women whose terms of service have technically expired, but they are not allowed to go home. If it weren't for the fact that these 40,000 people have been "drafted" into a longer service, our military could not maintain operations in Iraq. Period.
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