The war's a success … because President Bush says so

Frontiersman editorial board

President George W. Bush displayed his usual swagger Friday morning while telling an audience of military people and international diplomats that the war in Iraq was a success in liberating Iraqis and in making the world a safer place for the lack of Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, thousands of liberated Iraqis took the Baghdad streets to protest poor security and unemployment, among other complaints -- problems they blame on the U.S. occupation.

It seems no two people can agree anymore about the original rationale for an Iraq invasion, so how can we possibly determine whether the conflict has been a success or not? If the war was about the location and disposal of weapons of mass destruction, as was first claimed, the loss of life has clearly been in vain. If the war was about removing Saddam Hussein from power in order to make the world safer from terrorism, we could call the effort half successful. Hussein is gone, but most people still do not feel any safer from terror than they did a year ago. And, since it seems there were no WMD to be found, it's safe to say the threat posed by Iraq was negligible. If you count the number of coalition lives lost in the conflict, you could argue we suffered greater death and destruction with the war than we would have without it. More U.S. soldiers have died since Bush declared the major conflict over.

It is questionable to assume the war in Iraq was designed to win liberation for oppressed Iraqis, as Bush now claims. The truth is, you can't gift wrap liberty and democracy and give them to a people who haven't already at least demanded those things for themselves. It seems narrow-minded at best and ludicrous at worst to assume you can impose democracy on another country with military force. In any case, Iraqi liberty was not a major concern for Bush until the WMD failed to materialize.

It's an election year, and Bush is playing to his strengths. He's still seen as being effective on the war on terror, though, ironically, most Americans don't feel any safer now than they did two years ago. Still, it's seen as a Bush strength, so he will attempt to link the war in Iraq to the broader war on terror. He'll also attempt to play to our sense of patriotism by claiming the Iraq conflict was a battle for human rights and freedom, though there is no strong evidence that the Iraqi people were ever seeking our form of liberty -- or that conditions in that country are any better now than before the war. The war in Iraq will be reduced to a political debate topic for the next several months. It's worthwhile to consider the cost of the war and its true outcomes while listening to that debate.