I'm so sadden my such cruelity to children. I relize there are many who wish we had never steped into Iraq or think we had no business being there. As a mother i know i would of begged for anyone to help my children. And I would never of thought twice if it meant life for my child. I watched two of my children face a uncertain future and I felt as if my worst nightmare had come true and would my children come home a live and in one piece you see my children are US Marines my youngest daughter and my only son. I have read storys of saddam killing his own family members. i don't believe he has compassion for anyone. his only true passion was having power. I'm not saying I understand everything there is to know but i do know compassion and i do feel the heart ache of Nouri.

I wish this trial would end. Why are we coddling Saddam? Doesn't keeping the monster alive just encourage the rebels who are killing innocents every day? I am Christian and not ordinarily a proponent of the death penalty but even if he got life in prison that would still give his followers a rallying point.

Saddam Hussein remains a despot, dictator, brutality driven, psychologically imbalanced piece of excrement. What he did in 1988 remains and was and has always been a very brutal act of, I can't call it war, history, which cannot be forgiven and must be accounted for. He must pay in this tribunal or in an ad hoc tribunals such as the Hague for crimes against humanity.

If we keep him alive in prison, his followers will rally arround him so we need to kill him? Uh, hello, 'martyr' anyone?

Saddam needs punishment, sure, but do not let this fact distract us from the fact that there are worse dictators out there who didn't get their regime taken down.

Why Saddam? Why not fix the Sudan? Oh. No oil in the Sudan? That makes sense.

Someone give me common-sense answers: If Saddam is a "monster, etc." for his war in '88, WHAT is Bush?
Saddam had at least a justification for war against the Kurds...WHAT justification does our U.S. have, in REALITY, for the bombing, MURDERING of 20,000?
100,000? innocent civilians in Iraq, incl'g CHILDREN,
WOMEN, STUDENTS, PHYSICIANS, etc., etc.?? I WANT TO KNOW WHY THE HYPOCRITICAL DOUBLE STANDARD? What gives one "leader" war crimes against humanity charges & another "leader" zero accountability???
Does our country have a monopoly on killing? On so-called 'pre-emptive war' against a people who did
absolutely NOTHING against us? As a nation of 'democracy', WHERE IS OUR COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE?
Our outrage at the barbaric, FOR-NO-REASON, killing of thousands upon thousands? Can we only point our blood-stained fingers at others? When will we, as a nation, clean up our own act? I say: if Saddam is a
war criminal, worthy of our denigration & punishment,
then so likewise, is our "leader" GWB! What's good for the goose (should be) is good for the gander! May God bless us all & have mercy on US, ALL.

Though the US has been responsible for many tragic civilian deaths, the number still does not compare to the total number of people who died from Saddam's rule (Since '79! Let's not forget the casualties from the peeing match between them and Iran!). Another point is that only some of those deaths are directly tied to the US, many of them are also killed as results of suicide bombers and gunmen who truly murder civilians to scare them into submission and to make them give up.

Saddam might have had a reason for doing something about the Kurds in the north, however no person in any nation or at any time has any right to purposefully target children and civilians and wipe out entire families for the act of one member. And it was not a "war" against the Kurds in any sense, but a systematic killing.

And the war now was not against people who did nothing to us, otherwise we would have just laid waste to the entire country. The war was against a government, and not it's people. The very fact that we fight this war with one hand tied behind our backs proves that we are not out to destroy the people. How many American lives could have been saved by dropping a MOAB on Fallujah instead of combing through it street by street? Which is what we would have done if we were against the people. (Anyone remember the firebombing of Tokyo? or Germany?) Instead, we feel it's important enough (And ask many of the people in our Armed services, many of which have even volunteered or transferred units to get back into Iraq) to fight the hard fight in order to hopefully bring these people a resemblance of what you and I get to take advantage of every day.

And America, though we tout the democratic process, is not a true democracy, but a representative republic.

As for where is our collective conscience, hopefully it is somewhere along the lines of "Hey, we screwed up and went into this place without a plan of how to keep it straight afterwards, we really need to stick to our word and make sure we make it right before we leave."

In all actuality, WMD's and Presidents with agendas aside, Saddam through his arrogance and flat out defiance of the will of the UN gave us every reason we would ever need to go in there and fight. The UN is supposed to keep the world safe and peaceful, yet they do nothing to leaders who blind side them and scoff at every sanction or resolution passed. (Again, think Tehran, N. Korea, Saddam....)

One thing I don't understand though, the one thing that totally boggles my mind is this: Why do so many people say, "What the heck are we doing in Iraq, it's not our job to fix a country that has a horrible leader who kills on a whim, hangs bodies on lightposts for people to see as an "example" and squanders his resources on himself while his people suffer?" These people then go immediately to say, "We need to go in and help and fix Sudan?"

How can you fault us for doing something and then go on and ask us to do the exact same thing in another country?

The real question you should ask yourself is "Where is the UN *Peacekeeping* force and why aren't they in Sudan, or Iraq? I bet I can guess, they are probably on vacation with all of the money they skimmed from the Oil for Food program. "Another Mercedes, Mr. Annan?"

Wish Come True, Denver....I completely agree with you. You are truly a thinking person...What really upsets me is the true evil that some people have in their hearts when they call for death and killing of others and without proof wrong doing was done. They are so easily lead and I wouldn't want any of those people having authority over me or mine. Like Nazi Germany...everyone will be afraid to think or talk for fear your friend, neighbor, or family even children against parents will turn them over to the killing secret police never to be heard from again, like these new rules of detainment Bush and congress are passing...

I sense appologists for imperialist policies in this thread.

I did not advocate 'fixing' the Sudan over Iraq, I merely wondered why did he choose to 'fix' Iraq? Why not one of the many other nations in worse shape? Oh, that's right, the OIL!

I do not advocate the US unilaterally fixing ANYTHING. Let the UN handle that, and if you don't like how the UN handles that...well...as the Republicans say...if you don't like the law, work to fix it!

Sadam destroyed families so did Bush but did do this make Sadam right. He,s an animal who killed and terrorised millions. Think about the innocent people and judge him on his actions not by Bush because we are all responsible for our actions;

Wish come true, you are dead on correct. Saddam is accused of killing people who were suspected of trying to kill him. Bush would call these types of people "terrorists" and "insurgents". Bush is the biggest hypocrite. I find no difference in the slaughter wrought by Bush then in the slaughter purported to have happened under Saddam.

I do apologize, I thought that the comment "Why not fix Sudan?" was advocating fixing Sudan also.

There is plenty of Oil in Sudan, in fact 7 to 10% of China's oil supply comes from Sudan. (depending on where you get your information) Four oil companies are there already, while others are still exploring the countries reserves.

So unfortunately, the "No oil in Sudan" attacks doesn't hold so much weight.

The civil war in Sudan has been raging for the past 18 years. Why did this drive for Sudan only come to light while people are looking for something to put against Bush (Who is not our best president by any means). No one screamed about it with the first Bush, or Clinton, or Reagan...

Why did he pick Iraq? To finish his dad's job? To settle a personal score? To save humanity? To try to lower oil prices? To score a contract for Halliburton? Quite possibly all of these points were included in his decision. You don't pick out a house to buy for just one reason, but for the package as a whole.

I seriously doubt though that the main reason was oil. Number one, it is not like we are going over there and putting a few barrels of oil in the back of our ships as they head back home. None of that oil is going to be ours when this is over with. Number two, the best way for us to have made out good on the oil program would not have been to throw the country into war. Look at their production today! Number three, we could have been much more profitable had we just been a part of the corruption with the oil-for-food program.

As to another point, that you should fix the UN with law, that is impossible to achieve. Nothing is going to happen in the UN as long as any one country (Including us) has veto power. We can't even decide what to do with a country that has been at war with the west for years and openly advocates the destruction of our way of life.

The UN was created in 1945 with the main purpose of keeping a check on Russian nuclear and superpower ambitions. It has done that. Either it needs to be entirely revamped, or something better needs to take it's place.

Unfortunately you can only pick a couple of countries at a time to try and restore justice and freedom and peace, why they choose who they choose we don't always know, but no matter who they choose someone will always still be suffering somewhere. If you choose place A, people will want you in place B and vice versa. You just have to continue to care about all of them, and do what you can in the time you're given.

No one doubts that Saddam was a bad person who didn't have a right to control a country. All they doubt is that we; as Americans in our quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, had any right to be the ones to do it. We could debate for the end of time if we should or should not have been there, but the reality stays that we are there, and we need to do the best we can.

What's wrong with going into Iraq because of OIL???

The reality is that the U.S. needs oil, and a lot of it, to maintain our economy and affluent life style. Without oil we are instantly back to the Stone Age.
The U.S. must protect and stabilize the oil-producing regions of the world or else it's back to the horse and buggy.

Saddam had a history of constantly destabilizing the largest oil producing region of the world. His invasion and bloody occupation of Kuwait and his war with Iran are just two examples. What if he invaded Saudi Arabia? He simply had to go.

There is no shame in invading and occupying Iraq to protect the flow of oil. In fact, I would much more upset if our government just stood by and allowed Saddam to disrupt the world's oil supply.

Sadly, the Sudan has no economic or strategic value to the U.S. Any military intervention in the Sudan by the U.S. would truly be a waste of time and resources. Let the UN handle the Sudan situation.

So it's OK for the US to use it's powerful military to take oil from Iraq?! Might makes right?! Wow...that's just...wow. I guess when some hood with a weapon breaks into your house and takes your stuff...you'll see nothing wrong with it. He needs those goods to support his drug habit and he has the where-withal to take it from you!

If there is plenty of oil in Sudan, then they should be able to pay us for our "help" right? But they will need the help of what ever God they pray to if the USA helps them as we have "helped" free the Iraqi people. I think it was Rumsfeld (or Cheney) who said that the Oil revenues from Iraq would easily pay us for our liberation efforts in their behalf... remember that gem? 400 billion? I don't think that check is in the mail. But I do think that 80% of the Iraqi people would gladly pay us handsomely to go back where we came from and stop killing their women and children. The other 20% just plain want to see us dead. Let's declare Victory and quit the field!

How many times must history repeat itself before we learn? After WW II ended many people asked why Hitler wasn’t stopped sooner. The Europeans chose to follow diplomacy and appeasement. In the end their efforts culminated in the deaths of millions of people. The situation with Saddam is similar. Except in this case the US has taken action to stop it. Iraq has waged war on Iran (1980-88), Kurdistan (1988), and Kuwait (1992). He has used weapons of mass destruction on Iran and its own people. Torture and killings were a part of their everyday treatment for their citizens.
Freeing the people of Iraq from a brutal dictator and giving democracy a chance to gain a footing in the Middle East can change the world. It is clear that the Kurds, who were the most oppressed under Saddam, have enjoyed the most peace and prosperity in the liberated Iraq. Hopefully, Kurdish mothers will no longer have to suffer like Nouri because of the courage and valor of the men and women serving the US.

A question then about Sudan.... am I to understand that the reason we (the US) don't go in and help poor and disenfranchised people there is that they can't pay us for our blood sweat and tears with oil as we expect from Iraq? If Iraq is going to pay us for their liberation then where is the money? Weren't we told by this administration that the Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war and therefore wouldn't cost the US taxpayers a dime... only our blood. Where is that check for the liberation of Iraq? Lost in the mail with the ones from Viet Nam and Korea?

Saddam Hussein not only killed the Kurd's but also terrorized and totured citizen's of Iraq that were not of his faith(Sunni). The Shia majority were never given a voice. They were prisoners in their own country.Second class citizens and that is being kind. We will never know all the reasons that the Bush Administration used to decide to go to war. I do not think President Bush went to war on a whim. I'm not an American, but because of what America and all other democratic countries stand for(freedom of speech being one of them) I am able to express my opinion without fear of reprisal in any form. I don't have to worry that someone will break down my door in the middle of the night(or day) and torture or kill me or mine because I have an opinion contrary to what the current administration's policies are. The people of Iraq didn't have this option. You disagreed with Saddam you were dead or imprisoned for the rest of your life, with only torture to look forward to. If for no other reason than to liberate the people and give them a voice, free of fear, torture or death; then this is a good fight. My heart and prayers go out to all the families who have lost loved ones in this war. I cannot imagine your anguish or your loss. Our hearts and prayers should also go out to all the families that lost loved ones by the hands of Saddam Hussein and his Baath party. None of us are perfect, we all make poor decisions at times; BUT I believe President Bush made the only decision he could at the time, with the intelligence that was afforded him. We know Saddam had weapons of mass destruction because he used them on the Kurds. I feel President Bush's hands were tied for too long and it gave Saddam time to hide his weapons of mass destruction(the Iraqi desert is a big place). The world looks to the U.S. as a model of democracy,for strength, guidance,and justice and like the ordinary Iraqi citizen; I am glad that you are there. No country is perfect, but I would take the imperfections of the U.S., Canada, and Britain over the imperfections of Iraq, Afganistan, and Iran any day of the week.

I sure hope that all the people here advocating an aggressive foreign policy have a medical condition preventing them from serving in the military.

No, having children does not count.

It's easy to cheerlead a imbecilic war when you don't have to risk anything personally.

Sorry...the excuses for invading Iraq were not enough to convince me to shed American blood in 2003...and in 2006, the constantly surfacing evidence just underscores my doubt and mistrust in the Bush Administration.

All this blather about Saddam being a menace and allowing democracy to flourish is nonsense. Collin Powell did not go the to the UN and say "We want to replace Saddam with a democracy". He stated that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and intends to use them on us immediately.

If President Bush had gone to the Congress and said "I need power to wage war on Iraq because we need deomocracy to flourish in the Middle East and Saddam is a cruel dictator" would he have gotten many votes for this? Of course not! The neocons are practicing revisionist history. They need a story to cover up the obvisous failures of this administration. Bush lied, people died, end of story.

Vietnam and Korea???
They have nothing to do with the Iraq War.
South Korea, a free democratic nation, was the invaded by North Korea in a blantant attempt to conquer a free nation and create a Communist dictatorship. The free world was justifiably shocked and the UN sent a multi-national force led by the U.S. to free and protect South Korea from the Northern invaders. A very just war by any standards. Just look at North Korea today. Just imagine the hell the South Korean people would be suffering if the UN did not intervene.

Vietnam was a mistake, no doubt about it. True that both the Vietnam War and the Iraqi War involved the US fighting an insurgency. However, there the simularity ends.

In Vietnam, the Vietcong insurgents were fighting to unify their country and get rid of the corrupt government of South Vietnam. So in a sense they were a form of freedom fighters.
In Iraq, there are no "freedom fighters". The insurgents in Iraq are not fighting to free their nation. Instead the insurgents are fighting to destroy the free democratic government of Iraq and install an Islamic dictatorship led by minority Sunnis.

The Iraqi insurgents have no legitimate cause like the Vietcong. If the insurgents stop fighting the Iraqi government and killing innocent civilians, the U.S. will leave. So what are the Iraqi insurgents fighting for, what is their cause?
To strip the Iraqi citizens of their hard won freedom and setup a dictatorship even worse than Saddam.
No, you can not truly compare the Iraq War with Vietnam.

after the gulf war..the world saw us as invincinable, but after somalia they woke up and found out that thye can beat us by hit and run not a stand up fight thanks to clinton, which this country thinks they are still fighting WW2 like fights..as long as we keep fighting with 1 hand tied behind our back and prtending we are the cowboy with the white hat we will LOOSE. example..our military brass had 40-60 al-qeda higher ranking personal in there sights {CNN reporting} from a armed drone spy plane and AGAIN they did nothing..just like 9/11 they did not want to try to stop the attack cause they wanted to be brought in a war..pearl harbor was an another example.....how much more are we going to keep the politicons in power who keep taking away our rights and not caring about this country?

I have no medical condition to prevent me from serving. In fact, after 9/11 I joined the Army Reserves as a physician. I joined to fight Al Quieda and the Taliban. I was as surprised as anyone with the turn of our attention to Iraq. I never felt we were justified in invading Iraq and I believe Bin Laden is free because we diverted our attention. Also I think we fed the terrorist agenda by our involvement in Iraq. Yes, this is an imbecilic war. But to compare George Bush to Sadaam Hussein is not appropriate. I have been there; I sat in the courtroom of the Baath Party headquarters and observed Sadaam’s trial. I provided medical care to detainees at Abu Ghraib, I examined Sunnis tortured by Shiites in retaliation, and I cared for dead and dying Iraqi and American Army soldiers. As bad as George Bush is, and I believe he is responsible for many many needless deaths, he is not Sadaam Hussein. So I do not cheer an imbecilic war and yes I have personally risked everything. I am not a George Bush fan and I believe the world will be a better place when Bush, Rumsfield, and Cheney are no longer in power. but I will not seriously compare them with Sadaam Hussein.
T. Mitchell, I disagree with you on several points, but I applaud your sensible, articulate, argument. Perhaps if we followed T. Mitchells example and engaged in less name calling and us v.s. them mentalities, and stated our position with more facts and less emotion we may find we (Americans) agree more than we disagree.

Thanks bmathwich. It is unfortunate that debate these days cannot go on without things like that, but it's not surprising, as even our politicians can't campaign without resorting to it!

The biggest point I was trying to make is not whether or not we had a right to be there in the first place, just that we are there now, and we have to do what we said we were going to do. There is a long history of the West saying one thing and doing something completely different in the Middle East.

My fiance is a Baghdad Native, she lived there for 13 years, from 1977 to 1991. Through years of war with Iran, and years of having to watch what she said about Saddam, not knowing who could hear or report it so that Saddam and his friends could have a "talk" with her family. I've seen her cry from losing family over there, I've seen her have to turn off the TV because of the news reports, I've heard her say that the way some people act over there at times makes her "ashamed to call herself Iraqi". I have heard how bad things are, with no embellishment, after she gets off the phone with her family, and they say they have to sleep on roofs because there is no power, and that they are afraid to go visit family that lives a block away. I've even seen her jump at the sound of my printer getting stuck when she thought it was machine gun fire.

I know what those people have had to go through under his thumb. I would gladly give my life to stop any person, from any country, of any religion from having to endure that kind of trauma and oppression.

My father was in Iraq in 1991, so I know also what it's like to have family in a warzone and to not know if they are going to come home.

I am also a Muslim, and have spent much time with people from other countries (including Iran) and have heard first hand accounts of their wives going to the bank and the grocery store, deciding to go to the bank first, and having the grocery store blow up while she was at the bank.

I agree wholeheartedly that the excuses given to us were not good reasons to go to war, as they were unsubstantiated. I think the most ironic point is that had the administration been completely honest with us from the beginning, I believe we still would have went, because we as Americans, have empathy for other people's plights. We still had other reasons to go there. And then the public would not feel so bad about this war, because our biggest complaint is 'why are we there' not 'Saddam was a good guy he should be the leader still!'.

The 80% want us to leave and 20% want us dead is completely off though. If you look at the statistics, most deaths come from two provinces, Al Anbar (where Fallujah is) and in Baghdad. Two provinces are in complete control of Iraqi forces. The entire north is a peaceful place with little activity.

The Sunni Shia split is completely out of proportion also. Most of those reports don't count Kurds as Sunni, but they are Sunni Muslims, Kurdish is just their cultural background. That makes the split about 55% Shia 45% Sunni.

There is no doubt that most of them want us to go home. I want them to come home also. But if we leave now, we make those 2700 deaths that we have suffered worth nothing, we tell every mother that their son/daughter died for no cause. If we come home when we have finished this job, then we tell every mother that their child died so that others may enjoy a freedom they had never tasted before.

Which would you rather tell someone who's lost a child/husband/wife/grandchild?

Those 2700 people and counting who have died will always have died in vain, no matter the outcome of this war. This war was based on a fallacy that Iraq was some sort of threat to the United States. Given that it is now known to not be the case it is being trumpeted as some sort of fight against terrorists, who were never there in the first place! The quicker we leave the better. Leave it to Bush to apologize for the deaths, it is not on my conscience.