Kevin,

You cite the hundreds of thousands of Saddam's victims as a rationale for our incursion into Iraq. Would you similarly justify an invasion of North Korea where possibly 2 million of its citizens have starved to death? Would you similarly initiate a war on preventable hospital deaths as the Chicago Tribune estimates that there were 103,000 in 2000? Would you similarly initiate a war on AIDS in Africa where it is estimated that 9000 people die per day? I obtained these statistics after googling for all of 5 minutes. I could no doubt find numerous other instances around the globe where tens of thousands of people are dying and some sort of an intervention could be, and often should be, warranted. Now, with respect to Saddam, I do wonder how much killing was occurring during the last decade. Did the policy of containment curtail the mass murder? I would be fascinated to know this as I don't have the answer. Does anyone know?

 If mass murder was really our reason for entering the war why didn't Bush make this the case to the world's conscience? I truly don't believe Bush and his cronies care a whit for the dying in Iraq. Do you, really? I think they have a grand scheme to reshape the Middle East (and I think it is doomed to fail). Here is a nation of three distinct people (the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds) who all hate each other. And within each group there are factions that hate each other. I believe civil war is inevitable and the killing will be in the tens of thousands. I don't believe this endeavor was worth American lives, period! The test I use is whether I would be able to accept the death of my son or daughter in such a conflict. And in this instance, I could not. This was not a war of necessity.

Peter T.