Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, no operational ties to al Qaeda and no involvement with 9/11. The declared American goal soon became one of bringing democracy and stability to Iraq. A socialist Iraqi constitution was drafted and a new U.S.-allied regime in Iraq with friendly ties to Iran and deference to Sharia law was born. Alliances would shift over the next several years, culminating in the celebrated U.S. "surge" of 2007 that cynically involved paying off Iraqi militias to fight "al Qaeda in Iraq" rather than U.S. forces. Such bribery, as well as the fact that the Sunnis had effectively lost the civil war by then and Iranian intervention had reduced Sadrist belligerence, was probably what really stemmed the bloodshed temporarily.
More than four thousand Americans have been killed, tens of thousands wounded. Independent estimates of Iraqi dead range from a hundred thousand to a million.
And of course, Osama bin Laden has yet to be found.
Which has caused more damage to our country: the 9/11 attacks or our response to them?
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