I wish I had been wrong

but here's a letter to the editor I wrote on February 27, 2003:

Let me see if I have my facts straight.

1. Our government wants to attack Iraq in order to prevent a possible use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the future.

But, Iraq does not now have nuclear weapons. North Korea, one of the axes of evil, does. Why don’t we attack them? It’s possible that Pakistan and India may go to war and use nuclear weapons. Shouldn’t we make a preemptive strike on them as the nuclear cloud may reach the United States? And, what about all those nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union? Might they not also be used against us some day in the future? Shouldn’t we eliminate that possibility now?

2. On September 11, 2001, we declared war on terrorism.

Will not a war with Iraq increase exponentially the number of potential recruits to Al Qaeda? We’ve been told that the war on terrorism is global. Will waging war against Iraq mainly on our own make it more or less likely that we will continue to receive cooperation from countries around the world, cooperation that is so vital in the battle against terrorism?

3. The estimates of waging this war approach $100 billion.

How much more will a protracted stay in Iraq after the war cost us? Yet, there has been no talk of the havoc this may wreak on our still fragile economy. Lyndon Johnson promised us guns and butter in his crusade in Vietnam. What did that do to our economy?

Add up the facts and only in George Orwell’s “1984” (where “War is Peace”) do they say this war makes sense.

I grew up in a day when Russia was supposed to attack us “very soon”. Our policy of containment eventually led to the elimination of this “very strong likelihood”. What is wrong with using such a policy against Iraq today?