Was Iraq war a mistake? Is bush a good present? Or bad?
967746
The war wasn't a mistake.  Saddam was sentenced to hang by his country.  \n\nBush is a good president.  He's the only one that followed thru with the inspections and he tried to get them to cooperate.
126865
im 16\ni think bush isnt a bad guy he's just in over his head. he seems to mean well and i think that america should stay in Iraq until the Iraq people have a stable government. But at the same time we went over there for the wrong reasons(oil) like whatever happend to Osama? And its also kind of shady how 14 out of 19 hijakcers were from Saudi Arabia but the Saudi's relationship with US has never been questioned. I think that this is because the Bush family and the Saud family have been friends/buisness partners for years, but if you're president friendship should come after your country. the US should take a greater interest in N.korea and Pakistan. The american casulities (2300) are necessary and minimal. john Kerry had the worst attendence/voting record in the senate, he's not presidential material.\n\nid would vote for Nader if i could
301977
Thousands of innocent civilians were killed in the war in Iraq.  Bush's war policies are bad for America.  He's the real problem.  Now he wants to bomb Iran.  If he does, China and Russia will be against us and we may have World War III.  We could all get nuked!
398988
I promise to not call you any names. Nor will I rant against Bush.\nHere are some of the problems:\n1. Waging a pre-emptive war on a sovereign nation is against international law and against the world's self-interests. I hope you don't want any country to be able to justify attacking another because the other country might be a threat in the future.\n\n2. Too much evidence suggest that the administration created  the WMD threat to justify their decision. Shouldn't going to war be based on an honest consideration of facts???? Shouldn't the administration be open about its reasons?\n\n3. Yes Saddam was a bad guy, but are you seriously suggesting that we take out anyone we think is a bad guy??? And talk about destabilizing--by what criterion could you possibly judge Iraq to be more stable now than before?\n\n4. Who's talking about returning Saddam to power???\n\n5. WMDs is not an obsession--just one of many reasons to question the honesty and the competence of the administration.
625583
Yes, I think the Iraq fiasco is what people will remember GWB by the most.  Let's not forget the end of cheap oil, the largest budget deficit in history and the over reaction to 9/11.  We and our children will be paying for his bad judgment for many years.
379513
He's not as bad as he's hyped up to be, although he has made numerous mistakes. HE ISN'T AS BAD AS JOHN KERRY WOULD HAVE BEEN. (WARNING: you will be bombarded by bad answers from Democrats, the majority of the population, and even some rebublicians on this question)
912228
Bush needed to appear to be proactive and doing something to avenge the 3000 who died on 9/11. He could have declared war on walmart, called it a righeous holy war, and the ignorant nabobs would have gotten behind THAT too.\n\nIt was face-saving P.R., nothing more. There's no dumber person than the one who says we are in Iraq to contain terrorism, for freedom or over 9/11. Those who say these things don't have a dreaming clue of what the reality of the situation is.\n\nThe Iraqi people rightly want an end to the rampant random slaughter of hundreds of thousands of their fellow countrymen that has ensued in the chaos after the American invasion destroyed social order and infrastructure, without replacing it with anything.
211623
If you make a mistake, do you clean it up or do you let it be?\n\nWe created Iraq by giving him military support durning the Iraq-Iran war. \nWe also created Iran through giving a dictator our support to opress his people. \n\nWe are responsible for Saddam's military appetite and the Islamic government taking power in Iran. \n\nWe made a mess and we need to clean it up.\n\nCountry girl you are right, We were attacked by radical Islam on 9/11 and we are fighting radical Islam in Iraq. Yes they are connected!!!
1153247
No.  Honestly I've seen a lot of George W. Bush's life before he became President.  Not only is he a bad President, but he was a disastrous governor in Texas and did the same thing to their state as he has to the United States and flushed it right down the toilet, and he's a generally poor example of a human being.\n\nBefore doing that, he spent his life doing absolutely nothing except screwing up and letting other people take the blame.  Gets into the National Guard, spends his whole time there on a drinking binge, then goes AWOL for seven months?  Who cares?  It's not like we were executing other people's children for that sort of behavior at the time (well, we actually were, but not the RIGHT KIND OF PEOPLE'S children, and that's the important thing to remember).  Gets busted for drunk and disorderly?  Boys will be boys!  You're not supposed to remember that's something that usually ruins the lives of your average day folk, after all.  Mis-invests public money in failed efforts to find oil in a state where people are literally tripping over the stuff in the streets?  Daddy's friends can take care of it.  S&L scandal loses 90 million?  Oh gosh, not his fault.  Bail out time.  Plunges Texas from its best economic times straight into the worst recession in its history?  That has to be the last guy's fault, you know... everyone loves me.\n\nBe offended if you like the guy, but you have to ignore common sense to review the man's record and think he should be allowed to run a 7-11, much less an entire country.\n\nThe bottom line on what went wrong is that an incompetent man who never should have been allowed to make a serious bid for the office of President was swept into it, and did what all incompetent men do.  He screwed up.  What continued to go wrong was that he ended up in the one job where no one could feasibly fire him for it and the people were too apathetic to collectively afford themselves of the opportunity to do it, so he just kept screwing up, and kept screwing up, and kept screwing up... and when it came time for people to decide whether or not he should be stopped, he hired some very clever people to distract the public from what a poor job he did just long enough to let him keep his job because, apparently, he WANTED to keep screwing up, and keep screwing up, and keep screwing up for reasons unknown.\n\nI'm afraid the state the country is in, and the President's "lowest in the history of the United States" approval ratings, are both the fault of the same two things:\n\n1)  A man who refuses to take the advice of wiser people even when it's mind-numbingly apparent he has no idea what's going on or what to do about it, because he has visions of ruling the world; and\n\n2)  A country of people who allow him to keep doing it.\n\nMaybe instead of voting for looks and a bit of charm, we should try voting on who has the best grasp of the issues, who demonstrates the best ability to lead, and whose track record demonstrates the most competence for the job they're applying for.  It might just avoid some of these problems in the future.\n\n\n\nP.S.-- Oh, and for the record GWB didn't manage any of the things BassCatcher ascribes to him.  His college grades were lackluster, he wasn't responsible for winning his elections (quite a few advisers his father handed down to him were... and whatever else you care to say about Bush Sr, the man was awfully bright and hired good help), he didn't accomplish more than 300 million people by being the only one out of them who could have been elected President since most people, quite a few much more solidly qualified than him (even in the conservative base) don't aspire to that job, and the bulk of evidence indicates he wasn't elected either time in any case since in both elections reviews by the state of Florida found evidence of massive voter fraud (and in both elections losing Florida wou
110041
Bush has stretched the resources of the Army almost to the breaking point. He ordered the invasion of a country on a fictional pretense. Thousands of people have died and the\nU.S. is now hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. Other\nworld leaders deride him and wonder how he ever got re-elected,not to mention elected in the first place. The U.S.\nhas been embarassed in front of the world,even if Bush supporters lack the wit to realize it.\n\n NO. He's not a good President.
623453
Okay let me make this straight up as I can. I am a moderate Democrat (i.e. Conservatives will say I am too liberal and Liberals will say I am too conservative) I also do not like our current president never have voted for the other guy in both elections. However I do like Tony Blair and the Labor party (I almost always have the BBC on so I can get some real news) with that you know where I stand.\n\nThis is a very complex question with a lot of history to consider. I can tell you what this war is not. First it is not part of the war on terror. President Hussein had nothing to do with 9-11 and frankly for the victims of that hideous act I think it is a great dishonor to say that Iraq is one and the same war. It’s not about oil. Americans think that we pay too much for oil, compared to Europe we pay half as much per a gallon. That’s due to the different driving practices and the better mass transit in Europe.  This war isn’t about WMDs even though that was the purposed reason to rally public support for the war. It’s not about Halliburton getting kickbacks from having a close relationship with the President that is just the icing on the cake. I can not tell you really what it is about its too complex for me to go into here and I would need hours and hours to explain it. \n\nHere we are a few years later. Do I think we should pull out our troops? No basically we broke the country we should fix it. Is there any good of this invasion? Yes, Saddam was not a good leader of his country he committed the most unforgivable sins; Genocide. If Bush said I don’t think the no fly zones aren’t working I don’t think the sanctions are working we need to go in and get this bastard. I would have said hell yes lets roll. Thing is he didn’t do that he didn’t make it about crimes against humanity. Our reason for the war was WMDs. How could Iraq having WMDs threaten the United States? Only one way and that is Terrorism. The only way Iraq could have used them is by deploying one of its Intel officers in a covert attack on our country. It couldn’t have been done by Al Qaeda. Why? Well Al Qaeda thinks that Saddam is the enemy because he exploits Islam for his own needs. Al Qaeda wanted to over throw leaders like Saddam all thro out the Middle East and put in governments like the Taliban in Afghanistan. Problem is people don’t look at history when they look at the middle east they don’t see the events before oil from there became a life blood or after the crusades. There is this dark period where it greatly shaped the Middle East that we know nothing about as westerners. Hence why it is complex.
13816
I think that Iraq was on Mr. Bush's mind the day he took office.  On day one he put a target on Saddam's head and was ready to use any excuse to finish his daddy's job.\n\nHis father, however, knew the consequeces of a march on Bahgdad.  That is why we stopped short of Saddam in 91, we had a clean victory and Sr. quit while he was ahead.\n\nJr., however, wanted blood.  He was convinced that Saddam would one day become the next great tyrant.  Like Johnson in 64, Bush was ready to pounce at the first sign of any agression.  The perfect reason to declare open-ended war fell into his lap on an early september monday morning.\n\nIt has been reported that just hours after the planes hit Bush was heard asking his advisors if Iraq was involved.  He was asking very leading questions of his advisors, including donald rumsfeld, who both wanted to pin 9/11 on Saddam before the towers even hit the ground.\n\nBut some would say they were smart, they went for the easy win first.  They needed to prove to the public that America could lead a successful nation-building war.  Of course I wouldn't call Afghanistan rebuilt when 95% of their economy is from the sale of opiates (I am against prohibition, but Bush isn't).  Even today, after the supposed elections and overthrow of the taliban, the only way an afghan woman can make any kind of living is to work in the opium fields.\n\nWe all saw the buildup for war.  He and his messengers (condie, rumsfeld, right wing puppet congressmen) had us all believing that we were about to be nuked.  The sad thing is that the public at large bought right into it.  I must say he even got me wondering just what Mr. Saddam had up his sleeve.  I suppose that's why I was rather exited to watch the war on tv, I just wanted to see what this guy had.  I watched the sabre rattling in the weeks leading up to 'shock and awe'.  It was entertaining to watch these two morons square off.  I thought Saddam would have had more of a back bone though.  I expected to see a tienemen square scecne in Bahgdad, but right away I could tell once we entered the capitol that something was wrong.\n\nIf Bush had been right, I have no doubt that Saddam would have used those weapons on American soldiers.  But they never existed.  Just like the second attack at the gulf of Tonkin.  It never happened.  LBJ however did not lie himself, rather his advisors lied to him.  True, Johnson was willing and ready to pounce should a tit-for-tat oppertunity present itself.  He believed the second attack on a stranded US cruiser was just such an oppertunity.  His advisors knew of his willingness to decalre war and fed him intel that would lead him in that direction.  LBJ wanted to look strong on defence and strong against communism going into a tough 1964 election.  He knew that he would be judged to the standard of 'what would JFK have done?' in the public eye.  Once he had blindly acceped the attack as truth and declared war, it wasn't long before the conflict spiraled out of his control.  "For all I know, they're shooting at whales" Johnson said the next year about the war that was now out of his control.\n\nThe rhetoric leading upto Iraq was different.  The intel was 'misread' by everyone in the aministration, so either everyone is lieing or everyone is that dumb.  I think they were seeing what they wanted to see.  As soon as any intel came accross that would give a glimmer of hope to uniting the country behind a war surfaced, they took it as fact because they wanted to.  It suited their political end.\n\nI believe that this intel was also pressured out of the cia and nsa from the white house.  Bush pushed so hard for 'actionable intel' that people eventually told him what he wanted to hear.  This still continues as they try to quell the uprising.  The president is so desperate for information on both insurgents and al-queida (sp?) that he is willing to turn his back on the rest of
44028
No, war is part of human nature. War by rock, by blade, by spear, by bullet, by bombs. The end will come at the end of the world.\n\nAnd Bush is a big part of the problem. Lies about iraq having connections to alquaida, lies about Weapons of mass destruction. Plus 9/11 happened while Bush was in office being incompetent as usual. Watch what the Republicans and Abramoff have been up to. And watch how theylie and blame things on others.
291608
This is a difficult question to answer because it involves a lot of speculation. I agree with you that his choice to invade Iraq definitely hurt his approval rating, but he may well have made other bad decisions that could have hurt him if we hadn't invaded Iraq.  \n\nOn the other hand, he's a conservative president, and the media always criticizes conservative presidents, and the public always eats up anything the media feeds them, so it's likely that just by virtue of his being Republican, he would be reviled no matter how "good" a president he was.
757967
Huge mistake is correct.  What could possibly be wise about the whole exercise?  Wise to put the shiites in power thus strengthening Iran?  Wise to kill 150,000 Iraqis?  Wise to put our soldiers in the middle of a civil war?  Is it wise to execute Saddam thus heightening the sectarian violence?  Nothing about it is wise.
679100
Bush is one of the best presidents ever!!! A very good man. True he is not right about everything but who is. He is doing great under the circumstances. The media totally misrepresents him.
41739
I'm going to have to quote Sherasi here (you wrapped this up perfectly): Personally, I neither hate or love President Bush. He has been an adequate president doing nothing outstanding or terrible in either direction.  (Now here's my part).  As for the WMD's it is possible that they haven't been found.  However, and I don't think I'm speaking alone when I say this, given the tone of the Administration, the UN speech by Colin Powel and George Bush's own firey speeches, I was under the impression that the WMD posed a clear and present danger to us our or our friends in Europe (them being closer, it would be easier to get a missle there).  Therefore, even though I wasn't an avid war supporter, I did expect there to be some sort of major find (again, just because of the tone).  After these years, though it is possible that they are well hidden, the United States has sent top experts of our own (so the crack towards the UN in an earlier answer was pointless), along with spy planes, ground-penetrating radar and computer logistics simulations that could track the likely path of any movement.  I believe the weapons did exist, at one time, but were destroyed or moved.  The fact that the supposed weapons haven't been found then should NOT be seen as a 'victory' for Democrats or a 'defeat' to Republicans.  It should, if we go on the premise that Bush was telling the truh, be a cause of great alarm:  Where are these weapons? Could enemies be plotting against us right now?  It is very sad (and alarming) how even something as overtly destructive as biotoxins suddenly becomes political in this toxic political atmosphere.  And to address you additional comment, if the weapons are one day found, I would hope that the 'Bush haters' say "It looks like we made a mistake".  However, you and I and everyone here knows d*mn well that we're not that forgiving in America, and that - unfortunately - is the reason many foreign policy blunders (and that's aimed at all Presidents, not just Bush) go not only unapologized for, but are compensated by compoundingly disastrous steps.