While conceding that he might have to wait for history books to give him the answers, Steve Berg, a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, says that the question “gnaws at me night and day.”
Why are we in Iraq?
It kind of hangs in the air, doesn’t it? But every time another American kid gets killed or another 20 Iraqis get shredded into bloody pieces, the question returns with a bit more urgency.
Below, Berg’s list of possible answers:
A. To remove the chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons that Saddam Hussein was about to hand over to the terrorists, posing an imminent threat to U.S. security.
A. To sever the link between the 9/11 terrorists and the Iraqi dictator.
A. To remove a brutal and despotic menace to stability in the Middle East.
A. To establish an Iraqi democracy as a model for change in the Islamic world.
A. To make the world safer.
A. To “finish the job” that Bush’s father started in the Gulf War, and to avenge Saddam’s apparent attempt to assassinate the elder Bush.
A. To secure Iraq’s oil supply, thus perpetuating America’s dependence on petroleum rather than launching a major drive toward energy independence.
A. To divert attention from the fact that we were unlikely to find Osama bin Laden and to concentrate instead on an enemy we could easily defeat on the open battlefield.
A. To attract terrorists from around the world to fight a consolidated war against the United States at a remote site, far from American soil.
A. To create a bigger, more telegenic war than the one in Afghanistan in order to appeal to the rising conservative tide at home — especially after 9/11 — and to win back the Senate for Republicans.
A. To slap down a dictator that the United States had helped in the past, especially in his war against Iran, but who then turned on his American benefactors.
A. To launch a latter-day crusade against Islam.
A. To do a favor for Israel.
A. To demonstrate that the United States is the world’s only superpower and that it’s willing to act in defiance of allies and apart from the United Nations.
A. None, some or all of the above.
The first two possibilities — the one about weapons of mass destruction and the one about a Saddam-Al Qaida alliance — have been pretty much disproved. As for the others, who knows? As I said, the question hangs in the air.
The related question about why we must remain in Iraq is easier to answer, and that’s that things would be even worse if we left. But that fails to address the original question about why we invaded in the first place and leaves the mystery dangling. Years from now the history books may tell us the answers, but I’m hoping to find out sooner.