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Instead of just naming the excuses for the invasion as lies, let us begin to tell the truth.
•Bush did not invade to get rid of WMD. There were none.
•Bush did not invade to fight Al Qaeda. Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and the invasion in fact took resources away from fighting it. And he still maintains close personal business relationships with Saudi Arabia, many of whose citizens funded and continue to fund Al Qaeda.
•Bush did not invade to get rid of Saddam the nasty dictator. He explicitly stated that the invasion was still on even if Iraq's neighbors had succeeded in their plan to convince Saddam and sons to go into exile. And he still maintains a very cozy relationship with Karimov of Uzbekistan, who is every bit as murderous as Saddam was.
•Bush did not invade to bring democracy. He fought having elections for as long as he could, and is now unwilling to abide by the platform of the party with the most votes, which calls for phased US withdrawal. A genuinely democratic Iraq will not agree to indefinite occupation or resource theft.
He invaded Iraq for one and only one reason, to plant a permanent military presence there against the wishes of its population, in order to control the entire region by force. Solving the problem of what to do next in Iraq requires that we first be honest enough to name the real goal and then to repudiate it.
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