>FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES
>HEAD: Confessions of an anti-Iraq War Democrat
>By Lanny Davis, a prominent Washington lawyer and a political analyst for
>Fox News Channel. In 2007 and 2008, he made multiple appearances on cable TV
>in support of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. From 1996
>to 1998, he served as special counsel to President Clinton.
>I remember the exact moment I had my first serious doubts about whether I
>was 100 percent right that the U.S. pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the
>take-out of Saddam Hussein was a serious mistake.
>I had been strongly opposed to the U.S. intervention from the start. I felt
>this way even though I believed (as did most everyone, including the
>intelligence community) that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and even
>though I thought that he was a murderous, genocidal thug and the world would
>be better off - and the U.S. safer - with him dead.
>However, I reasoned, the WMD inspectors were back in, and we had Saddam
>surrounded - thanks to George Bush, by the way, for which we Democrats did
>not give him sufficient credit at the time.
>So why risk the uncertainties of a pre-emptive invasion, loss of life and
>treasure, and diverting our attention from 9/11 and the war against
>terrorism, which most U.S. intelligence indicated had nothing to do with
>Saddam?
>Of course, all these remain good reasons for opposing starting the war, even
>as I look back now.
>But ... then came my first moment of doubt.
>I saw on TV in early 2005, in their first preliminary democratic elections,
>long lines of Iraqis waiting to vote under the hot desert sun with bombs and
>shrapnel exploding around them. Waiting to vote!
>And then there was that indelible image - an older woman shrouded in a
>carpetlike cape, smiling gleefully and holding her purple finger in the air
>for the TV cameras, purple with ink showing that she had voted.
>Smiling! In the middle of war! At U.S. troops standing nearby! Wow, I
>thought. Is it possible I was wrong?
>Is it possible, I wondered, that Iraqis truly did want democracy and freedom
>and the right to vote and government of the people, just as we Americans do?
>And were willing to fight for it, with our help? Wouldn't that be a good
>thing? Even a great thing?
>Maybe another democracy, however imperfect, other than Israel in the Middle
>East could lead to more moderation, possibly other democracies? Democracies
>that could serve as bulwarks against al Qaeda-type of terrorist states?
>Then in 2005-06 came the increased violence from the Sunni insurgents
>against American kids, then the sectarian civil war between Sunnis and
>Shi'ites, with young Americans caught in the crossfire. My certainty in
>opposing the war and supporting a deadline for getting out re-emerged.
>And then in early 2007 came the surge, which so many of us in the antiwar
>left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men
>and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong.
>The surge did, in fact, lead to a reduction of violence, confirmed by media
>on the ground as well as our military leaders.
>It did allow the Shi'ite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the
>last several months to show leadership by joining, if not leading, the
>military effort to clean out of Basra the masked Mahdi Army controlled by
>the anti-U.S. Shi'ite extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and from the Sadr
>City section of Baghdad he claimed to control.
>This willingness by the Shi'ite-dominated al-Maliki government to move
>against the Sadr Shi'ite extremists won crucial credibility for the
>government among many Sunni leaders and Sunnis on the streets, who joined
>together with Shi'ites to turn against the al Qaeda in Iraq and other
>Taliban-like extremists.
>These are facts, not arguments.
>I think there are a lot of antiwar Democrats who, like me, are impressed by
>these facts and who now see a moral obligation, after all the carnage and
>destruction wrought by our military intervention, not just to pick up and
>leave without looking over our shoulders.
>Surely we owe the Iraqis who helped us, whose lives are in danger, immediate
>immigration rights to the U.S. Yet the shameful fact is that most are still
>not even close to having such rights.
>Surely we owe the al-Maliki government and the Shi'ite and Sunni soldiers
>who put their lives on the line against Shi'ite and Sunni extremists and
>terrorists at our behest some continuing presence and support and patience
>as they strive to find peace, political reconciliation - and maybe even the
>beginnings of a stable democracy.
>The only question is, for how long? Forever? No. 100 years? No. But for how
>long? I don't know.
>I just know I can't get out of my mind that lady with the purple finger held
>up, smiling into the camera. If getting in was a mistake, then getting out -
>how and when - is not so simple as long as there is hope that she can
>someday live in a democratic Iraq that can help America in the war against
>terrorism.
>*******
>Ya think Barack, the Magic Negro's puppeteers will let him even read this?
>Bet not!