For me it was not that Iraq was going to directly threaten the US. It was that Saddams continued existence required a continued presence by the US in the Middle East to a degree which had a good many negative side effects. In the end Colin Powells view that you break it you buy it turned out to be more right.

It was a situation in which every answer was bad and one had to pick the less poisonous. We may have chosen badly, but I do not believe it was out of an evil intent.

Rarely a week or month goes by where I do not think about the soldiers I lost there.

Michael Dittamo
Topeka, KS