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Americans Have Mostly Forgotten the Iraq War. I Haven’t.
nytimes.com
I spent almost a decade covering Iraq, first arriving in 2002 when the country was still under Mr. Hussein. It has now been 20 years since the start of the war, with all of its shock and awe. But on this anniversary, instead of thinking about how the war began, I’ve been contemplating whether wars end for the people who lived through them.
Something I wrote at the time (February 2003):
I think that peace should be given more of a chance, and that a multi-lateral inspections process, like the one we have, should be allowed some more time. It’s like watching impatient kids who just want to jump on the war bandwagon. Yes, we may have probably given Iraq more time than they deserved already (11+ years or what have you), but that doesn’t mean that Step 2 is to annihilate the country since inspections “haven’t worked yet”. I think all this pressure on Iraq is good, however I think it has moved past the point of military pressure to have become military preparation.