Toppling Hussein changed Mideast

The Iraq War came with a terrible cost in terms of the lives of Iraqis, Americans, and our closest allies, including the British and Australians. I am sensitive to the sacrifices made by veterans, given that my dad and my grandfather served in the U.S. Army during wartime. The Parkinson’s from which my dad died nearly six years ago was likely linked to Agent Orange he was exposed to in Vietnam.

Our conflict with Saddam Hussein began with his invasion of our ally Kuwait in August 1990. We responded forcibly to what President George H.W. Bush correctly labeled as “naked aggression.”

There is a widespread mistaken belief that Hussein never posed a threat of obtaining nuclear weapons. International inspectors, however, discovered an advanced Iraqi nuclear weapons program in the early 1990s.

During Desert Storm, we were able to impose a powerful regime of international inspections that resulted in the destruction of Hussein’s WMD programs. Our success in fully dismantling that program came from President Clinton’s aggressive enforcement, often backed by airstrikes.

Before being hanged in 2006, Hussein admitted to having planned on reviving his nuclear weapons program. He likely would have nuclear weapons today had he not been removed in 2003. The radicalization that led to the rise of Al Qaida and ISIS was due in large part to tyrannical leaders who quashed any opportunities for their people to have economic and social advancement.

Twenty years ago, we took out a murderous dictatorship in Baghdad and reintroduced elements of democracy to Iraq, shaking up the dominant Middle Eastern order that had been ruled primarily by military dictatorships.