I finally got the procedure right to post a photo. It may not be confusing to others but I am eminently confusable.
Expanding on previous comments it is satisfying to see mentioned more frequently recently that the initial impetous for our going into Iraq was OIL. Since we are seriously addicted to oil and have been on a binge (Detroit is finally choking on the SUV glut) of over consuming our share of the world's energy supply it is understandable that oil is considered a "national interest". Apparently we are aware of that, and also ashamed of it, because Bush never admitted that it was the prime rationale for the war. To honestly state that the Middle East was in danger of being confiscated by some power not of our liking and therefore we must act preemptively to protect our national interest was beyond the imagination of the mental midgets of this administration. 9/11 was the fortuitous occasion to grab the flag and rally the nation to a bogus threat of immanent disaster and mushroom clouds if we did not defang Hussein.

Token gestures were made to the obviously dysfunctioal United Nations. This den of thieves was heavily in cahoots with Hussein over the oil for food program. The administration was aware of it but didn't make a fuss because too many of our own people were in the game also.
The French and Germans were equally culpable plus more interested in protecting their contracts and assets than going along with Bush's reckless regime change scheme. There was nothing in it for them.

Here we are today, the flag tarnished, the subterfuge revealed,billions upon billions squandered, and 2100+ brave souls lost as well as untold thousands mutilated by wounds. The havoc and mayhem perpetrated on the Iraqis will probably never be accounted for. In less than two weeks the Iraqis will vote on a government. Bush will tout this as a major accomplishment. What happens next is not a positive prognosis. The likelyhood of civil war is great. The involvement of neighboring counties is a real possibility. Where that leads is difficult to imagine. The net result of all this is far from the optimistic picture painted three years ago. Iraq is far from a democratic beacon, more like the vortex of a severely unsettled Middle East.

Meanwhile back in our own baliwick we have daily headlines of graft, corruption, duplicity, and ever widening scandals concerning politicians. Washington has always been thus. It goes back to the earliest Congresses. The only explanation is that it must be human nature. The founding father were well aware of that fact and it is to their credit that they devised a system that functions in spite of it. More or less. Winston Churchill is credited with saying-"You can count on the Americans to do the right thing-- after they have tried everything else".