This weekend was the 4th anniversary of America’s invasion of Iraq. Americans love anniversaries, so it was a good weekend to launch protests against the war and thousands of Americans took this opportunity to express their dismay about what is happening currently in Iraq, against the initial invasion – or both. Certainly more of us feel today that this has been a mistake than did 4 years ago.

Chris Weinkopf (Editorial Page Editor, Los Angeles Daily News) wrote an excellent – and courageous – piece yesterday about how his position has changed with time and how he taking responsibility for supporting what he considers the initial mistake. Not many are willing to do the same and while I’m not sure I agree with Chris, I certainly applaud his candor and thoughtfulness.

While we continue the debate over Iraq, it is worth noting that this weekend was another anniversary. 19 years ago this weekend (1988), Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) against the Kurds – his own people, killing an estimated 5,000 people. It seems that somewhere over the last year or two we have lost sight of the fact that Hussein had – and used – WMDs, that he started multiple wars, that he tortured and murdered thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands – of people, that he stole the oil-for-food money and starved his own people and that without question he was a terrible, evil man.

It is right that we continue to debate the legitimacy of a “preemptive war”, whether or not President Bush and his team have done a good job over the past four years, whether or not we are safer now from terrorists than we were on September 10, 2001 and what we should do starting tomorrow. However, we should remember – as a legitimate part of this ongoing debate – what Hussein was and what he did, how we felt on the morning of September 11, 2001 and how we would feel if it happened again. There’s no Beta test on how to fight terrorists, no debate that the president has made mistakes, but also, no way for anyone to know with certainly where we would be if we had taken another road.