Five years ago the United States led an international coalition of forces into Iraq to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein. If the goal of that effort was merely the replacement of the government in Baghdad, Operation Iraqi Freedom succeeded.
But after five years, that is the only truly positive outcome of the invasion — and some ask if even that was worth the trouble, given the "collateral damage" to the U.S., Iraq itself and the Middle East. True to form, U.S. President George W. Bush harbors no doubts. The rest of the world, however, remains deeply divided about the invasion of Iraq.
Over the years, the U.S. government has offered various rationales for the invasion of Iraq: the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the Baghdad government's links to al-Qaida, the desire to bring democracy to the Middle East, the horrific human rights policies of the Iraqi regime.
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