Blind into Baghdad

This weekend I have been a bit behind the eightball, and have posted nothing. I was reading a past The Atlantic issue, and the James Fallows article "Blind into Baghdad" that is still resonating in letters to the editor and commentaries. In essence Fallows argues that the Administration was not devoid of planning and strategy, but that it totally ignored previous planning and advice from its own experts.
Last night I listened to the Cato Institute's Dr. Preble at Skidmore, presenting the libertarian point of view on the Iraq war. Although Iraq was not what he really wanted to talk about, that became his dominating topic. If we can encapsulate the argument, preemptive war should only be waged against a certain enemy that means imminent harm to the U.S.A., AND HAS THE MEANS TO INFLICT IT. Saddam Hussein does not qualify on either point. He may have had dreams of world domination, but he was careful not to attack the USA, because, according to Dr. Preble, deterrence is still at work, and had he done so, he would have faced annihilation, and he knew it. And Saddam neither had the weapons (no nukes), nor the means to deliver them (no missiles). Those unmanned planes alluded to by President Bush never existed.
It was an excellent presentation and the student questions were great. We should pay more attention to theCato Institute