The editorial below first appeared in The Spokesman-Review on March 18, 2003, the day before the United States and its coalition allies launched their attack in Iraq. The five intervening years have produced growing frustration – frustration that might have been lessened, if not avoided, had the nation’s political leadership taken time to explore the valid questions that many skeptics were asking.

Instead, the skeptics found their Americanism challenged, and the Bush administration brushed aside their concerns on the way to war. Congress, the American press and other voices that might have demanded accountability were quieted by the risk of seeming disloyal.

It wasn’t the first time that a collective gut reaction led the United States down a mistaken path. It happened after Pearl Harbor when Japanese heritage was all the justification it took to uproot whole families and confine them in fenced camps. It happened in Vietnam where a corrupt regime figured out that proclaiming itself anti-communist was an easy and effective way to tap substantial American resources.

And it happened five years ago, when faulty assumptions about the difficulty of the task and the attitudes of the Iraqi people prompted hasty military action in the Middle East.

Sooner or later, the nation will face another test of its ability to resist emotional impulse and take time to weigh the facts instead. The following commentary is reprinted as a reminder of what’s at stake when that test comes.

In the impending war between the United States and Iraq, a villain stands out. Saddam Hussein is a wretched leader, capable of startling depravity. He needs to lay down his arms and step aside.

That’s the option President Bush spelled out in an ultimatum he delivered Monday evening. Since no one expects Saddam to heed the demand, war and bloodshed are days, perhaps hours, away.

These are solemn times.

Just because hostilities begin, however, doesn’t mean the debate over the decision has ended, or should. Not because of any dispute over whether Saddam Hussein has brought trouble upon himself, but because the chosen remedy is unproven. The questions that were unanswered before the president declared the window for diplomacy shut are unanswered still.

But some things have changed and foremost among them is that American service men and women will be putting their lives on the line. They need to know that Americans at home honor their valor and respect their dedication to duty.

Some of them will die, of course, as will many innocent Iraqis. Those who disagree that war is appropriate can still hope, once it begins, that it is quick, precise and decisive; that casualties are minimized; and that the outcome justifies the cost.

The nation’s ambivalence is not bound by ideology

But Americans are far from unified in their beliefs about this conflict. Some agree with the president that Saddam is a cornerstone of world terrorism and must be removed. Others doubt that other viable strategies got a fair trial. The debate transcends simplistic ideological thinking.

Three retired four-star generals warned the Senate in September against war without gaining U.N. backing and exhausting all avenues of diplomacy. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Republican, expressed doubts last summer. So did former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft.

Even the first President Bush noted in a recent speech the importance of forming international coalitions before acting.

Those concerns are legitimate.

President Bush failed to win backing from the U.N. Security Council for a military attack – even though it is the United Nations’ own resolution he says the United States is enforcing.

He has said U.S. security is at stake, yet he has not gone to Congress for a constitutional declaration of war.

Public opinion polls are ambiguous about Americans’ collective feelings, but the president has declared he will not build his foreign policy on “focus groups.”

Administration’s case for war has suffered setbacks

Instead, the president has drawn connections between the Saddam regime and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 – a connection that appeals to Americans’ rage but is doubted by intelligence agencies.

He also told the nation that Baghdad concealed efforts to procure enrichable uranium from Niger, a conclusion that turned out to be based on crudely forged documents. What Bush described to the United Nations as “several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons” turned out to be wrong, too, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency and some experts in Bush’s own administration.

The president also noted in a speech that Iraq was exploring the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for missions targeting the United States. U.S. officials later admitted that UAVs have a range of only a few hundred miles.

Muted discussion about cost and consequences

Meanwhile, there has been little accounting for how much the war will cost. Lawrence Lindsey, formerly the president’s chief economic adviser, put a price tag on the war of $100 billion to $200 billion. Shortly after, he was out of a job.

The cost to American taxpayers is only one of numerous significant consequences that will come into focus after the war. Stability in the Middle East depends on how much infighting ensues among nations and among factions after Saddam is gone.

And if well-armed Israel is drawn into the conflict behind the leadership of battle-tested Ariel Sharon, the parameters of the war could expand to frightening proportions.

Saddam is not a victim, he is a perpetrator. The threat of military force pushed him into whatever concessions he made during the U.N. inspection process. The breakdown of diplomacy gave him the will to stall.

Now the statesmen are giving way to the generals who learned in Vietnam that faint-hearted measures do more harm than good.

As patriotic service members carry out their duty in Iraq, equally patriotic Americans will continue to debate at home about the wisdom of the administration’s policies.

That debate, even with the nation at war, is part of freedom’s heritage – as well as its sustenance.