Cohen: A Grim Graduation Day

[grytpype]

A Grim Graduation Day

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, June 29, 2004; Page A23

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The ceremony in Baghdad is the appropriate time to pronounce the war in Iraq a failure, maybe even a debacle. Its only success was the removal of Saddam Hussein -- an ogre, yes, but one who had been largely defanged by years of U.N. sanctions, arms inspections and his own stunning incompetence. No meaningful link to al Qaeda has been established, no weapons of mass destruction have been found and no diminution of terrorism has resulted -- an astounding trifecta of failure.

...

A supposedly new Iraq was born this week, a graduate going off -- really being kissed off -- without the necessary skills. It is riven by an insurgency and burdened by an economy that Saddam Hussein ruined and war hardly helped. The insincerely proud parent of this miserable misfit is the Bush administration, whose incompetence has been staggering. Yesterday's charade, though, is only half-done. Graduate the kid, if need be, but fail the principal.