Yudel's Line: I've helping a friend write a piece on "Why we are (almost) in Iraq" for grade school students. That's forced me to cut back a lot of the spin and, yes, punditry that I've been consuming the past couple of years to try to locate some simple truths.

At the simplest level, it seems, we are about to invade Iraq because they didn't cooperate with, and ultimately stopped, the disarmament and inspection regime imposed in 1991.

This causus belli took place in 1998.

• Is the war happening now because it took the army four years to get the required munitions?

• Did the war not happen then because Clinton was too weak and embattled politically?

• Did the war not happen then because Clinton, impeachment and military unpopularity aside, didn't think it was a good idea?

• Did Gore in 2000 give indication on how *he* proposed to deal with Iraq?

Between the "Bush is a liar and draftdodging babykiller" spin from the left, and "Clinton is a traitor and a draftdodging pothead" spin from the right, and the generous portions of "Iraq is the ultimate evil" and "Iraq is a victim of Western Imperialism", the basic question of why now and not then seems to have been misplaced. Or perhaps I just misfiled it.

Any thoughts? Send them to yudelline@yudel.com

    

Chance of Invasion
Today: 75 percent