“The unnecessary war”

According to Newsweek’s detailed report of the intelligence leading to the strike against Saddam Hussein on Wednesday evening, the reinforced underground bunker in which he and his sons were sleeping was built by German engineers: “The war room.” Let us pursue the German theme and the echoes of World War II.
We were brought to this point by many errors, some of which strikingly echo the errors of the British and French in dealing with Hitler prior to 1939. Robert Bartley briefly reviews these errors in his column this morning: “Was this war necessary?”
Bartley’s question itself echoes Winston Churchill’s description of World War II as “the unnecessary war.” But the the statesmanship that targeted Saddam Hussein and is bringing down his regime is Churchillian, and John Dillin of the Christian Science Monitor has noticed: “Churchill, Bush, and Saddam Hussein.”
Victor Davis Hanson’s column this morning is full of these echoes: “The long riders.” To take just one example, he notes that our targets “are among the most selective in the history of warfare, hitting the headquarters of fascist killers, the modern-day equivalents of Hitler, Goering, Ribbentrop, and Himmler