With all the talk of bad intelligence and lies, no one is talking about the doctrine that got us here in the first place. All of the evidence that the Bush administration either was duped, or lied to get us into a war in Iraq also shows how wrong the policy of pre-emptive strike is. This is akin to sentencing someone to death with only a single witness to say how awful a person he is.
I remember Cheney saying "If we are wrong, we may be wrong in a mushroom cloud." I remember Rumsfeld saying "they have WMD and we know where they are." All this can be pretty convincing, if it was true. Shoot first, ask questions later. Kill them all, let god sort them out.
It was this kind of rhetoric that led the US into a pre-emptive war in Iraq. No matter the real reason, oil, ties to Saudi, Bush fixing daddy's "mistake" or whatever, the rhetoric, lies, and falsehoods combined with a bad policy led us to a bad war.
I am not qualified to talk about international law. I believe that pre-emptive strike is illegal under the UN Charter. I am sure that there are others that can explain this better.
Put aside all other arguments against the war, the argument that we were under imminent threat was probably the biggest lie there was. Even if Iraq had missiles that could reach the US, we did not have to invade. Even if Iraq had nuclear weapons, we did not have to go it alone. Maybe, if there was real proof that Saddam Hussein had masterminded the attack on the world trade center, we would be justified to invade. He didn't, we aren't. The UN weapons inspectors should have been allowed to complete their job. They weren't.
We have used pre-emptive strikes in the past against Viet Nam, Libya, Somalia and many other places. In all these examples, it has lessened the American prestige around the world. It has increased hostility towards American cultural exports. It has increased hatred of America.
It is easy now to look back and review all the lies that led us to this war. The biggest lie, was not in evidence for the war, it was that a policy change was justified. I hope and pray that the next president changes this incredibly bad policy.