During a news conference Monday, President Bush said that even knowing what he knows today, he would still have gone into Iraq.

Here’s what we know today:

Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, had not reconstituted its nuclear weapons program and could not launch a chemical or biological attack against the United States or its allies.

Iraq did not assist al-Qaida with the attacks of Sept. 11 and did not have a collaborative relationship with terrorist network.

Al-Qaida terrorists did not meet with Iraqi agents in Prague.

Military operations in Iraq have drawn resources away from Afghanistan, which is on the verge of chaos despite U.S. promises to rebuild the country.

And Osama bin Laden and other remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban are still on the loose, still planning to attack the United States and still a real danger.

Knowing what we know now, we can see that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.

Of course, Saddam Hussein was a murderous tyrant who oppressed his own people and destabilized the Middle East. In his absence, Eden has not returned to the Middle East. It’s hard to believe, but the region is more unstable now than before the war.

Our commitment of troops and money will likely continue in Iraq for years to come. Our Reserves and National Guard soldiers are over-deployed and our military is stretched so thin that military intervention elsewhere would be almost impossible. See Sudan for a tragedy the United States seems unable to stop.

Our credibility in the world has been undermined.

Polls say that about half of the country believes, in hindsight, that invading Iraq was a mistake. They say hindsight is 20-20. We don’t know what to think, however, when the president’s hindsight is as blurry as the debunked claims used to justify an attack on Iraq.

Making time for terror

The United Nations has signed the death warrant for an untold number of people living in the Darfur region of Sudan.

In a watered down Security Council resolution passed July 30, the U.N. gave Sudan 30 days to disarm the militia forces, called Janjaweed, who have conducted a campaign of murder, rape and exile against the black Africans living in Darfur.

Much can happen in 30 days in a land where people are tied together and burned alive. More than 30,000 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in the last 18 months. Estimates suggest the death toll could multiply tenfold if conditions don’t change. Another 2.2 million are in desperate need of food and medicine.

To win passage, the United States was forced to ease the language of the resolution and delay the implementation of sanctions. Even then, Pakistan and China abstained from the 13-0 vote, afraid to offend the oil interests in Sudan with which they deal.

Sudan reacted oddly. The government reluctantly agreed to the deadline out of fear of the threatened economic and diplomatic sanctions outlined in the resolution. On Monday, however, the Sudanese army called the U.N. resolution an “act of war.”

What’s happening in Darfur is genocide, and the United Nations has extended the reign of terror for another month. Maybe the weak-kneed threats will stop the violence eventually. Maybe thousands more will die because the “developed” nations of the world failed to act decisively.