WALL STREET JOURNAL TODAY AND YESTERDAY ON IRAQ.

"No one outside the Council on Foreign Relations ever imagined the plan was for even a semipermanent U.S. occupation" in Iraq-editorial, 11/14/03

"The majority [of Iraqis] aren't worried that we'll stay too long; they're petrified we'll leave too soon….Rebuilding all of this will take longer than anyone thought.." -Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor, 7/28/03

"No rebuilding of that country will be possible unless the U.S. helps Iraqis de-Baath themselves in the same way that Americans helped the Germans de-Nazify after World War II.…Any people who have lived for as long as Iraqis have under dictatorship must go through an extended withdrawal from fear and mistrust.--editorial 4/25/03

"Perhaps it is time to start thinking about moving on to the next chapter in the Iraq drama. That would involve a serious effort by the allies to develop support for an Iraqi government in exile. Such an effort would give Western policy makers a goal with the potential to accomplish something lasting and good….Our own preference would have been for President Bush to have taken pre-emptive action back in October when reports surfaced of Saddam's illegal assaults on the Shiites in the southern marshes, violating the administration's own markers on the no-fly zone. Perhaps it was feared that this would look too "political" so close to the election, which the administration lost in any event. Now, with another U.S. administration forming, it's clear that a new, long-term strategy is needed here."-editorial, 1/13/93