This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 19th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Ten years ago today, the United States invaded Iraq.

Much of the intelligence that led up to that invasion was bad.

The news media failed to ask relevant questions. intelligence that led up to that invasion was bad.

News media failed to ask relevant questions,

and estimates range on the number of deaths at the low end

in the tens of thousands.

Chris Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute,

evaluates the Iraq War 10 years after it started.

Well, I think it all comes down to how much value you put on removing Saddam Hussein from power.

And there are some people, even to this day,

who even though they're the same people who

said the war would be a cake walk,

would cost $50 billion, would cost $200 billion, would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues, all the things

that they said, they would come back and say, it's still worth it.

It's still worth a trillion dollars spent and probably close to three trillion when all the

costs factor in over many many years care for the wounded soldiers. They would

claim that the number of casualties in the grand scheme of things,

both American casualties and Iraqi casualties,

are modest relative to other wars the United States has fought

or relative to what Saddam did to his own people or relative

...