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PING to Xzins, who has been most redoubtable in gathering together a selection of probative FR Articles regarding the hard evidences of Saddam's links to Terrorists and his distribution of WMD materials thereto.

A most interesting and disturbing Article.

On the other hand, this article does raise a difficult question:

Was the major effect of the War (or, at least, the many months spent stalling in an attempt for UN approval) the resultant export of thousands of tons of Iraqi WMD components to Worldwide Terrorist Organizations?

Perricos highlighted the proliferation danger to the Security Council, as well he should: UNMOVIC has no idea where most of the WMD material is today, just that it exists and it's gone; and anything in Syria is likely to be in Jerusalem or New York tomorrow.

At the risk, as always, of playing "Monday-morning Quarterback" -- I remains unconvinced that a $200-billion (and counting) Conventional War was the best way to handle the "Saddam Threat".

Perhaps a selective recission of Executive Order 12333, thus allowing for the Assassination of Saddam and a few other notable Unworthies, would have been the better option -- leaving "Baghdad Bob" in charge (heck, we're already contracting former Iraqi Generals into the New Regime), and the WMDs in Baghdad. Still a Threat, yes -- but primarily a Threat to the Iranians.

Instead, we have fought a 200-billion (and counting) Conventional War, and the only Result we know for certain is apparently this:

The Iraqi WMD's do Exist;
Thanks to "Saddam's lightning-fast dismantling of missile and WMD sites before and during the war", We don't have them;
And thanks to "Saddam's lightning-fast dismantling of missile and WMD sites before and during the war", the Terrorists DO have them.

The Horse has left the Barn... and meanwhile, our Politicians still ain't even halfway serious about "Border Control".

I support the sentiment of what you say about Hussein and WMD, and agree whole-heartedly about the lack of seriousness of controlling our borders, but I respectfully disagree as to the efficacy of the conventional war.

Hussein was a paranoid recluse with numerous doubles and deception programs in place to prevent assasination, so the liklihood of being able to get to him was very slim. Besides, you then have the sons and numerous cousins, henchmen, etc. You'd have to have dozens of targets all hit quickly, then you still have to go in and get the WMD because, if not, they would still be up for grabs like they seem to be now. There are those (Kerry, Waxman, Kennedy, etc.) who will spin this by saying that Bush has further endangered the world by "allowing" the WMD to be dispersed, but, anyone who thinks Hussein was making them as a hobby or had no intention of not selling and/or distributing them to outsiders is simply fooling themselves.

So, if we did not invade, the WMD programs would still be operational and another year more advanced. The products would still be sold to al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, other countries, etc. The Bush-haters like to say that Hussein would not sell his WMD to bin Laden because he would then have his "fingerprints" on whatever attacks came as a result, but that is naive because he knows his fingerprints have already been found on the first World Trade Center attack and the attempt on former-President George H.W. Bush's life during a trip to Kuwait. This argument is just as flimsy as saying the secularist Hussein and Islamacist bin Laden would never collaborate.

The war was not a perfect option for getting rid of the WMD, but it was about the only one, given the corruption of the U.N., France, Germany, and Russia, the unseriousness of the Democrats in dealing with the problem, and the reckless, oppressive, and paranoid nature of the Hussein regime.

I'm continually amazed by political strategy.

It's become evident that the WMDs do exist and that iraqi ties to al qaeda did extensively exist (I can make a good case from a variety of links that there was a definite Saddam/Al Qaeda link, and I can make a reasonable case for a Saddam/binLaden link.) This corners the opposition in terms of their prior claims, but it opens the brilliant strategy of claiming that (1) Under Clinton they were contained in Iraq, and (2)The war (Pres. Bush) has CAUSED their proliferation.

I am impressed, and it will be an effective strategy to some degree.

The response: Pretend to be the President making a risk assessment-

1. Damned if I do and damned if I don't. I do nothing and they get handed off to terrorists. I start a war and they get hidden and channeled to terrorists. In either case they get into the hands of terrorists.

2. Major Advantage of War: I get to kill the body that's supporting the head. With the supporters of terrorism gone, then the likelihood of their following through with significant attacks launched from an entire world that's hostile territory is far less than from the confines of host terrorist nations.

The above is a reasonable evaluation, imo, of a proper response to the charge that the war caused the proliferation.

The problem right now is HUGE. They have stopped the war on terror in order to rebuild Iraq. Perhaps Iraq should eventually be rebuilt, but only after all the terrorist host nations are gone. They are not.

We MUST:

1. Conquer Syria. Period...there is no other answer.
2. Conquer Iran. Their nuclear program and their harboring of terrorists for years (they are actually the MAJOR terrorist nation....not Iraq) makes them a necessary conquest.
3. Overthrow Saudi.
4. Defeat Musharraff's enemies in Pakistan in detail, and then turn against any mountain taliban/al qaeda.
5. Fully support Putin in the muslim provinces of the former soviet -- Chechnya, Khazastan, etc.
6. Same #4 in Philippines and Indonesia.

When the war is done, then we can turn back to some level of "rebuilding" stage. To the extent that we rebuild the capacity for trade we help ourselves. That same logic entailed with Europe after WWII.

I think you are very off here. For the sake of those on the fence, here's another view (I have this direct from Iraqis who were my students at my university):

Saddam Hussein was set up by the old KGB under an organization they specified. This organizational structure had been shown to be effective since the reign of Stalin. It consisted of several hierarchical concentric rings of people.

Without going into the details, the effect of this structure was, in the event of death by whatever means, to replace the person at the top with someone chosen from the innermost ring.

I was told this setup is why the Iraqi people never rose up to overthrow Saddam because they did not know the precise hierarchy of the rings. They always came to the conclusion that Saddam's replacement would be more of a tyrant than he was.