Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So, you personally won't be satisifed until we find the original copy of the Treaty of Baquaba, the photo of the grinning Saddam and OBL taken at the signing, and the gold plated commemorative pen.
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Frankly, I have little doubt that Iraq dealt with al-Q at a variety of levels, just as we deal with Arafat on a variety of levels. What I don't see is any Iraqi involvement in 9/11.
Look, we had been basically sitting on Hussein for 15 years, limiting his troops movements within Iraq, cutting him off from the outside world, doing everything we could to contain the bastard. I have no doubt he wished ill on Americans everywhere. And I suspect he wanted to play footsie with al-Q enough so he didn't make their short list for Arab leaders needing a vacation. But I don't think there would have been anything in a large scale terrorist attack on the US for him at a point when we were looking for a reason to invade and give him that vacation (and, see, we're even throwing in medical treatment).
What Bush and Cheney have been doing, however, is using the notion of an al-Q / Iraq link to suggest that Iraq is part of the global war against terrorism coming out of 9/11. 9/11 needs to be the casus belli for Iraq for the administration to sustain support.
Iraq is an attempt to coopt the war on terrorism for neo-conservative geopolitical goals, and in many ways an abandonment of higher priorities in the war on terror. That is why our allies didn't support us.
