As I said, we went there to establish a presence and Hussein was the easiest to eliminate without enflaming the whole region. I know that, but we weren't sold the War on that premise. And now, the premise that we were sold the War on has taken a huge body-blow, and will be hard to make whole should we have to.
However, Iran has a burgeoning democracy movement that could at any time overthrow the government there; Saudi Arabia has in its ruling family quite a number of people who are sincerely on our side against terror (for their own self-preservation, of course, but on our side nevertheless), and thus we can and are turning the factions there against each other; Syria and Lebanon can be kept cooped up by Israel until we are ready to deal with them militarily - since they are quite weak it is least risky to save them for later.
Personally, I am certain Saddam was up to his ears in 9/11. He had every reason to do so, a pattern of behavior that would clearly permit such a thing, and there is plenty of evidence showing he assisted AQ, and also that he knew of 9/11 months before it happened. However, during the middle of the war, it would be dangerously irresponsible for the US government to tell everything it knows, because that compromises intelligence assets - if the enemy knows what we know, they can figure out how we know it, and eliminate the people who are feeding us information. So while it might work on a domestic political level to spill all the beans, that can only be done at the cost of the lives of people who have taken mortal risks to help us.
"No Iraqis attacked us on 911. "
Did we fight world war II only against those who attacked us at Pearl Harbor?
This is a war on terror, not the war against the 9/11 perps (many of whom are now dead anyway).
"As I said, we went there to establish a presence and Hussein was the easiest to eliminate without enflaming the whole region. I know that, but we weren't sold the War on that premise. And now, the premise that we were sold the War on has taken a huge body-blow, "
Ahem, there is a rewriting of history. the premises were wider than you presume, and the positive outcome is wider than you acknowledge. Go read old FR postings, the reasons you talk about now, *and the reason of liberating Iraq to change the political dynamic of the region* was discussed here. In full. It was also mentioned that liberating Iraq and introducing democracy would be critical to defeating terrorism.
Bush said it:
" The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East. A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America's interests in security, and America's belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq. "
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030226-11.html
The fact that Iraq was a threat has been *proven*.
Links to numerous terrorist groups including Al Qaeda have been verified* ... If anything the reasons for the war are *stronger now than they we knew about before the war*.
We found missile developments we didnt know about.
We found oil-for-food corruption and payoffs to terrorists that we didnt know about.
We found a terrorist training camp that we didnt know about.
We found that Iraq's secret police had a 'fedayeen' ready to be a terrorist organization, and has acted as such in the past 13 months.
And sure Saddam didnt have anything to do with 9/11 ... but how may pics of Saddam in front of burning WTC building do you need to understand that his interests were in our destruction -- and vice versa?
For that matter why are we not securing our borders and keeping track of visa holders