***He played right into Osama’s hands with his Iraq decision. ***
Not necessarily. How many here remember that during the Iran-Iraq war that Saddam’s aircraft attacked US warships in the area.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/24/world/1985-iraqi-attack-on-us-ship-cited.html
Or Saddam’s attack on Kuwait cutting off the oil supplies, or his constant harassment of our warplanes in the No-Fly zone as we attempted to help the Iraqis get rid of him. I will say that our efforts were vastly unappreciated as the Iraqis prefer a dictator of their own kind more than a foreign power helping them.
Saddam Hussein was not a nice man. But compared to the alternatives he was best option. Christians had a much better life under Saddam than they do now. Saddam was an enemy of al-Qaeda and in protecting himself against them he was also serving American interests. Bush’s Iraq policy not only removed a roadblock to the expansion of al-Qaeda, it opened up a new recruitment area for terrorists and a new battleground for them to attack America. And a strong Iraq under Saddam was a check on Iran. The world would be a much better and safer place now had Bush not chosen to overextend our military and money on a counterproductive move into Iraq.