“I find it hard to believe that Al Qaeda had encampments all over that region and Asia and Africa, but somehow not a one in Iraq.”
Why? Saddam’s brand of laissez-faire Islam is anathema to Al Qaeda. The money to fund the radicals, and fifteen of the hijackers, were from our dear allies, the SAUDIS. Iraq had no Al Qaeda camps for the same reason we had no Nazi Party in 1944.
It is what it is. So time to divide Iraq into three countries. But only after radical Jihadists are crushed.
I guess you will just have to live in your world of belief and me and the rest of the world in mine.