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I just finished reading this entire thread. Two things I must clarify:

1. The claim that Iraq has no ICBM's is technically true, since ICBM stands for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. HOWEVER, Blair said this morning that Iraq has a new class of missile (which they have illegally developed) which has a range of 1000 km. That allows a whole lot of mischief in the Mideast and Eastern Europe.

2. Claims that the President and Prime Minister have no further evidence are simply false. President Bush said this morning that they had additional evidence, but it would not be released because of desiring to keep their sources viable. Blair said much the same thing in his speech.

It seems to me that this comes down to common sense and trust. Common sense says that if we had connected the dots before 9/11, we should have done everything we could to stop it. Now we are connecting dots about Iraq, and many of the same people want to ignore it.

Trust is something that we place in all elected leaders, because they are given responsibilities and information that the electorate cannot have. So the question eventually becomes: do you trust George Bush? If your children were in danger, would he help them or ignore them? Does he care more about his career or American lives?

I trust the man. I trust him to do what is right. Some people are apparently unable to trust him. I can't help that, but that doesn't make them superior or inferior to me. Just different.

HOWEVER, their inability to trust is not sufficient argumemnt to negate American policy.

Nice comments, MM. But they will fall on deaf ears. For the record, I never said Iraq has ICBMs. I said they will probably get them and use them.

The reasoning that this article tries to sell is that because they don't have the ability to strike the US, we should let them be. And my point is that we thought the same thing about OBL. It seems more and more obvious that some would rather trust Saddam Hussein over our own President.

>>> Common sense says that if we had connected the dots before 9/11, we should have done everything we could to stop it. Now we are connecting dots about Iraq, and many of the same people want to ignore it. <<<

Beautiful Point Miss Marple! Rumsfeld made similar point in his Warsaw news conference earlier.

My version is this: These anti-war-Demos (Pacifist/Cowards) want it both ways - they want to blame the Bush Adminsitration for not connecting the dots prior to 9/11/01. Now they want the Admin to stop connecting the dots on Iraq. They look at Iraq/Terror/WMD dots and say they are not worthy of being called dots.

If there were a terrorist attack in the US tomorrow, and Iraq took credit, these same critics of Bush's policy would be saying that he didn't do enough to .... you guessed it, connect the DOTS

Gore's speech was notable for his equivication: wanting to be on both sides of the issue. You can't have it both ways - dots are dots and if you connect them you sometimes end up with disturbing facts. Democrats just don't like what the dots are telling them - because it won't be them that fixes it. They are culturally incapable of the toughness required to face the dots.