Thanks!
I think we all agree that after you chain a dog and kick him every day for 12 years, the only way you let him off the chain is with a bullet in his head.
I think that is a darn good summation of both Burkeman1's and my views of past Bush/Clinton foreign policy errors regarding Iraq ("500,000 dead Iraqi children are 'worth it'" -- Clinton sec'y of state "Mad-Bomber Albright")...
...and the position which GW Bush unfortunately finds himself in.
As far as the discussion on whether Saddam would/wouldn't have embargoed us in the intervening years: Feeding a megalomaniac more power doesn't stabilize them.
True. Hussein always wanted to rule (well, dominate, anyway) the Middle East, and I would not have put it past him to attempt a 9/11 towards that goal. As it happens, the Taliban and Wahhabist Saudis beat him to the punch.
Sadly, it's true of the entire Middle East, excepting Turkey, Israel, Jordan and (sometimes) Egypt. Our "friend" King Fahd and his cronies, our so-called "stable allies" in Saudi Arabia, have been bankrolling Wahhabist terrorists and Taliban Mujaheddin with Oil Money for decades... cash that earned its profit in blood on 9/11.
Meanwhile, when King Fahd -- our "dependable" Saudi client -- passes on to meet Allah (be that in Heaven or Hell, I leave the gentle reader to decide)... his USA-hating successor Prince Abdullah has been measuring our rib cage for a crescent-shaped stiletto for a long time.
The entire region is a snake-pit.
Choosing sides is a tricky game where there are no good guys.
To which I can only say... Drill Alaska. Saudi Oil is not worth one drop of US blood... not because US national interests aren't worth our Defense, but because the Saudis aren't.
A pox on all their houses.