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Originally posted by Hwed
The jury is still out on that. We do know that Saddam and Al Qaeda had plenty of pre-9/11 mingling.
The point is, Saddam had everything to do with the next 9/11. Preemptive action is always risky, because the benefits aren't as tangible.
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ALthough Saddam Hussein did have some loose ties with Al-Qaeda, we know that he considered Muslim fundamentailists as a threat to his stability. Does anyone else remember the message from Bin Laden that welcomed the invasion of Iraq as it was toppling a secular leader? Saying that Saddam would undoubtedly be involved the "next 9-11" smacks of wishful thinking and is not based on any fact that I am aware of.
In any case, if there were any sort of damning evidence implicating Saddam in 9-11, we would have heard of it by now....instead, we've heard statements from Rumsfeld himself admitting that no such connection can be made. While there is always a possiblilty that new evidence could emerge, I'm not holding my breath.
If you look through my earlier posts, you can see that I argue that the invasion of Iraq had very little to do with 9-11, as it has been a large point on the neocon to-do list for at least a decade.
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This is a war on terrorism, and when it comes to terrorism, Saddam was a clear threat to the US. The man sponsored terrorists, had WMDs, used them on his own people, defied UN resolutions for over a decade while suffering severe economic sanctions brought on by his unprovoked invasion of a sovreign nation.
I realize it makes folks feel good to paint flowers on their faces and carry signs and wear communist flags and say "Peace!" But what is peace? Is it simply the absence of conflict? Lots of European countries tried that version of peace in WWII by appeasing Hitler, and Hitler ate them for lunch.
True peace is the absence of threat and the presence of justice. In Iraq, we are eliminating a threat to our country while bringing justice to theirs.
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Even Rumsfeld has backed off of the "imminent threat" business, as could be witnessed by his contortionist-like act on "Face the Nation." Here are some choice quotes as he tries to deny that the administration ever said that Saddam was an "imminent" threat:
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SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?
Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's happened. The president went...
SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.
Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration and say nobody said that.
SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...
Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.
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Kind of reminiscent of the whole "definition of is" business, isn't it?
Comparing anti-war forces to the appeasers in Europe pre-WWII is misleading, as Saddam was already under sanctions and was not being given any concessions to appease him. I'll ignore your mischaracterization of all who oppose the Iraq war as communist hippies as it is beneath comment.