Rush Limbaugh is ON POINT

[G.Irish]

he didnt say Iraq supported Al Queda... he said they supported terrorism... way to fall for the liberal media and the lies

Ahem, from Bush's 2003 State of the Union address:

And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaida. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

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The overwhelming majority of his case against Iraq in that address is WMD's. No getting around that. And he was also making the case that Al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots. It is true that people from Saddam's regime had made contact with Al Qaeda operatives but no collaboration occurred according to the 9/11 commission as well as other intelligence sources.

Even if Bush's real reason for going into Iraq was to ferret out and destroy potential terrorist ties the fact remains that this was not the major pillar of his case for war. Bush could not have gotten the support for the war that he did without the WMD's. "We don't really have any good evidence that Saddam has WMD's but he's still a bad guy and could possibly have terrorist ties. Even though removing him from office and the ensuing nation-building will cost upwards of $200 billion I believe it will be a worthy cause." Yeah I don't think many people would have bought that.

Be that as it may Bush was simply trying to be proactive and send a message to would be terrorist supporting regimes or rogue nations. Also, the value of having a stable democratic government sympathetic to US interests in the region was not lost on him.

Actually scratch that, I think it was a gamble and there has been precedent for it, but I think the way the whole case came together was of dubious merit.