teribus - the US used the threat of wmds - and the fact that the US could be attacked by wmds - to gain support for invading Iraq (although everyone knows the decision was made at least as early as spring 2002 - I remember the rumours and the White HOuse denying that the US intends to attack Iraq)

the threat of wmds and the fictitious 45minute launch window was part of Britains report on the IRaqi threat (which was just recently part of the Hutton inquiry). Blix pointed out correctly that the US got what it was asking for, inspectors on the ground and IRaqi cooperation
but in reality - they didnt want UN inspectors - they came out and said they want a regime change.

now I wasnt against the war, but supported it from a humanitarian standpoint, but they didnt go in to remove an evil dictator.
(remember the footage of RUmsfeld in the 80s eagerly shaking hands with Saddam, and no mention of gassing the kurds.) Remember them?
Bush Senior urged them to rise up against Saddam after the 91war - and then let Saddam fly armed helicopters and crush the uprising) - it was only months later the US set up safe havens. Basically, they
blew it in 91.

(btw thanks to the Israeli bombing of the Baghdad reactor in 81- the US did not get nuked in the Gulf war)

and if the threat of wmds is really the point: the country they really should have focused on is NOrth Korea. Which openly states it has nukes, and got them from guess where? Pakistan (in exchange for missile technology). the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb openly admitted sharing the technology with Libya and others. Lets just hope that Musharraf doesnt get knocked off.
(and NOrth Korea wouldnt be such a cakewalk either, with its 10,000 pieces of artillery aimed across the border)

the pakistani secret service set up the Taliban and helped them in order to have some influence in Afghanistan, but this was not in the 80s to fight the Russians. That was the Mujahideen, and many of them were clearly backed by the cia, in fact the turning point was when they were given stinger missiles to shoot down Russian gunships.
the Taliban were not the Mujahideen, at that time the Taleban were toddlers.

Saudi Arabia - whether or not its a stretch to call them a terrorist state, an awful lot of support & funding came from the upper levels of Saudi society, - quite a lot of classified information in the report on 911-. Also look at the way foreign nationals are treated there - maybe david Samsons case didnt make it on the American news but this canadian national was framed, made to confess under torture and sentenced to be beheaded. (plus a few other foreigners have experienced the same thing) It was only last year he was released under international pressure, after spending several years in a saudi jail.
Dont think its just a matter of 'reform' in Saudi Arabia. Id recommend a recent article in the NewYorker by a texan professor who spent a year, teaching in a university there.


anyway, we wouldnt be having any of this discussion about IRaq if the principal export was dates, instead of oil. Then Saddam would be just another Mugabe.