Strick... or may I call you 'Custer'... seems to me you're fighting for your life... nitpicking details, but missing the forest for the trees...

'George' has sacked America's crediblity around the world, as well as the economy here at home... He has single handedly destabilized the world's peacetime ... He's thumbed his nose at the UN, which is a charitable and democratic organization that the US -had- much diplomatic influence over ... he had all the info he needed to sense trouble in the 6 months before 9/11, which he chose to ignore... His agenda was clearly to strike Iraq from his first days in office ...and it is this 'a priori' adgenda that allowed him in his own mind to 'shift priorities' from the known and impending danger of al Qaida to his father's nemesis Saddam. Pure vanity couldn't have been more wrong. And worst of all, by doing what he's done, he has probably exascerbated the terrorist impulses around the world, thus inciting greater anarchy...

...and when 9/11 scared the living bejesus out of us, 'George' 'motivated' us with his slight of hand trick... replacing bin Laden with Saddam... thus 'allowing' the US public to be terrified into a feeling of justifiable agression towards Saddam, 'the toothless tiger'. And al Qaida regroups. This is just plain bad foriegn policy.

Pick apart the rhetoric as you wish... we all know what Rummy was implying... and like it or not, most of us fell for it... and now the indignation is the reciprical of it's previous expression...

Strick, though you may win every single skermish, the big picture yet escapes your arguements...
ttr