Impotent spluttering of the Fred Miller variety looks a bit ridiculous when one considers some of the grotesque dictators the US has championed and befriended. Jack Halyward mentioned the Marcoses; my own favourites include Suharto and Mobutu. These two accumulated wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, while bringing their respective countries, Indonesia and Zaire, to the brink of financial ruin. (Suharto indeed made it to sixth place in the world's rich list.)

That was an uncharacteristically shabby post from Teribus. He couldn't have forgotten Condi's vision of a mushroom cloud, so I suppose he was just hoping Bobert had. As for any links between Saddam and Bin Laden, Teribus surely knows that this is a myth. He certainly knows that Bin Laden was hostile to Saddam running Iraq as a secular state. (Bin Laden thinks even Saudi Arabia is much too relaxed about Islam, for goodness sake.) Teribus knows that Cheney never alleged direct Al Qaaeda involvement in 911, but equally he knows that Cheney's constant hints about an Al Qaeda-Iraq axis were calculated to sow confusion in the minds of millions of Americans. And when such confusion was indeed sowed, the admin did not a thing to counteract it.

If Clinton was the first to put regime change on the agenda for Iraq, as Teribus asserts, does this make regime change a legitimate objective for unilateral action in Teribus's book?