I'll take Macho trigger happy shoot first and ask questions later men over liberal elite scaredy cat crybaby girlie men...

That is precisely the way in which terrorists think, I'm afraid. I am quite sure that Timothy McVeigh would have wholly agreed with those words.

As for Saddam - he was an evil man, and the most evil things he did were done while he was a valued friend of the USA, supported to the hilt. By the time of the invasion he was greatly weakened and vulnerable. With a massive army poised to invade, his rule was crumbling, he was accepting a whole string of concessions. There seems very good reason to believe that he could have been brought to make a deal that removed him from power, before too long. It would have required patience and determination.

There was no valid military reason whatsoever for launching the invasion at the it was launched. The military build-up was not yet complete even. The only apparent reason for launching the attack at that time, rather than wait anither six months or even a year was that this would have meant problems with Bush's re-election plans. That is not in itself an acceptable reason for killing thousands of people, and for launching a war without any clear understanding of what was entailed, and without any clearly thought-out exit strategy.