"It had nothing to do with terrorism or 9-11 or WMD's........It was an invasion and a war to satisfy the resident of the office of President of the United States. To believe otherwise shows complete ignorance." - Catspaw49

Well I've read some complete and utter crap on this forum at times but nothing matches this. For anybody to have written that and actually believed what they were writing, then they are in total denial of world events over the past seven years, and in total denial, or ignorance, of activities of the US Government in foreign affairs with respect to the middle-east region for the last 11 years, all of which is simple matter of record.

Taking it bit by bit:

Catspaw identifies three elements -

- Terrorism

- The terrorist attacks of 11th September, 2001

- Weapons of Mass Destruction

Catspaw only omitted to mention the "rogue state" element and he would have perfectly matched the description of what the collective Intelligence Agencies and Security Agencies of the United States of America concluded was the greatest potential threat to the USA. The Joint House Security Committee also independently reached the same conclusion, and both advised the President, that Catspaw49 so willingly denegrates and dismisses, of their evaluations. For the Intelligence Agencies this was their second time round, they'd told Clinton exactly the same thing four years before in 1998.

OK then Spaw, here's the scenario that they laid out before him:

- This is where the attacks of 11th September, 2001 come into the picture. Those attacks showed precisely how vulnerable the United States of America was to foreign attack, 19 men armed with box-cutters and backed by with financial support amounting to less than $500,000 inflicted more casualties on the United States of America than the entire Empire of Japan achieved at Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941.

- Right, we now know how vulnerable we are, that has been clearly demonstrated, both to ourselves (the USA) and to every single potential enemy we have on this planet. OK first order of business is draw up a list of contenders. That is what was done and the list was quite long.

- OK, what could be viewed as a worst case scenario considering the 9/11 attacks as a base case. Answer came back - The same sort of thing except that it involves use of weapons of mass destruction either nuclear, chemical or biological on multiple mass-centres of population in the USA.

- Yup, that's a decent enough desription as a "worst" case, now cross-reference that list of countries who have agendas that are anti-US and who could be considered potential enemies and list up those who possess WMD, have WMD capability or technology. We will now tern those countries and regimes listed as being "Rogue States".

- Acknowledging the fact that the USA is a super-power it is highly unlikely that any "Rogue State" would be stupid enough to launch such an attack on the USA openly, to do so would be to sign the warrant guaranteeing their own immediate destruction. So now toddle off and come up with ways that such a "Rogue State" could attack the USA without that attack being capable of being traced back to said "Rogue State". This was duly done and the means identified was via an international terrorist group hostile to the USA, this evaluation was credible as just such a group had just successfully caried out the greatest and deadliest single strike that the US had ever suffered at foreign hands, right Spaw??

- Righty-o then fellas, go through the list of those we've identified as potential "Rogue States" and highlight those with established links to terrorist groups.

So was born what came to be known as "The Axis Of Evil", dreamt up, not by George W. Bush, but by all 19 of the United States of America's Intelligence and Security Agencies. The "Axis of Evil" posing the greatest potential threat to the country, her allies and her interests was:

A "Rogue State" + WMD, or WMD technology + an International Terrorist Group hostile to the USA. All working together in secret to attack the US mainland.

OK Spaw you tell all us ignorant beggars just why that scenario is improbable, impossible, and/or inconceivable. I'd be interested in hearing that.

Oh, and by the bye Spaw, while you're formulating that answer, here's a list of nuclear weapons programmes that were in progress throughout the world in the year 2001 - That you f**kers weren't even remotely aware of:

- Libya (Identifed as potential "Rogue State" Candidate)
- Iran (Identifed as potential "Rogue State" Candidate)
- North Korea (Identifed as potential "Rogue State" Candidate)
- All the above aided and abetted by the illegal nuclear proliferation network of Pakistan's esteemed Dr.A.Q.Khan

Iraq, was identified as the "Rogue State" that posed the greatest threat Spaw. Identified by the Intelligence and security Agencies and by the Joint House Security Committee, and the President was advised accordingly - Matter of record.