"Sodom had links to Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, is supported by the Commission in sections 2.4 and 2.5 of the report."

Just to point out, what the Commission found is that Bin Laden had sent messages to Saddam, which were not responded to, which does not really show any links, unless by using that logic, that Winston Churchill was a Communist because he read messages sent by Stalin during WWII but never responded. If you read page 15 of the sections you mentioned, the Commission point out that Saddam made no replies to any of these messages. Don't misunderstand, I'm in no way supporting Saddam as he was a brutal dictator, but he was a dictator, not an Islamic Extremeist such as Bin Laden. The last thing Saddam wanted was for anyone to usurp power from him, which is why he stayed away from people like Bin Laden who were seeking domination of the world.


The Redneck, it is most important to note context with regard to that State of the Union address: Bush brought up liberation along with his claim of WMD's, not beforehand but in addition. Had he not mentioned that Saddam had these WMD's, there would have been little to no backing to go into Iraq in the first place. As nice as it is that Saddam is out of power, the ends can't justify the means in this case, unless we plan on looking like hypocrites in this world, whereas we can stand up against one evil regime but let others continue on and on, such as Saudi Arabia. Presidents have done this before, FDR, JFK, Nixon, Reagan, as in they needed to find a justification, no matter how flimsy, to back their war or lose the support of the people, but that doesn't make it okay.

Bush never mentioned "liberation" as the linchpin reason for Iraq until the WMD's had not been found and we were already in there, thus removing the need to have another reason in the first place. (Most of this came from the book by Richard Clarke, who was a working member of the Defense Department with the Bush Administration at the time).


To be honest, I've never been a fan of State of the Union addresses anyway as a source for real information since all Presidents use it as a platform to sound idealistic when little to none of what is said really does go into effect. The State of the Union is chiefly used as a place to make America think big and have big dreams, such as traveling to Mars for instance, but little of it can really be used in reality or in the ways that it is presented. Though saying the liberation and setting up of democracy in Iraq is indeed our goal right now, this begs the real question: How so? We have no exit or rebuilding strategy as far as I've seen aside from rushing an election through and trying to place Iraq into the people's hands when it is obvious that the country is still in a grave state of flux.

In my opinion, this Administration has shown little with regard to actually rebuilding or securing the entire country, from the now infamous "Mission Accomplished" sign on the aircraft carrier, to the latest news that several members of the newly elected body don't want their posts because they don't think they will have any true power in the end. Couple that with the increasingly disenchanted recruiting numbers for the army, and the odds of actually making everything work look less and less likely. As great as giving democracy may be, what is most important is to make democracy last.

Take care all.