"Ties"

The War Party is desparate to justify dragging the country into the quamire in Iraq. Christopher Hitchens tied it to the 17 year old Islamic death sentence against Salman Rushdie the other day. Now I see this to prove "ties" between Saddam and Osama, from Stephen Hays and Thomas Joscelyn. One must be very precise with the War Party these days. The question is not (or shouldn't be) "ties" between the two, but -- did Iraq attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001?

Part of the Hayes article includes evidence that an Iraqi conscript later went on to join the Taliban and then al Qaida. So, if any Iraqi grunt later joins the Taliban that justifies occupying Iraq. Note this one line from their evidence:

11. From 1997 to 1998, the detainee acted as a trusted agent for Usama Bin Ladin, executing three separate reconnaissance missions for the al Qaeda leader in Oman, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

That the detainee conducted recon missions in Iraq is actually consistent with al Qaeda working against Iraq. It doesn't matters now. Even if I became convinced that the war was justifed, I could not for give the incompetence -- the arrogant stupidity -- with which Bush administration prosecuted the war. I don't have time or patience to repeat the whole litany of failure and incompetence of the Bush admnistration's handling of the Iraq War.

I will leave it at this. Nothing is more obvious than the fact that the President had no clue as to what to expect when Saddam's regime collapsed, otherwise we would have never seen this at the beginning of an endless guerilla war: