The first article established the presence of Al-Queda and the second confirmed it:

“[… terrorist leader, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi] was hospitalized in Baghdad for treatment of his wounds, and then disappeared in August, after Jordanian officials told the Iraqi government they knew he was there. There have been recent reports that he is in hiding in northern Iraq, but that has not yet been confirmed.”

“We must attack because he is harboring/connected to terrorism”

“Retort1: if there are Al-Queda operating in Iraq, they are operating out of the Kurdish area (who are supposedly our allies)”

Iraq's a small country.
The point of the article was that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to link Iraq directly to 911, if there was, we would have by-passed the UN and would have prosecuted this war against the Iraqi military with no mercy. After 911 how can you disregard the presence of terrorists in a country that will be shown to have WMD?-Terrorists that have vowed to destroy this country, a vow that could be made possible with help from Iraq.

“Retort 1: Saddam is not a threat to his neighbors, militarily”

I think even Jim McDermott doesn’t think this.

From your “evidence”:

”We believe that the military is still a worrisome force, and the effort they put into maintaining a military force is particularly worrisome in light of the civilian demands within Iraq. The choices that they choose to make in favor of the military or in favor of new palaces for Saddam Hussein over helping the people of Iraq are very worrisome, and I think they show a state of mind that we have to take very seriously, and we have taken very seriously.<i/>”



That was 7 years ago. Since then, Saddam had continued his policy of neglecting his people to further Iraq’s military advancement.

I’m not going to bother with the rest of your points.

Cheers,
Rob