You are willing to bet that Saddam had reformed. Bush and our allies were not.

Tom, now you are attempting to straw-man me as the misinformed naive liberal type. Give it up, you aint got no position on this worth having, and these tactics vouch for that.

I suffer under no illusion that Saddam is/was/would ever be anything more than a murderous thug. I was also not suffering under the illusion that he was an imminent threat to the US or US security requiring a pre-emptive invasion followed by indefinite occupation. That, however, is the illusion you wish to sell as fact.

Oddly, it is 5 months after the conflict, 4 months after the occupation, and you are STILL unable to certify the veracity of the claims of threat. That is a severe problem- not for you I'm sure, but for our governance in general it is a severe problem. For a democracy led into a war- this is a REAL problem.

"As for containing him by stationing tens of thousands of troops in Qatar, or on ships offshore, for a decade, that's just asinine"

Oh, well if YOU say its asinine, then it MUST be asinine.

Certainly is a lot LESS asinine than putting 100,000 troops in as an occupying power on indefinite tours of duty in a place they are not wanted. Eh Tom? And last I looked, Iraqis were STILL dying by the droves in Iraqi-vs-Iraqi violence....

Right Tom. Youre down to just bluster now. Are we done yet? As I was taking a break from the zone and would like to get back to it....

Davin L.