re: US safety
The question is: can a country with no WMDs, no connection with terrorism, a GNP 20 times smaller than the DOD budget of the world's most powerful country, years of embargo, no air superiority, UN inspections...constitute a threat to the US ?
Good question. What was the GNP of Afghanistan in 2001?
Nobody knew what Saddam's WMD capacity was before the war, despite the constant attempts being made now to rewrite what people thought back then.
Saddam had terror connections in the Middle East, and the connection question with al Qaeda is far from settled, again despite the attempts to force the books closed.