re: logic...
Saddam Hussein was fully contained, his government was a shambles, and his military infrastructure was completely eviscerated as a result of the first Gulf War and U.N. sanctions.
Yet Bush is being raked over the coals for not foreseeing that he would need twice as many troops to defeat this "eviscerated" country. Go figure.
Remember also that al Qaeda was largely founded on the fact that we had troops staged in holy Saudi Arabia to maintain this "containment," which did nothing much but "contain" their air force.