I don't know exactly where you're going here, but hardly anybody objected to going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which would fit the description of going after them there rather than here. But no matter how many times Cheney tried to invent some bin Laden/ Saddam connection, there was no evidence that Iraq was any kind of a base of operation for bin Laden, aside from the Zarqawi off in a region totally beyond Saddam's control.
The rationalization that, once the insurgency heated up, it was suddenly all part of W's grand plan to be going after them there rather than here is quite a different invention. If you think about it, it's really pretty offensive to the Iraqis we were supposed to be setting free to turn around and say we had this grand plan of making Iraq a terrorist magnet, so we could fight "them" "there" rather than "here". And if you look at the cost to the US, in lives lost, in hundreds billions spent with no end in sight, and with the US military still stretched to the limit with no end in sight, well, anybody but the truest of true believers would say that the Iraq manifestation of "there rather than here" is extremely problematic. |
