Go back and re-read the 2003 State of the Union Address which was the warning shot across the bow to Saddam. That address only in part dealt with WMDs.
If there is one country that is the main source of Al Queda, it is Saudi Arabia. Most of the 9-11 hijackers including Osama bin Laden himself were Saudis. The source of the religious fundamentalism and fanaticism also mainly comes from Saudi Arabian mullahs and all those religious madrassahs (religious schools) that they found and fund all over the world. It's royal family is corrupt and widely despised as a US client state regime which also fuels Al Queda type anti-US sentiment. As an ally, the US of course can't invade and take over Saudi Arabia. But even if the US decided to and did so, this would, of course, not end Al-Queda but probably increase its membership by orders of magnitude all throughout the Muslim world as a US takeover of Islam's most holy sites would be intolerable. I do not recall any Iraqis were involved in 9-11 nor is there any evidence that Iraq was a center of Al-Queda activity and recruitment. Thus, in the final analysis, what happens in Iraq will do little to stem the tide of terrorism and depending on how it plays out might even create more terrorists than those that are destroyed.
Give me a break. We had control of the skies of Iraq for a full year under the Bushies and they did nothing to those guys. It was only important when they needed to rationalize a decision they already made.
How about it was only doable when this had become a military matter (post 9/11) rather than a criminal matter (under the Clinton Administration)?
Giddyp, on second thought do you still think that the Bush Admin didn't list Iraq as having Al Qaeda because they just wanted the Iraqis to relax and be fooled that we supported them? This was of course , despite the fact that we were threatening and bombing Iraq nearly daily with our no fly zones. Would you at least admit that this devious delinking of Al Qaeda and Iraq did not fool Sadam into "relaxing". Wouldn't you be better just saying that oops the Bush Admin made a clerical error or something?
...and I thought I kept a large cache of small arms ammunition... In one house, they found 2 TONS of small arms ammunition!!! Wow. Man, I need to order more cases of ammo!