I understand that there’s a lot more nuance to this Cheney v. Commission story than I am allowing for here. But in the wake of 9/11, there was this generally agreed upon proposition that those who give aid and comfort to terrorists, or “safe harbor” to them, are no different than the terrorists. Well, after 9/11 for people to be defending Iraq because they had “only” been having meetings, coffee klatches and the like with al Qaeda strikes me as pretty lame. No, alone in a vacuum having meetings with al Qaeda isn’t cause for war. But we weren’t operating in a vacuum. There were quite a few other variables involved, WMDs, deteroriating sanctions, Saddam’s defiance of the UN, the need to be proactive after 9/11 etc. In other words, if we heard that France had been having get-togethers with al Qaeda, war wouldn’t be an option. But Iraq — a country we were still more than technically at war with since 1991 — holds meeting with al Qaeda, that strikes me as serious, very serious.