> Maybe my friend misheard, maybe something was misunderstood. But my friend is a careful man, and I suspect he heard exactly right. Which begs the question, what does Mr. Bush know that he hasn't said about Saddam's intentions and ability to strike America?

This is the oddest column excerpt I've ever read. I don't think I've ever read any columnist of any sort write a column about what a "reliable" friend *maybe* heard.

This oddity is made all the more odd by the fact that the point of contention is about what Bush has or hasn't said about Saddam's intentions. Sweet mother of mercy, has ANY POLITICAL LEADER IN THE WORLD BEEN MORE CLEAR ABOUT SADDAM'S INTENTIONS? What's all this "hasn't said" crap?

Sure, I haven't yet heard Bush say, "Saddam will launch weapons of mass destruction on our homeland." Bush is pretty hard-spoken for a politician, but they all shy away from speaking bluntly. (Politicians only use the word "recession" after every single other person in the country has.) But Bush has said absolutely everything an intelligent person needs to figure it out:

1. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
2. Saddam has lied, broken agreements, U.N. resolutions, etc, about disarming but has in actuality been developing weapons of mass destruction -- biological, chemical, and nuclear -- all along.
3. Saddam has lied in his weapons declarations reports, failed to provide evidence for disarming, hidden evidence from U.N. inspectors, coached scientists, etc.
4. Saddam has known ties to international terrorist groups, including al Qaeda.
5. Saddam has used his weapons of mass destruction against his own people, invaded and conquered another sovereign nation, and launched missiles against Israel. We kicked his butt, and that's just one of several reasons he hates the United States.
6. al Qaeda has made numerous assaults on the United States, including an attack on our own shores.

Some of these are known facts and not debatable. The rest we have some evidence for, but the case is as yet incomplete. (Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. on February 5th appears to be when we are promised more complete evidence.) But I'm not talking about incontrovertible fact here; I'm talking about what Bush has been trying to say for the past months. I don't know why the State of the Union address doesn't make it crystal clear. Hell yes, Bush is telling us that threat Iraq poses to us now is the very real, very serious threat of a homeland attack of weapons of mass destruction, possibly launched directly by Iraq but as likely by al Qaeda or another international terrorist organization directly supplied and financed by Iraq.

Debate whether or not the threat is real, whether or not Bush is lying or has enough evidence to draw his conclusions, whether or not the threat is great enough to justify war, whether there is more to the story than what we're being told, etc, etc, etc. But I didn't think there was any question about the meaning of what we *have* been told.

(Tangent: Frankly, I think anyone that doesn't recognize that Iraq is a serious threat to the world has his hand in the sand. But I don't lie awake worrying every night, because I believe in our government's defense capabilities, especially for the immediate presesent, while Iraq is being watched so closely by the whole world. As for whether or not Iraq's threat is great enough to justify a war, until recently I was remaining undecided until our government provided more evidence. I'm convinced now. I still want more hardcore evidence, but at this point not so much to convince *me* but because we shouldn't be going to war, especially without U.N. sanction, without a rock-solid, excessively redundant barrage of evidence to present to the world to support it. And that's purely for practical concerns. I don't think we need to answer to any other nation if we decide to act in our own defense, even preemptively. But allies are good, and it makes things a lot cleaner if all nations, allies or not, understand what we're doing and why.)