Let me respond briefly to Gene, particularly points 1 and 5. He's far too lenient on the American officials that supported Saddam through the 1980s. (For bonus points, which baptist dove encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in a war that claimed more than a million lives for nothing at all? Why, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jimmy "International Incident" Carter, of course.) The Reagan Administration, to its historical ignominy, supported both sides of the Iran-Iraq war simultaneously, a policy that is certainly a hideous mistake if not an outright crime. And it was US officials, Donald Rumsfeld conspicuous among them, who continued to lend recognition and sympathy to Saddam after the chemical genocide carried out in Kurdistan, with weapons at least in part provided (illegally, i.e., against the Foreign Assistance Act) by US intelligence services. There can be absolutely no defense of American defense of Saddam.

Some of us, however, understand what the true consequence of these crimes and blunders is: it doubles, or triples, or quadruples the American responsibility, which originally exists by virtue of American superpower hegemony, to remove Saddam and liberate the people of Iraq from his totalitarianism. And when the prisons of Iraq, the torture chambers and mass graves, not to mention stockpiles of genocidal weapons, are at last exposed to the light of day, Saddam's closest ally, Monsieur Chirac, will look even more of a fool than he does now, and will have ensured his country's diplomatic isolation for years if not decades.

Gene's got it basically right on points 2, 3, and 4, and though I could add something, I'll refrain for now. As for point 5, I continue to be baffled as to why the Bush administration would find it necessary to contrive evidence against Saddam. All the evidence they need actually exists. Did the Abu Nidal gang, which was nearly as notorious as al-Qaeda, and more successful by far in inflicting terror on both Israelis and Palestinians than any Fatah spawned group, not operate out of Baghdad? Indeed it did. Does Saddam not even now boast of his financing of suicide-massacre in Israel? Indeed he does. Are important bin-Ladenists not turning up, in, of all places, Iraq? Indeed they are. I could go further with this, and would if pressed, but anybody who can't recognize the Molotov-Ribbentropp agreement between Saddam and Osama probably never will.

With faith in secular ethics then, and relentless determination that liberal democracy be defended against all iterations of totalitarian ideology, on to Baghdad! And let fascism be swept away in the desert sand.