Lilith: It’s called “The War on Terror” for a reason. We haven’t limited ourselves to simply waging war on Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is only part of the problem. Saddam supported terrorism which made him part of the problem as well. And so we waged war aginst him. It wasn’t a distraction from the “real” War on Terror to go into Iraq. It’s called choosing your battlefield.

Even if we limited ourselves to fighting against Al Qaeda, they haven’t always been in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fighting them there only doesn’t make very much sense.