This is just surreal.  Even though bin Laden publicly referred to Hussein as an infidel and the very core of vanguard Al-Qaedism explicitly sought to overthrow such non-orthodox regimes, Team Cheney somehow convinced the American public otherwise.  Even though everyone now knows better, it does nothing to alleviate the quagmire in which we find ourselves. 

I find it strange that people think we can’t somehow blame the administration for lying and also accept our circumstances as they are and work to move forward.  The two are not mutually exclusive.  But the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But even in the face of overwhelming evidence, it is clear that Cheney has not yet reached this point: 

The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, continued to insist yesterday that there was a link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaida, in spite of the publication of declassified intelligence documents showing the opposite.
… 

But interviewed yesterday, Mr Cheney, who was one of the hawks favouring invasion, reiterated his claim that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before the March 2003 invasion. 

"He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organised the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June," Mr Cheney told a radio interviewer yesterday. "As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq." 

Intelligence analysts say Zarqawi was not then part of al-Qaida , but became its leader in Iraq after the invasion. 

Notice that Cheney is not saying Hussein had ties to Al-Qaeda, but that at least one Al-Qaeda cell was operating in Iraqi soil.  Like finding a fly in my soup constitutes proof that the restaurant was trying to make me eat bugs.  Worse still, by this logic we are obligated to attack any country upon which Al-Qaeda operates. In Rumsfeld’s own words, this is at least 60 countries.  I guess we’d better get ready to invade Italy.  Not to mention ourselves.