HOW? Take some time & Think...
The 911 commission attributed lack of prescience, imagination, as a significant contributing factor in failing to stop 911. It doesn't take much prescience, imagination, to conclude that were Saddam still in power, he wouldn't be meeting for tea with the Queen of England. But would he be meeting, plotting, planning & scheming with Osama and company? YES! After 911, Saddam, while the U.N. stonewalled, waffled, and balked, gave safe-harbor to A - Zawkari, an Osama henchman killing human beings, undoubtedly, as I write and you read this. Thus, openly was annointed the unholy marriage between so-called religious and secular terrorist.
I ask, does anyone seriously contend that Saddam would have sat the war on terror out? Or would he have funded, assisted, marshaled resources, weapons, WMD, against America? The argument that contends the war in Iraq disconnected from the war on terror, and, thereby, a distraction, implies that by now the war on terror would be over. Laughable. Not one serious thinker would ever say so. The inescapable conclusion, were Saddam in power at this very moment, is not that he would present a clear and present threat to America and its war on terror; rather, he would be actively fighting against us, killing and maiming us, through terrorist proxies. A blind man, Mr. Kerry, could see that one coming. No?