Both the weapons and the use of those weapons on the Kurds was Saddam's, and Saddam's alone. There is absolutely nothing to indicate the United States supported or condoned the bombing of the Kurds, and you will not spin it to mean so here. The United States turned over Saddam to a war crimes tribunal which it supported, and one of hundreds of counts of murder facing Saddam was that of his acts against the Kurds shortly after the first Iraq War.

You cannot possibly expect anyone here to believe that after the first Iraq war- wherein US-led forces crushed the Iraqi military and infrastructure- the United States subsequently supported Saddam in any way. You state: "We'll be recovering from this for a long time, and our ability to respond elsewhere is severely diminished." Why- prey tell, would we even need to respond elsewhere if our War on Terror is "ended"? If our need to curtail terror activity has ended, why should our ability to respond elsewhere even be an issue? Spinning history and purpose is bad enough, but at least do us the favor of being consistent.

Unlike you, I do not blindly presuppose the best course of action against a state with supposed chemical weapons capability, nor am I so ignorantly naive as to think that capability is affected by an invasion. Our War on Terror has in no way "ended" because of our involvement within Iraq. You had better let those dying in Afghanistan and other regions know- they're kind of committed to the lie that we're still very much engaged in war with terrorist and NGO groups around the world. It's not like a Taliban leader was captured, or over 100 insurgents killed yesterday. Wait, yes they were.

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Stating that the tides in Iraq are the same as those around the world is spurious, at best.