Isn't that what we've been saying all along -- that attacking Iraq would divert military resources away from the REAL terrorists?
http://msnbc.com/news/945588.asp?0cv=CB10--‘Clear tradeoff’ while pursuing regime change in IraqSenior terrorism experts are asking whether the United States could have done much more to go after Osama bin Laden if it had not diverted counterterrorism resources away from Afghanistan and into Iraq.
AS “Operation Enduring Freedom” kept al-Qaida on the run, the White House was already planning for war against Iraq. Sources say that in the spring of 2002, key weapons in the war against terror — such as the commandos, the drones and the high-tech surveillance planes — were rotated out of Afghanistan. Now experts tell NBC there was a clear tradeoff as the United States let up on al-Qaida to pursue regime change in Iraq.
A former national security official in the Bush administration tells NBC News Senior Investigative Correspondent Lisa Myers the White House was warned that the buildup against Saddam might provide a respite for Osama bin Laden and his henchmen. “There were decisions made,” says Flynt Leverett, a former director at the National Security Council in the Bush White House, “to take key assets, human assets, technical assets, out of theater in Afghanistan in order to position them for the campaign to unseat Saddam.”
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