It is difficult to see, and the effects are small. Most people only are capable of following things a level or two deep, so they can not comprehend the connections they see. Which is great, unless you are directly involved in military planning or national security.

Al qaeda and taliban fighters were being treated in Iraq hospitals, so there was al-qaeda in Iraq before the invasion, just not what you would think of as cells. Nor were they planning attacks from there. But they were being treated there.

Also Saddam was a bad man. His actions destabalized the region. Let's forget about whether the things we stick our nose in are right or wrong just for this paragraph. If Saddam started things going in the region like he wanted to (not like he did, because he did not expect it to play out as it did), we would've been there, on his terms, not ours.

And it reduced the number of suicide bombers killing innocent people in Isreal. I'm all for reducing innocent deaths. I was in the Army, and I wouldn't mind going to a foriegn country and trying to stop innocent people from getting killed. If I would've died, oh well. If you're afraid of getting shot at then DON'T JOIN THE ARMY.

I just don't like bad people, sorry for the rant.