" 
 ::You may be right Mongo - and if so the people behind this strategy should be tried for treason.  But I forgot to respond to your main original point  I think you underestimate the significance in the Bush Admin line about the war in Iraq this argument was.  It was a constant refrain in Bush Admin speeches, and the WMD stuff was tied to it  the fear was not so much of Saddam attacking us with a nuke (missile launched from Baghdad?  please) but rather of him offering WMD tech to terrorists.  Of course there were other WMD related fears - e.g. that he might threaten Israel with a nuke - but terrorism was the big one, and Bush made sure (and continues to make sure) that 9-11 was mentioned in nearly every speech about Iraq. 
 ::One other thing on the other point - such a strategy is sheer lunacy and ignorance if it is undertaken with the goal of actually decreasing terrorism or preventing attacks on the homeland.  It has the demonstrable opposite effect, and the theory seems to presume there is a fixed number of terrorists in the world and that US actions will have no impact on that number, both just ridiculous assumptions (which was why I referred to it as ""garbage"" earlier).  It's also completely ignorant of the actual things written and discussed by members of al Qaeda.  If as you suggest our leaders did this knowingly for some other nefarious purpose, then what they have done is one helluva a high crime/misdemeanor.  "