Today's thought-provoking piece by Michael Barone http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-3_6_06_MB.html explores the intensity with which many on the left hold to their conviction that Saddam couldn't have had a connection with Al Qaeda. As is the case with so much surrounding Iraq, there's some smoke, not yet any fire.

From a purely speculative point of view, it has always seemed to me that that would be exactly what Saddam would want us to believe, if he intended to strike us through a surrogate. Can you say, "disinformation"?

Needless to say, should it ever become evident that "The Connection" did exist, it would be a profound humiliation for the "professionals" in our intelligence, and perhaps some of them are obstructing the discovery of that information.

Many's the time when I have hoped for unimpeachable evidence that Saddam had WMD, and that he colluded with bin Laden. It would truly be a great moment to watch Michael Moore, Kos, and Howard Dean squirm with that one.

But I'm a Buffalo Bills fan. I know what it's like to wait for that moment of vindication that never comes. So I am at peace with the fact that:
1) There may in fact have been no weapons and no connection
2)They may have been there, but any hard proof is down the rathole
3) They may have been there, proof may exist, but it cannot be disclosed due to fear of compromising an ally

So, I believe war apologists, and I count myself as one, need to base their position on the decision-making process in the absence of certainty. Rather than fixating on intelligence certainty, which is a fantasy, one needs to weigh the various choices regarding going to war from the perspective of one who does not, in fact have certainty.

To me, the catastrophic risk of Saddam passing WMD to Al Qaeda, whether we were sure he had them or not, and whether we were sure of a connection to Al qaeda or not, was reason enough to take him out. Yes, many thousands of Iraqi's and Americans have been killed, but potentially hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were at risk had we not taken action.

For many, I feel that this will be a deeply unsatisfying result. It would be sooo much better to have that incontrovertable proof. (Here's where the Buffalo Bills analogy comes in) Ultimately, I came to realize there was true greatness in that run of four Super Bowl losses; a kind of nobility really. To get up and press on without that ultimate reward three more times took a kind of resolve that few people can comprehend. They embodied sport, of which we always say, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game."

Likewise, the Administration may never get the vindication so fondly hoped for. They may have it, but be unable to use it. They may never get that "I told you so" moment. If so, remember, that Bush and Blair made the only choice they could have made, and take comfort in the knowledge that these two men at a key moment in history, without the benefit of perfect knowledge, or hindsight, made a choice that in the fullness of time, will still prove to be right.