Once More Through the Looking Glass...

"After Sept. 11, America had to assess every potential threat in a new light," Mr. Bush said while campaigning in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "Our nation awakened to an even greater danger: the prospect that terrorists who killed thousands with hijacked airplanes would kill many more with weapons of mass murder."

"We had to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons, and one regime stood out," Mr. Bush said. "The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein."

So let me get this straight. A country that had no WMDs, nor the capacity to make WMDs stood out above, say, Pakistan, which shares a long, porous border with Afghanistan, which hosts numerous religious schools teaching the whacked-out brand of Islam followed by the terrorists, which has nuclear WMDs and missles, which has a President who struggles to hold power by mollifying the radical Islamics in his country and which, through its support of AQ Khan, has already contributed to nuclear proliferation? Stood out over Libya, which even those of us without top-secret clearance know has blown up airplanes, and also had WMDs, and which we have bombed in the past? Stood out over Russia, where lax security on nuclear materials combines with a disintegrating economy, rampant corruption, and a wealth of weapons scientists who might be looking for a job?

Can you walk me through the reasoning on that one?