President Bush held a press conference today. Most of the time he defended his policy of an endless war but then he said something completely astonishing.

I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically

Really? Does anyone believe that? Bush wanted diplomacy to work? That's why the UN weapons inspectors who were in Iraq had to leave because Bush announced he was about to invade. Bush and Blair invaded. And what did they gain? Two years later Bush made a video of himself pretending to look for the weapons of destruction around his office. Looking under his desk and joking about it. While Americans died on his order.

Was he hoping to solve it diplomatically or was the image of the mushroom clouds over American cities designed to frighten the Congress and public into compliance with a plan to invade? Would Bush have been happy if there was a diplomatic solution? What would that have looked like? Would Saddam Hussein have allowed UN inspectors in? Would they be allowed to go where they wanted? Do we remember that was the situation when they got pulled from the country for their own safety?

Just a few comments on fellow blogger David's earlier post on some conservatives' dire predictions on the GOP's political future due to Iraq. Of the three he mentioned -- William Buckley, David Brooks, and George Will -- the only one I really listen and pay attention to is Bill Buckley. David Brooks and George Will are very good writers and reasonable conservatives, but they both view the modern Republican Party and conservative movement through the lens of : "What would Reagan do?" And Ronald Reagan isn't walking through the door anytime soon.

William Buckley, however, is a different story. He was one of the original anti-communist Cold Warriors, and the National Review was founded in part to be the voice of anti-communism in modern politics. So he knows what's involved when one is fighting a murderous ideology in addition to armed forces. When he "turned against" the Iraq war I was disturbed and I read him carefully. But that happened almost three years ago, not recently. In fact, one of his first anti-Iraq War columns was written prior to the 2004 elections (Should We Have Gone To War?). Even stronger was a column that he wrote over a year ago, It Didn't Work, in which he states: "One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."

In short, Buckley's Iraq War viewpoint is not new. And it's as wrong today as it was three years ago, or a year ago. Primarily because Buckley, as well as Brooks and Will, view the war through the same prism as the Democrats -- as an electoral and political problem within our own country, threatening GOP ascendancy -- as opposed to a problem that needs to be solved, not run away from.

That's not so say that there haven't been serious mistakes made. But going in wasn't one of them. Tell me exactly how -- with the sanctions programs disintegrating and with Saddam Hussein having bought off (Oil for Food scandal) Russia, France, and Germany -- diplomacy would have either removed Saddam or prevented him from restarting his weapons programs? Just as it was a forgone conclusion that after we didn't finish off Saddam during Gulf War I we would eventually have to go back in -- if we didn't go into Iraq in 2003 we would have probably have had to go in by now anyway.

This is just one of the many revelations residing between the covers of the former CIA director's new tell-all, "At the Center of the Storm." So what else do we learn? From Mr. Tenet's pen to your eyes:

"There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat."

Yawn. We knew this already. More interesting, however, is Tenet's description of personally nixing a Dick Cheney speech the day before our invasion of Iraq in which the Veep planned to assert a link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Tenet:

"Mr. President, we cannot support the speech and it should not be given,"

And remember that Presidential Medal of Freedom? Well, it turns out that G.T. was, "not all that sure I wanted to accept it." So why did he bow and have the president bestow it upon his capable shoulders? Because the citation didn't mention anything about Iraq. And speaking of that taboo subject, for which Tenet claims little responsibility, what does the former director think of how things are going for the U.S. today?

"It may have worked more than three years ago. My fear is that sectarian violence in Iraq has taken on a life of its own and that U.S. forces are becoming more and more irrelevant to the management of violence."

Previously on 'The Stump':
- 'They Don't Know What They Are Doing'
- Pat Tillman's Brother Addresses Congress
- Remember 'As the Iraqis Stand Up, We Will Stand Down'??

No, it didn't start with the Speaker's visit to Syria. The virulence that many on the right have been directing at Nancy Pelosi has been there for a while. You could say that she's something of a perfect storm for conservatives. A liberal woman representing San Francisco, who ascends to her lofty perch following a stinging electoral defeat. To Republicans, Pelosi is just about the coarsest salt one could rub into their wounds. For some, but not all, there is the clear sense that her gender is doubly troubling.

But back to the Syria visit. You can reasonably argue that meeting with Assad was not a good move, and you might also condemn Republican Congressman Joe Pitts for doing the same thing a week before Pelsoi, as well as Republican Darrell Issa for following Pelosi's lead one day later. There's a valid point that our government should present a unified front when dealing with state sponsors of terrorism. On the other hand, given the administration's dismal leadership on Middle East matters, there's also a case to be made that any communication is better than none. Hey, at least Pelosi personally delivered a peace overture from the Israeli government to Mr. Assad. Update after the jump.

Senator Carl Levin continues his very public proxy fight with Douglas Feith and Vice President Cheney in the Washington Post today, in an article titled Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted. It's the story about the Defense Department Inspector General's report on Saddam's ties to terrorism prior to the invasion in 2003. The original summary was put out in February of this year, and resulted in a lengthy rebuttal of the report by Defense Department official Eric S. Edelman. But Levin and his minions in the press being what they are, the declassified report was released yesterday. Unfortunately for Levin and the Post, it doesn't do what it claims to do -- discredit Saddam's pre-war ties to terror groups. In fact, it states otherwise.

Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.

The Bush administration, contrary to how this article is written, never claimed that there was an operational relationship between Saddam and al-Qaida. The two groups did have contacts, and there were members of al-Qaida in Iraq, but their relationship was more one of kindred brethren -- they both had the same objectives.

There is an interesting article in today's Washington Post by Peter Baker that speaks to the history of the late Saddam Hussein, Bush 41 and Bush 43. The execution of Hussein represents not the end of the story, but perhaps the end of a chapter, in the twisted relationship between him and both presidents.

Their relationship began as a pragmatic one in the 1980s, when Hussein was at war with our main enemy in the region, Iran. George H.W. Bush was VP at the time in Regan's administration, which provided assistance to Hussein. A 1992 article in New Yorker suggested that Bush, through Arab intermediaries, advised Hussein to intensity the bombing of Iran. Of course, the relationship went downhill after that, followed by the invasion of Kuwait and the reported assassination attempt by Iraqis on George H.W., Barbara and Laura in April 1993. George W. was at home managing the Texas Rangers at the time. In November 1999, two years before 9/11, candidate George W. told the BBC that, "No one envisioned him (Hussein) still standing. It's time to finish the task." The rest is history, so to speak. Hussein was a man who tried to kill George W.'s father, mother and wife. He says it wasn't personal. Maybe so, but it would have been personal to me.

The world is undoubtedly better off without Hussein and his regime. The cost of our invasion of Iraq, about 3,000 American lives (so far and counting) and reportedly hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, hundreds of billions of dollars (so far and counting) -- all the result of a personal grudge, or the manipulation of someone with a personal grudge by others with their own neo-con agenda -- who knows? One thing is for sure -- the execution of Hussein is not the end of the story.

There are jokes that are funny, like those found in Woody Allen movies. Then there are jokes that are used to fool us. The so-called trial of the once U.S. ally dictator Saddam Hussein is one of the worst jokes ever played on the American public ... perhaps only second to the Gulf of Tonkin incident that Johnson used to justify his war in Southeast Asia.

Contrary to the blither by the White House flack Tony "the Fox" Snow, not only was the trial verdict geared for pre-election, so was the concurrent "curfew" declared in Iraq to minimize continuing civil war violence.

As Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild astutely noted in her piece today the trial was worthy of a CIA Banana Republic coupe and a USSR Show Case Trial and Verdict:

"Sunday, as Saddam's verdict hearing convened, a pert blonde reporter from Fox News took her place in the second row of the courtroom. Although she often had trouble getting a seat during the trial, the U.S.-Iraqi-powers-that-be made sure she was prominently seated for the show. After the verdict, the reporter told millions of Fox viewers how frightened she was to be so close to Saddam. The network juxtaposed the verdict report with a discourse on the perils of radical Islam. Ironically, tyrant that he was, Saddam ran a secular government in which radical Islam was not permitted to flourish.

"Saddam's verdict was choreographed in much the same way as the fall of his huge statue in the Baghdad square after Bush shocked-and-awed him out of power. Scenes of celebrating Iraqis filled American television screens with only brief forays into Tikrit or the Sunni area of Baghdad where angry Iraqis took to the streets notwithstanding the curfew policed by U.S. soldiers on Sunday.

Once every few decades, a tyrant gets what's coming to him. Saddam will be hanged for mass murder and other crimes. We didn't get to fulfill the sentences of Idi Amin, Milosevic or Goering.

For those who survived, they get to see the one they feared and who terrorized them swinging in the breeze as he had done to so many others. Remember those he murdered in southern Iraq, remember those he gassed in Halabja.

For many Iraqis, the verdicts represented a moment of triumph and catharsis after decades of suffering under Mr. Hussein's tyrannical rule.

In spite of an intense security clampdown that barred vehicles and pedestrians from the street, public celebration broke out around Iraq. People danced and cheered on the street, sounded car horns and fired guns into the air, a standard gesture of celebration here.

Say what you will about the war in Iraq, thanks to the U.S. military, Saddam Hussein will pay for his sins.

Today, Saddam was declared guilty and sentenced to hang. Some in Iraq celebrated while others reacted violently and threatened more bloodshed. The sentence will automatically be appealed.

In December 2003, after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Howard Dean said that the world was no safer because of the capture. Those words earned him the criticism of many. Dean saw the obvious but we were searching for progress in our war and didn't want to hear it. Senator Joe Lieberman stated: "Dean is in a spider hole of denial," a reference to Saddam's ignominious hideout and Dean's assessment of the capture's impact. I would suggest that based on the death toll for Americans and Iraqis, Dean was right.

It is believed that this death sentence will result in a "firestorm of sectarian killing." This week coming, we will see how safe Iraq is. I wonder if Joe might look back and wonder who really is in that "spider hole of denial."