To sum up: Saddam Hussein was a bad guy when daddy Bush was doing business with him; he was a bad guy when Dick Cheney was doing business with him as CEO of Halliburton; and he was a bad guy when Donald Rumsfeld shook his hand on the tarmack of the Bagdhad airport years ago. Yes, he was a bad guy, one of many in the world. That is not the question.

The question is: What gives the United States the right to be the moral arbiter in the world? And of all the bad guys in the world today--why this particular one, and why now?

We ought to handle the business on our plate since September 11, 2001--and that business is Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaeda. Al Quaeda declared war on us; Bin Laden orchestrated the attacks of 9/11. We had the world on our side when we bagan that fight; now we do not, because we have clearly over-reached.

Joe B.