re: It's 2000; What are you arguing here regarding who won Florida?

Agree with everything you said. I am personally of the opinion we fought a war of choice rather than necessity in Iraq. That there was a perceived threat (and that is more than enough) but not an actual threat (which facts bore out later). President Bush was compelled to focus on the more pressing issue of Iraq once our efforts began to fail. Just the way it is.

Whether we killed UBL in 2002 or in 2011 the reality is it would have made little material difference. The real impact is the systematic dismantling of AQ leadership through the years which (eventually) led to a marginalized UBL sitting in a compound in Pakistan influencing very little of day to day operations.

Just my opinion.