Mr. Safire conveniently forgot to mention the "yes-butters" on the other side, for example:
1. Yes, the phone records from the al Qaeda cell in Germany show phone calls to Saudia Arabia and Egypt and some other mid-east countries and none to Iraq, but we think Iraq has ties to the 9/11 terrorists anyway.
2. Yes, not one of the 9/11 hijackers came from Iraq and 14 out of 19 did come from Saudia Arabia, but we still think Iraq supports al Qaeda and Saudia Arabia does not.
3. Yes, even with all our sophisticated spy technology (on the ground and in the air) we cannot find one iota of evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but we know they have them.
4. Yes, lots of countries, including the United States and Israel, have failed to obey United Resolutions, but Iraq is different and we can choose which UN resolutions we want enforced. (In fact when the UN passed a resolution for the US to stop its terrorist war against Nicaragua, we escalated the war instead.)
I wonder, does Mr. Safire not see this other side or does he purposely try to hide the other side so that his side wins the argument?