[Cyrus]

Hey, excellent and well thought-out piece, with spot-on conclusions. I am tempted to quote below the whole paragraph that contains the gist of the situtation, damn brilliant job. (And I like it when you next write you don't wanna be "unpatriotice" or unduly critical of Dubya & Co!)

"[The United States has] spent billions to try to go after certain people because of a cheap but effective operation they pulled on us. But nothing we have done will really prevent another such operation.
When you think about it from Al Quaeda's perspective, the attack on us was an astounding success. They spent a little money and lost a relatively small number of "martyrs." They caused great damage to our economy and now have us fighting wars that are sapping our resources. They really did quite a lot to change how our country goes about things and how strong we are economically and militarily. Talk about a force multiplier.
The opposition to the [Iraqi] war may lead to an attitude which prevents future similar operations and an attitude of excessive passivity. Our war against the Taliban was successful, but we can't hold the ground, so Taliban-like groups will come back and AlQaeda will have a safe haven again. The terrorist attack also caused us to topple Saddam's regime, which may be something the terrorists want in the long run.
Saddam was horrible of course, but he was a secular dictator and kept the religious whackos at bay. When Iraq is sufficiently chaotic, the religious nuts and terrorists will fill the void. Unless we have the stomach to finish the operation and do what is necessary. I doubt we do."

Please also note Rumsfeld's exaggeration in the Memo : "The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' cost of millions."

What?? "Millions"?! They don't get to spend no damn millions. Be surprised if they spend more than one million in what they do/did. Rummy still lives in a Hollywood-budget kind of world.