The original Obama statement was in response to a hypothetical question by Tim Russert. The question was something like, "If we were to pull our troops out of Iraq, and then the situation were to deteriorate, then would you reserve the right to go back in." I think I saw another thread here somewhere about Clinton getting slammed about not wanting to answer a hypothetical scenario, and now you can see why. Obama answers the hypothetical question that ingores Al Qaida being in Iraq, and now he gets characterized as thinking there is no Al Qaida in Iraq. It's the question that ignored Al Qaida in Iraq, not Obama --- you can't criticise Obama for answering a bogus hypothetical that ignores reality --- criticsie Russert for framing the question that way.

I think Obama makes a good point in that Al Qaida was not in Iraq until after the invasion. We are the ones who created the environment where terrorists could flourish. We took Iraq and turned it into Afghanistan. Of course, now that the terrorists are there, we have to deal with it. But Obama makes a good point about judgement. It was poor judgement to go into Iraq, and even poorer judgement not to fully commit if we were going to go in. Now we have created another terrorist state to deal with.