The irony of Bush's last statement will not fully register with most: under Hussein, who was:

• successfully bottled up with UN sanctions that could easily have been strengthened with appropriate US and international vigillance (getting a coalition together for that purpose would be a walk in the park and require next to no guns being fired)

• ultimately, perhaps Hussein might have been reformed. Look at Libya, where US and other petro-corps are now seeking to work with actively

• Iraq oil flowed more freely under sanctions than since. A reformed Hussein might have been - 10, 20 years from now perhaps - an ally as ugly as that sounds.

• A surrounded Iraq was strangely still an effective block to any Iranian expansion tendencies; but in the end, economics will, or would have, probably driven Iran more into the main stream in order to sell its energy wealth to the world. Isolating Iran, as we have, just prevents that process from happening, and countries such as China don't care much if the energy is availble to them.

• overall contributed to oil security not detracted from it

• and the kicker, contained Saddam meant Al Qaeda had no home in Iraq.

For Bush to about face now and claim its now all about energy security is a play so pathetically disingenuous, designed simply to play on gasoline-cost inspired energy fears of the people, that I'm shocked he's not being called on it right now.

Security in the US (and in my own political party, a conservative party, in Canada) has been used as the trump card to avoid talking about real issues for far too long.