Terror war veering out of control

The anti-terrorist crusade is getting out of control. Terrorism is a threat, to be sure. But our unfocused effort to attack our enemies everywhere threatens to do more harm than good.
Worst of all is our campaign to unseat Saddam Hussein. We had a chance to remove him from power during the Gulf War, but the elder George Bush failed to push the campaign to a conclusion. Despite sky-high approval ratings, like those of his son today, he wanted to disengage the United States from the war as quickly as he could. And so we have been tangling with Saddam Hussein ever since.

But that is hardly a reason to go after him now, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the

World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. There is no question that Saddam Hussein has done some unspeakable things, both to his enemies and to his own people. Yet there is no hard evidence, or for that matter, soft evidence, that either he or his fellow Iraqis were involved in the terrorist attacks.