Feedback from the special forces conducting the raid,

We have learned the need to be flexible or to have flexible forces, agile forces, who can move quickly, secure themselves when they arrive in a location, assess the needs of a given mission, and move to that mission.

The Iraqi forces are conducting the Mother of all Retreats.

The Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.

[For his part, retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who has been speaking out as a Bush surrogate, has an op-ed piece in this morning's New York Times, accusing Kerry of] distortions of history. ... The war against terrorism is the right war at the right time for the right reasons. And Iraq is one of the places that the war must be fought and won. George Bush has his eye on that ball, and Senator John Kerry does not.

I, for one, begin with intent. There is no question that, Saddam Hussein had intent to do harm to the Western alliance and to the United States of America.