In vetoing the out-of-Iraq legislation, Bush harped once again on the threat from Al Qaeda and the so-called "war on terror," as if that has anything to do with the war in Iraq. Some excerpts (you can read the whole thing at the White House's web site):

The goal of this new strategy is to help the Iraqis secure their capital, so they can make progress toward reconciliation, and build a free nation that respects the rights of its people, upholds the rule of law, and fights extremists and radicals and killers alongside the United States in this war on terror. ...

These attacks [in Iraq] are largely the work of al Qaeda -- the enemy that everyone agrees we should be fighting. The objective of these al Qaeda attacks is to subvert our efforts by reigniting the sectarian violence in Baghdad -- and breaking support for the war here at home. In Washington last week, General Petraeus explained it this way: "Iraq is, in fact, the central front of all al Qaeda's global campaign."

Al Qaeda -- al Qaeda's role makes the conflict in Iraq far more complex than a simple fight between Iraqis. It's true that not everyone taking innocent life in Iraq wants to attack America here at home. But many do. Many also belong to the same terrorist network that attacked us on September 11th, 2001 -- and wants to attack us here at home again. We saw the death and destruction al Qaeda inflicted on our people when they were permitted a safe haven in Afghanistan. For the security of the American people, we must not allow al Qaeda to establish a new safe haven in Iraq.

Al Qaeda, he says, is "the enemy everyone agrees we should be fighting." Perhaps. But just as invading Iraq in 2003 wasn't a war against Al Qaeda, that crippled organizaion is not the main enemy now, either -- and the Iraqi Sunnis seem to be doing a pretty good job of squashing it. Not to mention that its leader may have killed yesterday.