Uh, the commission said there was no link between *9-11* and al-Qaeda. As Instapudit notes (with links to actual commission report), the commission did link Iraq and al-Qauda.

But this is what you get when you let newspapers do your analyzing for you.

As for why the war in Iraq happened: See first war from 10 years earlier. It was just a continuation of the last war, and was why even under Clinton the U.S. was shooing down Iraqi planes under the No Fly Zone. Isn't that in itself an Act of War?

Whatever (HEH): you rock! Sadly, I have less interest in the real words the commission puts out than in the impact of their message because as noted by Instapundit and Stull, the statement was carefully worded. Case in point. Moreover, far be it from me to challenge Instapundit's mastery over the medium.

Having said that, the impact of the message is the substance of the post: expect there to be a lot of coverage of the carefully worded sentence, (obviously meant to hedge the conclusion and provide wiggle-room for everyone) with subsequent ranting and raving from the left, and the inevitable left-wing media conspiracy rebuttals. Ironically, viewing from the top -- not left not right -- as lefty Berkeley professor, George Lakoff, argues, the right has framed the discussion in the media (as I posted here). And, it's that frame that dominates how the left addresses these issues.

Anyway, I'm personally not up to speed on what constitutes acts of war (besides the obvious) under the appropriate Acts, Treaties, and so forth. Regardless, I question the entire "Iraq - Part II: The war that never ended" premise for the war. Understand, I'm not an opponent of the war per se, only the persistent fluid rationalization: we're in a war on terrorism [turns out there're no al-Qaeda there] . . . there are WMD [oops, too late, they're "gone"] . . . it's the end of the first war . . . Don't get me wrong, the left is equally irrational. ;)