Lewis Carroll fans will treasure this excerpt from a transcript of the President’s news conference yesterday afternoon:

QUESTION: A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out
[of Iraq] seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn’t gone in.
How do you square all of that?

BUSH: I square it because imagine
a world in which you had Saddam Hussein, who had the capacity to make a
weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent
life, who had relations [sic] with Zarqawi.  Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.

Now
look, part of the reason we went into Iraq was — the main reason we
went into Iraq, at the time, was we thought he had weapons of mass
destruction. It turns out he didn’t, but he had the capacity to make
weapons of mass destruction.

But I also talked about the human
suffering in Iraq. And I also saw the need to advance a freedom agenda.
And so my answer to your question is that — imagine a world in which
Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of
the world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people
came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.

You know, I’ve heard this
theory about, you know, everything was just fine until we arrived and
— you know, the stir-up-the-hornet’s- nest theory. It just doesn’t
hold water, as far as I’m concerned.

The terrorists attacked us
and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda
in the Middle East. They were …

QUESTION: What did Iraqi have to do with that?

BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attacks upon the World Trade Center.

BUSH:
Nothing. Except for it’s part of — and nobody’s ever suggested in this
administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a —
Iraq — the lesson of September the 11th is: Take threats before they
fully materialize, Ken.

Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks
of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq  [ed.–but see supra]. I have suggested, however,
that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for
terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill, to achieve an
objective. I have made that case.

And one way to defeat that —
you know, defeat resentment — is with hope. And the best way to do
hope is through a form of government.

Now I said, going into Iraq, "We’ve got to take these threats seriously before they full materialize." I saw a threat.  I fully believe it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein, and
I fully believe the world is better off without him. Now the question
is: How do we succeed in Iraq?

And you don’t succeed by leaving before the mission is complete….

Etc., etc., making "vain pretence our wanderings to guide."