Remember that "dumb war" in Iraq that Barack Obama was always talking about?  Remember how Iraq was a "distraction" from the real War on Terror and search for Osama bin Laden?  Remember how the left banked their foreign policy credibility on the notion that Bush's obsession with Iraq unnecessarily cost us American lives and treasure for no real purpose?

Well, guess what?

Information from an al-Qaida operative named Hassan Ghul, captured in Iraq in 2004, provided the "key moment" in identifying the notorious courier that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, a U.S. government official confirmed to CNSNews.com.

Granted, there is still a lot we don't know.  And there is conflicting testimony among various intelligence officials about the role that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other interrogated terrorist detainees played in leading us to the bin Laden courier (the rat that led us to the cheese).

In fact, what we're finding is that it wasn't necessarily one detainee and what he did or didn't say as much as it was the brilliant comparing, contrasting and deducing from the conflicting information provided by various sources:

"It depends on how you define lead information," the official told CNSNews.com. "One of the values of the program is the ability to compare and contrast comments from different detainees. So, in this case it's almost what they didn't say and what they're trying to hide that we were also able to key on to."

It appears that KSM and others admitted knowing al-Kuwaiti (the courier), but denied his importance or significance.  But it was Hassan Ghul (the man captured in Iraq) that provided the information necessary to seal the deal.  Details will continue to emerge, and we will undoubtedly see that it was a complicated process of serious intelligence work that led us to bin Laden's lair.

But, of course, the opportunity for our intelligence folks to do that brilliant deduction would not have been possible had we:

a.) not been in Iraq

b.) not captured terrorists from Afghanistan to Iraq

c.) not detained them indefinitely without providing them attorneys and court trials

d.) not interrogated them with and without enhanced techniques

Interestingly, all of those things that we now know were so necessary for our success in killing Osama bin Laden were all things the left openly and fiercely opposed.  If you're celebrating the end of bin Laden, you are celebrating the wisdom and courage of President Bush as well - a man who faced withering criticism by those who now bask in the glory of what his policies, the very ones they demagogued, wrought.