In the wake of the 11 September al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States, the Bush administration postulated a global threat that conflated non-state terrorist organisations and rogue states, most specifically al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In so doing, the administration ignored key differences between the two, including interests, agendas and vulnerability to threatened and actual US military action. The price of threat confusion has been an unnecessary preventive war against Iraq that has alienated key friends and allies, diverted US strategic attention and resources away from the war on terrorism, and exposed the United States to an open-ended and unexpectedly costly counterinsurgent war in Iraq that it may not be able to win or sustain.