Iraq: A necessary war?

Iraq: A necessary war?
By John Prados

Not according to U.N. monitors-or to U.S. intelligence, which has watched t=
he situation even more carefully.


For months the Bush administration treated the world to a series of lurid c=
laims about the military threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. By far the =
most expansive description of the threat was made by Secretary of State Col=
in Powell in his speech before the U.N. Security Council on February 5. In =
a presentation replete with satellite photos and artists' conceptions, Powe=
ll argued that Iraq posed an ominous and urgent threat.

But was the Iraqi threat as imminent as advertised? And how did these versi=
ons of the Iraqi menace accord with what the public had previously been tol=
d? And what about the Iraqi threat required the rush to war?

Americans in particular need to consider what it all means. Despite adminis=
tration assertions, the threat was by no means self-evident. Bush officials=
, except where it suited their interests, have discounted the findings of i=
nternational inspectors who for most of a decade monitored Iraqi weapons pr=
ograms.

And how different does the picture look if one focuses instead on the other=
authoritative source on Iraqi weapons issues-the U.S. intelligence communi=
ty, which has followed Iraqi developments at least as keenly as U.N. monito=
ring teams?
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2003/mj03/mj03prados.html