...resides in the simple fact that Iraq is a sovereign nation which, so far as is publicly acknowledged, has committed no act of aggression or terrorism against the United States over the last decade, according to the Central Intelligence Agency, whose responsibility it is to monitor such things, and also according to ranking politicians who are privy to intelligence generated by the CIA and other responsible federal agencies.

International law allows a strike against a sovereign nation once it has initiated hostilities by an attack of its own against another sovereign nation.

In the absence of any attack on the United States, there would be no legitimacy to any so-called pre-emptive strike against Iraq or any other nation which might be nasty or unpopular at the moment, even if that nation should possess the so-called weapons of mass destruction, as was the case with our erstwhile Cold War foe, the USSR.

Whereas, tracking hoods, potential terrorists and other assorted miscreants within the United States falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As we have seen, several FBI field agents sounded urgent nay frantic warnings to their superiors about potential terrorists taking flight training, inquiring about fully fueled 747's and so on through the entire litany of the now-familiar, obvious, blatant, clearcut warnings which should have raised an enormous red flag to the defense establishment, but which instead were pooh poohed, dismissed, stalled, obfuscated, and blocked, to use just a few of the adjectives chosen by FBI agent Rowley in her scathing denunciation of the FBI leadership's mishandling of the whole 911 affair.

20-20 hindsight indeed!

As far as I know, there have been no comparable warnings about Iraq from the responsible federal agencies, but rather just non-specific generalities from Pres. Bush, Ms. Rice and Mr. Rumsfeld.

Now the question will be posed: Does Iraq possess biological and/or chemical warfare agents?

Of course they do. We gave it to them.

The Reagan and first Bush administrations gave these poisonous agents, these weapons of mass destruction to Saddam himself somewhere around the time of current Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's cozy visit with Saddam in Baghdad in 1983. At the time, Mr. Rumsfeld was a private citizen and president of a leading pharmaceutical company.

The United States in 1982-3 was concerned that massed human-wave attacks by Iranian forces were about to overwhelm Iraqi defenders.

According to reports I've seen, there were approximately 70 shipments of biological and chemical agents to the Iraqi regime in the aftermath of Mr. Rumsfeld's visit.

Most of this stuff was destroyed by the UN inspectors, who identified the agents as identical to those supplied by the US. However, it is conceivable, perhaps even likely that the inspectors did not find all of the toxins. If the inspectors go back in, maybe they'll find whatever remains.

Henniger's Opinion Journal article is comparing apples and oranges:

On the home front, there were numerous, specific warnings (of possible impending terrorist actions against the United States) by vigilent field agents of the FBI.

By contrast, so far as is acknowledged, Iraq has not attacked the United States, nor is there any credible evidence of Iraqi complicity in Black Tuesday, nor is there public record of any urgent alarms from the intelligence community about Iraqi intentions or capabilities.

In the final analysis, The United States of America cannot just go around bumping off nasty regimes which it doesn't like or which it thinks might someday pose a threat.

sp

ps. It is worth noting that intelligence black sheep/bad boy/spy who didn't come in from the cold Delmart Vreeland does think that Iraq was involved or even responsible for 911.