You may quibble now about Newsweek's characterization of the opinions of the dissenting experts, or of mine, but at the end of the day, the fact remains that Iraq did not have massive quanties of WMD. Indeed, as far as we now know, Iraq did not have any WMD at all.

The critical point here is that all of the analytical and political opinion which supported the notion of a huge threat from the alleged Iraqi WMD was splashed across the front pages and lead stories of the nation's mass media in a relentless campaign of scare-mongering, while the contradictory points of view got a sentence or two, if that, back on page A16.

You go on about the lies, sir, but that was the lie, and it was a Big Lie, indeed - one used to stampede the American public into support for an unjust war, if I need remind you.

The war mongers were wrong. Iraq presented no threat to the United States, or to our allies. There was informed opinion available to refute the arguments of those who were banging the drums of war, but these dissenting points of view only just barely saw the light of day.

Analysis requires discrimination between that which is real and that which is specious. Again I ask the question: if there was such a preponderance of analytical opinion testifying to the clear and present danger posed by Iraq's WMD, why did the Bush adminstration rely so prominently on such demonstrably bogus "proof" as the Niger Yellowcake documents?

S