Case...whatever. I have friends here in England who were extremely sceptical over the Iraq war. They more or less insisted that the only justification for it they would consider was the argument from 'immediate threat', which demanded that the WMD argument was watertight. Whilst I didn't trust in the competence of Governments because I never do (but believed that as usual you have to work constructively with whatever you can get), I trusted that Saddam was a bad man who knew other bad men. Naive or simplistic- take your pick. Anyway, I believe that Saddam was a threat, and that Governments are incompetent, to this day. Today though I read an article which tied into another article (one I read weeks ago) which could not represent a 'meme' but might constitute a rationale that appeals to practical people like me. Can't get my head around 'nobody told Saddam (ha ha) he had no WMD' type arguments, but I could understand this and this.


The first article is by an Israeli defence expert with plentiful intelligence experience. The other is by a man who worked for the coalition authorities in Iraq last year, who is very critical of the approach of the WMD search teams. Their criticisms dovetail in a very authentic manner. Naturally, after ripping into Mr Clarke below about his self-preserving 'critique' of Bush's anti-terror credentials, I've given the background of these guys a bit of thought. I haven't felt like dropping their analyses yet though.