Another point of view
The Washington Post carried an interesting article by Rolf Ekeus, former Swedish ambassador to the US and executive chariman of UNSCOM from 1991 to 1997. He maintains that military intervention in Iraq was justified. I find his article far from convincing though and he makes several points that can be used to come to the opposite conclusion.
One key assertion is that the main enemy Iraq had in mind in developing both nuclear and chemical weapons was Iran. They had Iran in mind as well in their missile development. He states that " ...Iran is a major beneficiary of the fall of Hussein." It takes something of a leap to convert all this to a direct threat to the United States that justifies a pre-emptive attack and total occupation of the country.
Furthermore, Ekeus says that Iraq recognized that chemical weapons would not be effective against an attack by the US and that Iraq had signifcant problems manufacturing chemicals that could maintain effectiveness after more than a few weeks in storage. One thing he points out is that there are now potentially a lot of unemployed chemical weapons specialists that may have an affinity to Al-Qaeda.
I see his concluding characterization of the Iraqi threats as somewhat speculative and believe a good case could be made that these could have been contained via continued inspections. But this too is speculative. Read the article for yourself.
10:06:06 AM 
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