Dissecting the Case
The Bush Administration's rationale for going to war with Iraq is based on new and old evidence–as well as the President's passionate conviction

George Bush has a problem. The President of the U.S. is utterly convinced that Saddam Hussein is an evil so dangerous and immediate that only war can expunge the threat–barring some miraculous 11th-hour departure or resolution. For months Bush has done his darnedest to make this case and convince the world that the application of American might is the best way to eradicate the menace. But he hasn't persuaded everyone just yet.

That's why lights burned into the night at CIA headquarters last week as a special team of planners shuttled from the State Department and the White House to join agency analysts in poring over piles of satellite photos and phone intercepts, sifting through tapes from defectors and interrogations of detainees. Bush had just pledged in his State of the Union speech that Secretary of State Colin Powell would take fresh, compelling evidence to the U.N. in seven days' time to bolster the case for war. At stake was not so much whether war would ensue but whether the U.S. would fight it with all the legal, moral, political and popular support U.N. benediction would confer. Bush has said all along that the U.S. would go it alone if need be.

So what's the magic up Powell's sleeve? Sources tell TIME he'll attack on three fronts, presenting evidence of elusive weapons of mass destruction, persistent obstructions of inspections and links to terrorism.

Saddam and Inspections

There's plenty of old evidence laying out Saddam's suspected arsenal of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that has for years formed the bedrock of the case against Iraq. Inspectors who searched for eight years after the Gulf War left a well-documented file of banned items they were pretty sure existed but they couldn't find or could not prove were destroyed. Those are still missing and remain a central concern. But the trouble from the public relations perspective is precisely that that evidence is familiar and that it has already been judged by many to be insufficient grounds for military confrontation.

Iraqi defectors have told U.S. intelligence they helped build mobile biological-weapons labs; Powell could parade satellite images the CIA has of large semitrailers crowned with oversize air vents that indicate the vehicles could house such labs. Also available are photos said to show dump trucks converted into missile launchers.

Secretary Powell may make more of an impact on the Security Council by emphasizing another kind of evidence that may sound dryly technical but that cuts to the heart of the U.N.'s authority: he'll detail the ways Washington believes Iraq is cheating on inspections. For the Administration's case, the great value of Resolution 1441, authorizing the inspections, is the clarity with which it states that obstructing its terms constitutes a material breach that would provoke "serious consequences." Hans BlIX, the chief inspector hunting biological and chemical weapons, provided the White House with an unanticipated boost when his Jan. 27 report to the Security Council gave Saddam's cooperation low marks and complained that Iraq had shown no "genuine acceptance" of disarmament.

Iraq has thumbed its nose at high-altitude U-2 surveillance flights, refusing to guarantee their safety unless the U.S. and Britain stop patrolling the no-fly zones. The discovery a few weeks ago of Iraq's illicit acquisition of missile engines and purchases of barred chemical explosives indicates concrete violations of resolution terms. British officials have also compiled a list indicting Iraq for deliberately hampering inspectors during the past two months.

Saddam and al-Qaeda

Strong evidence of a link between Iraq and terrorists would make it easy for allies–and nervous American citizens–to support a war, but it's the hardest allegation to prove.

To convince skeptics that Saddam not only could but has formed an alliance with the same kind of terrorists who caused the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials are planning to disclose recent links between Baghdad and the murky band of Kurdish fundamentalists called Ansar al-Islam. They say the group, based in a corner of northern Iraq outside Baghdad's control, is an al-Qaeda operation, trained by al-Qaeda men in Afghanistan and harboring al-Qaeda refugees who fled the fighting there.

Officials are also talking up the presence of al-Qaeda bigwigs in Baghdad. The only one identified so far is a chemical-weapons operative named Abu Musab Zarqawi, who stopped in the Iraqi capital last summer to have his leg amputated after he was wounded in Afghanistan. Since then, he has been fingered for involvement in the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan and in the London ricin plot. A senior Administration source claims that Zarqawi met with Saddam's lieutenants in an effort to acquire chemical weapons.

But Powell will need to brandish some terrific intelligence to prove there are solid lines–and not just dots–between Saddam and terrorists. A knowledgeable intelligence official says whether Powell can provide sure-shot evidence lies "in the remains-to-be-seen category."

Saddam and His Intentions

Saddam is explicitly hostile to the U.S. and its interests. If he acquires a nuclear weapon on top of his hoarded biological and chemical ones, he will, according to Bush, wreak catastrophic harm on his enemies, which means the U.S. The ultimate method, said Bush, would be for Saddam to hand off to a terrorist network "one vial, one canister, one crate" of his deadly weapons "secretly and without fingerprints" to "bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."

To the President, that means Saddam poses an unacceptable risk for the future of the U.S. and all its global allies. Better war now than after such an infamous day. As a practical matter, the U.S. has the military superiority to change Iraq's regime and is convinced that the perils of undertaking it are outweighed by the risks of inaction. The Administration believes that in the face of such moral clarity, who needs more evidence?

But as Bush acknowledged late last week, he would prefer that U.S. citizens and the Security Council back him in this fight. That's why Powell spent the weekend at home in northern Virginia, honing his performance. Bush made clear that this "final push" for U.N. benediction would last "weeks, not months." To the true believers, Powell's message may feel like time wasted, but his success is crucial for the Security Council leaders who need credible cover if they are to join Bush on a crusade their own citizens overwhelmingly oppose. And it is crucial also in reassuring millions of Americans that taking on Saddam now is preferable to waiting for him to take on the U.S. first.

—from TIME, February 10, 2003

Questions

1. Why was Resolution 1441 helpful to Secretary of State Colin Powell in making the case to the U.N. for a war against Iraq?

2. What are the main pieces of evidence pointing to a possible link between Saddam and al-Qaeda?