With No Weapons of Mass Destruction Yet Found in Iraq, White House Justification for War Comes Under Fire

Interview with Reese Erlich, journalist and author, conducted by Scott Harris

Two months after the war against Iraq ended, tough questions are being raised in Britain and the U.S. about the credibility of evidence used by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to justify their war against Baghdad. The White House claimed that Saddam Hussein's government possessed or was developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as their principal justification for war, but these weapons have yet to be found.

Officials in Washington and London continue to maintain that the deadly weapons Iraq was said to have had will eventually be found. But leaks from inside intelligence agencies raise the possibility that the U.S. and British governments may have exaggerated evidence or deliberately misled their citizens in an effort to gain support for a war that had attracted deep skepticism. The U.S. and Britain defied the United Nations charter and overwhelming international opposition to prosecute a war based on the charge that Iraq posed an imminent threat to its neighbors and the world.

Britain's Parliament has recently begun an investigation to ascertain whether the intelligence on Iraq's weapons leading up to the war was flawed or simply manipulated for political ends while the U.S. Congress has yet to decide on the scope of such a probe. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with journalist Reese Erlich, co-author of the book, "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You." Erlich examines the serious questions now being asked about the credibility of the Bush administration's rationale for launching a pre-emptive war on the nation of Iraq.

"Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You," is published by Context books.

Related links

"Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction: Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?" by John W. Dean, FindLaw's Writ, June 6, 2003

"Shoulder to Shoulder and Stabbed in the Back," by Robin Cook, Britain's former foreign minister, Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2003

"Spy Report Saw No Proof of Iraq Arms," by Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, June 7, 2003

"Pentagon in 2002 Found `No Reliable' Iraq Arms Data,"Bloomberg News, June 6, 2003

"Agent Turned Author Defies CIA," MSNBC, June 4, 2003

"Some Analysts Say They Felt Pressure on Iraq Data," by Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, The Washington Post, June 4, 2003

"Wolfowitz: 'Iraq War Was About Oil,'" Furor shines spotlight on interpretation of weapons intelligence, by George Wright, The Guardian, June 4, 2003

"How Their Big Lie Came to Be," by Robert Scheer, The Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2003

"Bush 'is on Brink of Catastrophe,'" by Roland Watson, The Times, May 23, 2003

"Bush Should be Impeached and Tried for War Crimes," by Denise Giardina, The Charleston Gazette, May 12, 2003

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