My understanding all along was not that attack was imminent, but that the situation was volatile, which is not the same thing. The reason they could not wait was that Saddam would not comply without threats, and was obviously intending to drag matters out indefinitely. This put in question several things: the resolve to sustain a costly deployment indefinitely; the possibility of Saddam using terrorist agents to drive out American forces in the region; the ability to wage battle in the summer months, if it came to that; the effect of pressure from the Saudis to leave; and so forth. The Administration basically said, why give him all the time in the world, when he is in material violation, and seems unwilling to amend his behavior? I never got anything else out of the footage your refer to.
If the intelligence were not up to the minute, it was old. That is, if it took months to accumulate and verify, it did not necessarily reflect facts on the ground, given Saddam's propensity to hide things.
The argument that it was moved is the argument of the Administration, actually. The controverted parts have to do with what became of it, for example, was it spilled onto the desert at the last minute, sent to Syria, stockpiled in bunkers, or what? Of course it was only advanced once they had trouble finding things. That does not affect its reasonability as an explanation. We will have to wait to see what comes of the matter........ |
