STICK WITH THE UN

‘I am in no doubt,’ said the Prime Minister in last Tuesday’s debate in the House of Commons, ‘that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is serious and it is imminent.’ After reading the dossier on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction released in advance of that debate, most people will share his sentiment. The dossier provides evidence that Saddam could build chemical or biological weapons in less than one hour, and that he has been trying to acquire from Africa the plutonium he needs to make a nuclear bomb. Sooner or later, if not prevented from doing so, Saddam will acquire nuclear bombs. That prospect is truly terrifying. Nuclear weapons will provide him with an unprecedented capacity to blackmail his neighbours into concessions, and to furnish terrorist groups with nuclear bombs which they can use directly on the United States and Britain.

President Bush believes that this possibility is so appalling that it justifies the United States in mounting an aggressive war to remove Saddam Hussein from power, with or without authorisation from the United Nations.