Suffering from eleven years of economic sanctions, more stringent than those imposed on any other nation and from constant bombing by American and British planes, mainly in the fanciful thinking of the war zealots, could Iraq measure up to the menace they depicted. As arms inspectors who had been there testified, Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction capable of inflicting major harm on the United States. Critics, some American and some foreign, charged the administration with deception in its clamor for war. Most heads of foreign states, and their peoples, with the exception of Britain's Tony Blair, deplored the war mongering as immoral.

Regardless, Bush persisted, still insisting he had the power to undertake the war without the sanction of congress. He, too, cited cooked opinions of administration lawyers to bolster his case. Nonetheless, the dissenting pressure persuaded him to agree to consult congress and the United Nations before initiating hostilities. Still, he continued the saber rattling, more doggedly and with less reason than had any previous president and, for the first time, for a preemptive war.