The Sunday Herald also reported that former U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter, and Count Hans von Sponeck, a former U.N. coordinator in Iraq and UN under-secretary, were dubious about recent claims of Iraqi weapons production. Ritter is a Republican who voted for Bush and now says that Bush is a "liar" for claiming Hussein is a threat to America. Von Sponeck says he thinks the West is lying about Iraq's weapons program after he visited alleged weapons sites in Iraq this July and found them in the "same destroyed state which we witnessed in 1999."

On September 16, 2002, the Washington Post reported that U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, II (D-W.Va.) met with key Iraqi officials in Baghdad this past weekend, including the deputy prime minister and a speaker of the national assembly, who seemed "very interested" in allowing inspectors to return unconditionally. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0916-01.htm

Rahall voted for the resolution to go to war against Iraq in 1991, but said this time, "It appears strange to me that a year ago this was not an imminent threat to the United States, but now, six weeks before an election, it is."

The frenzied talk of war could benefit the administration and Republicans as well as incumbents of both parties. War is the ultimate political diversion from the corporate/governmental corruption scandals that have abetted the double-dipped recession ravaging the pocketbooks of the average American voter.