e answer, therefore, to the debate question posed in this report is that the Bush Administration was right to invade Iraq when it did and in the manner that it selected. As Kenneth Adelman (2002), p. 37) put it, ôCritics cry, 'Why now?Æ a better question is 'Why wait?Æö It was certainly clear to the world (including the French, Germans, and Belgians) that Saddam Hussein possessed ôweapons of mass destructionö because he had used those weapons against the Kurds of his own country and against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War.
Following the Gulf War at the outset of the 1990s, the United Nations demands that Iraq submit itself to intensified arms inspection by an international panel of experts were given mere lip service by Iraq. Iraq continued to pursue a policy of developing weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear capacity and enhancing its military, while also violating the human and civil rights of all those that Hussein considered to be antagonistic to his regime (Williams, 2003).
Additionally, there was a growing body of evidence linking Saddam Hussein and his followers to various terrorist groups in the world, including Al-Qeida, which was responsible for the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States (Williams, 2003). This attack, coupled with recognition of the inherent threat to peace posed by HusseinÆs BaÆath regime, a
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