5-01-07, 9:10 am

Last Sunday on ABC's This Week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice played word games with George Stephanopoulous. She told him that that neither she nor the President ever said Iraq was 'an imminent threat.'

Her denial isn't new. In March 2004, Rice denied having used the term on NBC's Meet the Press. In a careful bit of inventive sophistry, Rice indicated that neither she nor the President used the term 'imminent' to describe the threat posed by Iraq basically because they knew it was not accurate.

Of course White House spokespersons did repeatedly use the word 'imminent' to describe the alleged threat Iraq posed. Vice Present Cheney even described Iraq as a 'mortal threat.'

Despite the obvious, but unasked question about the legality of a war launched when our top leaders KNEW the 'enemy' posed no 'imminent' threat, Rice kept at it.

She suggested to Stephanopoulous that invading another country was OK if you redefine 'imminent' in creative ways. To her 'the question of imminence isn't whether or not someone will strike tomorrow, it's whether you believe you're in a stronger position today to deal with the threat or whether you're going to be in a stronger position tomorrow.'

Rice's creative definition of 'imminent' implies that she believes that a country can legally launch a 'defensive' war now against another country deemed to be a threat of some sort at some point in the future. No holds barred.

The underlying logic of Rice's claim is a disastrous recipe for 'might makes right' at best and at worst utter chaos and perpetual warfare.

The word 'imminent' is crucial because it has been used in international law as a legal justification for defensive war. The UN charter doesn't explicitly sanction preemptive war against an 'imminent' threat, but international legal scholars and institutions have given the concept some weight despite a great deal of disagreement over the specifics.

Because the Bush invasion of Iraq cannot be considered by any stretch a defensive war under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the Bush administration needs it to fall under generous interpretation of the broader concept of defensive war against an 'imminent threat.'

But the standard for 'imminent threat' in the wider interpretation is based not on Rice's garbled comment but on 'imminence' as meaning 'instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.' It's origin is even attributed to the American statesman Daniel Webster.

By her own admission, Rice's justification for preemptive war on Iraq does not fit this standard. And after nearly two decades of war, austere sanctions, regular aerial attacks, and several bouts of UN weapons inspectors and close international scrutiny, by no stretch of the imagination could Iraq's military capabilities be reasonably believed to have been instant or overwhelming.

And considering that deliberations and reasonable alternatives to Bush's invasion and subsequent four-year long occupation presented themselves at the time, Iraq simply posed no 'imminent threat.'

Recall that when UN weapons inspectors correctly found that Iraq possessed no WMD, the Bush administration and its attack dogs insisted they were wrong at best and lying at worst. The administration may have even done its level best to hinder the work of the inspectors by knowingly providing them with bad intelligence.

Contrary to Rice's claim, President Bush had used the term 'imminent threat' to describe Iraq – indirectly. In his September 2002 National Security Strategy, President Bush used the term to justify the expansion of the US war on terror to include 'rogue states' like Iraq. But like Rice, Bush insisted the US could defy the English language and international law and decide its own definition of 'imminence.' Without explicitly saying so, Bush deliberately intended to give the impression that an attack on Iraq was warranted and legal because that country posed an 'imminent threat.'

Even the administration's discussion of the term 'imminent' intentionally conveyed a suggestion of the imminence of Iraq's alleged threat.

Despite her careful denials now about the nature of the exact words selectively used in the lead up to the war, Secretary (then National Security Adviser) Rice repeatedly described Iraq as posing 'an urgent threat.' In fact, in 2002, Rice warned the public that while she wasn't sure how quickly Saddam planned to drop nuclear bombs on the US or its allies, 'we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.'

You're right. Rice never directly said, 'Iraq is right now planning to bomb New York City or Jerusalem with a nuclear weapon soon.' She knew they didn't have a nuclear device or a delivery system. By February 2003, the UN weapons inspectors had publicly shown this to be the case.

Over the previous few months, military, CIA, and State Department insiders (e.g. former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, US Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the commander of the US Armed Forces Europe Marine General Carlton Fulford, former IAEA weapons inspectors) as well as the IAEA warned behind the scenes that claims about Iraq's attempts to even acquire nuclear material were fantasies and fabrications.

But Rice successfully provided the public with the exact intended impression with all of its horror.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, their supporters in Congress, and many White House officials and spokespersons collaborated in this carefully orchestrated project. For Rice to now say that she never intended that impression or that she was misinterpreted is disingenuous and a weak effort at evading responsibility for a war based on lies.

Now, with its credibility in the tank and a near universal rejection of the Bush doctrine, the White House has to make a couple of decisions about its story.

The first thing the White House must decide is whether or not Iraq posed 'an imminent threat.' If 'imminent' means anything you want it to, why not freely use it? Why would Rice and Bush consciously choose to avoid using the word 'imminent' before the word 'threat' and after the phrase 'Iraq poses an'?

After revelations about the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay and administration-approved torture at Abu Ghraib and other places, why worry now about something so trivial as international legal standards?

Rice's statement on ABC's This Week IS an admission of sorts, however. She is essentially admitting now that she and the President knew then that Iraq was not an 'imminent' threat by its legal and English definition. This means that they knew that many of the things they were saying and implying in 2002 and early 2003 were wrong. But there is plenty of evidence for knowing this already (E.g. The Downing Street Memos and related documents show that despite a clear understanding of the extent of the fabrications, for the Bush White House and the Blair government convincing the public to go to war was a top priority.)

At the same time, the implication of Rice's statement also means that the administration's claims to have been victimized by the CIA's faulty intelligence are less than honest.

Rice and Bush and Cheney are going to have to decide: Were they misled about how dangerous Iraq was, or did they know it posed no threat that was 'instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation' and push ahead with an illegal war?

They need to get the story straight. Secretary Rice should be required to do so under oath before a congressional committee.

Whether they get the story straight or not, they cannot be trusted to lead and it is time to end our military involvement in Iraq.

--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at

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