by Scott Ritter

Dont worry, the White House is telling us. The world’s most powerful leader was simply making a rhetorical point.

At a White House Press conference two weeks back, just in case you haven’t heard, (United States) President (George W.) Bush informed the American people that he had told world leaders “if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon”.

World War III? That is certainly some rhetorical point, especially coming from the man singularly most capable of making such an event reality. Pundits have raised their eyebrows and comics are busy writing jokes, but the president’s reference to Armageddon, no matter how cavalierly uttered and subsequently brushed away, suggests an alarming context.

Some might note that the comment was simply an offhand response to a reporter’s question, the kind of free-thinking scenario that baffles Bush. So, in a way, this makes what the president said even more disturbing, since we now have an insight into the vision, and related terminology, which hovers just below the horizon in the brain of George W. Bush. When I was a weapons inspector with the United Nations, there was a jostling that took place at the end of each day, when decisions needed to be made and authorisation documents needed to be signed.

In an environment of competing agendas, each of us who championed a position sought to be the “last man in”, namely the person who got to imprint the executive chairman (our decision maker) with the final point of view for the day. Failure to do so could find an inspection or point of investigation sidetracked for days or weeks after the executive chairman became distracted by a competing vision.

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