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Al, you're right and I shouldn't make the blanket statement.
Still, there's more to this. Here's the thing. The honest reporting of terror probably would have made the case for war. Yes. And here's where we get hypothetical:
It also would have really undercut France's attitude/honest disagreement/perfidy, because it would have cast the problem differently and cast public opinion differently.
That, in turn, might have convinced Saddam that it was not possible for him to play various opinions against each other in an attempt to survive. That, in turn, might have convinced him (and other world leaders!) to stop terror -- because it became a political disadvantage. Certainly it would improve the world's opinion of the US.
But Saddam found it easier to bribe the media, and to throw them out on their ear when they reported the facts.
Everyone played by the rules of the game that were cast.
This is not a pro-Bush slant, but it is a pro-Blair slant, because Blair sold the war to his people by pointing out the human equation. Bush largely left that out, as Griff points out. Of course getting the political will for the war was not as big a problem in the US as it was in the UK. We were in a confrontational mood.
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