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asahi.com :English: "EDITORIAL: Why was Iraq attacked?

Koizumi must explain why he backed the war.
It is now clear there was no foundation for the reasons that both the president of the United States and the prime minister of Britain used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
An independent British committee released a report researched over the one year and four months since the war began, and it concluded that the former Saddam Hussein regime did not have chemical or biological weapons ready to be deployed. They also found no evidence that plans to use such weapons existed.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted the failure of his administration and accepted the report although he denied any deliberate distortion. The BBC reported that Blair hinted at resignation before the report was published, but that Cabinet members stopped him.
Prior to this report, in the United States a special Senate committee released its report concluding that most intelligence information from the CIA was incorrect. The report also said that not only were there no weapons of mass destruction, there were no plans to develop any. It played down the existence of ties between the Hussein regime and al-Qaida that U.S. President George W. Bush had insisted existed.
Yet, Bush still claims the invasion was justified because it overturned a potential threat. If that had been the only leg he was standing on before the invasion, the rest of the world would have opposed the attack even more strongly.
Certainly, a regime of terror was ended. An interim government has been established and Iraq is moving toward reconstruction. The international community should extend a hand to help rebuild the country.
However, it does not mean it is acceptable to obscure reasons for going to war. The war began based on perceived threats that turned out to be fabric"