ABSTRACT
Introduction Writing with the benefit of hindsight, more than four years after the 9/11 attacks and three years after the start of the Iraq War, it is easy to forget the views expressed on the probability of war in the period between 9/11 and March 2003. The issue of Iraq did rise up the political agenda in the immediate aftermath of the termination of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001 and the State of the Union Address in January 2002, but the majority opinion among international relations analysts, right up to the end of 2002, was that a war with Iraq was unlikely. With the taking of the issue to the United Nations there was a presumption that a diplomatic solution was probable and that the UNMOVIC inspection process would provide sufficient assurance to make war unnecessary. This was a view maintained by many analysts, and stressed by politicians such as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, even as the military forces were being put in place in the region. Indeed there was a strong view that the very preparations for war would make it more likely that the Saddam Hussein regime would acquiesce to the demands being made by the Bush administration.
