>>Here's one reference that does it for me "The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world." and here's another "The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world. Let me now turn to those deadly weapons programs and describe why they are real and present dangers to the region and to the world.".
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>The administration saw this threat as dangerous, definitely, but not imminent. I am arguing about the use of the word imminent because it was reported that Bush had said this, when in fact he had not. SNIP

Sorry Chris. Let's agree that President never uttered the word "imminent" as regards the threat of Saddam's WMDs to the U.S. and the world.
There are numerous times that the Administration, including the President himself, used words that easily translate, in a thesaurus sense, to "imminent". I think the phrase above by Secretary Powell of "...real and present danger..." is one such case. It is by no means a stretch for, for instance, a headline writer to write "Threat imminent Bush argues". People do that with words. To argue an exact word when quotation marks were not used (by me at least) is reminiscent of the tactics of another who frequents this otherwise amiable place < s >

cheers