Payback Is A Bitch- It doesn't take a weatherman to tell there's a bad wind blowing towards Baghdad. On 19 November, the United States accused Iraq, North Korea and four other countries of building germ-warfare arsenals. According to John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, "We are concerned that he (bin Laden) could have been trying to acquire a rudimentary biological weapons capability, possibly with support from a state". Bolton refused to say which government might be involved.

The same day, USA TODAY reported that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz headed up a group privately advocating that the still-elusive evidence linking Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime to the 11 September terrorist attacks was not necessary for America to launch a military strike.

On the 18th, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice left open the possibility that Iraq could become a target in Bush's war on terrorism. Besides Iraq, Pentagon officials are eyeing al-Qa'eda operations in Somalia, Sudan, and South America.- Adam Geibel