A WMD program is a threat only if it goes to completion

Now Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) is concluding that the CIA "and the rest of the intelligence community did a poor job of collecting information about the status of Iraq's weapons programs, and that analysts at the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies did an even worse job of writing reports that accurately reflected the information they had.” The intelligence community was convinced, in my opinion correctly, that Iraq had active WMD programs. These programs would not, however, constitute and immanent military threat until after the weapons were developed, tested, fielded and the Iraqi military had trained to use them. Just before the war, I wrote my Senators and congressman, saying that the government had failed to demonstrate that the Iraqi military had, and were prepared to use, WMD. Therefore, I suggested that there was no immanent military threat. Justifications for the war were misleading as a result of this failure. (Delivering small quantities of chemical or biological agents to a terrorist organization is another question.) My February 3rd letter to the Washington Post made the same point. Maybe the SSCI is getting around to asking the right question about intelligence failures.

Under the Just War doctrine: Can a preemptive attack against an immanent threat be a last resort?
Only if the threat is severe - and if the evidence for an immanent threat is highly convincing.