Offline: Iraq—the prelude to a global war

"US military officials are expecting that Iraq will use chemical and biological weapons against US and allied forces in the event of war", wrote our American correspondent, Michael McCarthy, on Feb 22, 2003. He reported on preparations by US forces, which seem surreal now, to protect troops in Iraq from nerve agents, anthrax, botulinum toxin, and even smallpox. Just a few weeks earlier, 500 public health scientists from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine had written an open letter to then Prime Minister Tony Blair on the consequences of a war in Iraq.