[Cacophonous]

So why didn't the President say it was an imminent threat?

[Sci Fi Guy]

So why didn't the President say it was an imminent threat?

maybe because it wasn't? Remember our goal was to stop saddam before he could nuke our troops or Israel, or pass along chem/boi weapons to his terrorist supporters.

[VOA]

So why didn't the President say it was an imminent threat?

My inexpert guess is because Dubya was playing it safe.
He's watched enough Republicans get slit due to a a paper trail.

Besides, Dubya may have decided that Saddam's threat was only about as "imminent" as
maybe the couple of hours (to maybe a week) it would take for some chem/bio WMD to be
synthesized and deployed, as per the scenario Kenneth Pollack made before
Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched. And this would also fit with
what inspector David Kay has found so far.