Why can't we tell? US has a world-wide network of early warning radars and satellites specifically built for this purpose during cold war. Various allied countries have their own networks too, and would warn US.
Iraq never had ICBMs and no-one ever claimed that they do.
I am not seeing a plausible scenario of 'unnoticed incoming ICBM' on US.
"try and penetrate serious air defenses with conventional aircraft, or use an ICBM"
US has bombed Iraq (and many other contries) multiple times by then with minimal losses. I am struggling to see how nuclear holocaust was an appealing option.
Increadible thing do sometimes happen, so I would be interested in there is an article explaining the events or this line of thinking.
Lack of ICBM’s was assumed, but on the moment when your early warning system goes down while your preparing for an invasion it’s hard to stay rational.
The plausible scenario as to why the warning system went down is ARPA net was designed to keep military computers in contact through a nuclear attack. ARPA net became the internet but before SIPERnet and so it was still being used to keep those critical systems in contact. Hackers compromised those systems, because the military was using the same sendmail software as everyone else.
Now for us looking backwards it’s like wait what about computer security, but it largely didn’t exist back then.
Given that you can't refer anyone to anything written, this whole story defies logic and smells of a dead possum.
It’s that moment the options are to successfully hack the machine, do nothing and hope no physical attack is incoming, try and penetrate serious air defenses with conventional aircraft, or use an ICBM. I don’t mean to suggest people where requesting authorization from the president for a nuclear strike, just that it was considered which is a serious escalation for a cyber attack.
As to the articles, you will note Iraq is mentioned many times by military officials even the attacks originated from teens in the US and Israel. Some of that’s timing, but the other part is as I said the machine happened to be located in Baghdad. Also, the press briefing before they arrested the teens shows just how serious this was being taken. It really wasn’t business as usual.