Thanks Teribus. I don't know aobut all those organisations, but I do know that the Abu Nidal faction (aka Black September) moved out of IRaq more than 20 years ago, having ben there from when it split with the PLO in the mid-70s. (In those days Iraq was a valued trading partner of the west of course.) The MKO which helped secure the downfall of the Shah's regime and now opposes excessive clericalism in Iran, has been virtually moribund in terms of violence/terrorism since the 1980s. It is concerned largely with propaganda and street demos. I'm suprised if there was any significant link between PKK and Saddam given the mutual hostility between them.

None of this adds up to case for invading Iraq in response to 9/11. And neither does the feeble last paragraph of your 7.12am post above. The view that the UN process had "foundered completely" was a unilateral opinion on a matter that should have been decided by the UN. It is preposterous that until a fortnight ago Bush and Blair were pleading for more time for the survey group, when they had refused a similar request from Blix and Co. Did they have to invade the place to discover that Iraq is "as big as France"?