Surely the problem though is that by going into Iraq unilaterally (and let's have no crap about "the Coalition of the Willing", the only two willing people in my country were Tony Blair and Michael Howard) the US has effectively emasculated the UN. I saw some of Bush's speech to the UN and it obviously left them rather bemused. What he should have said is along the lines of the following:

"We went in on our own with no sanction from you. We've fucked it up and the Iraqis don't want us there. Can you come in and provide humanitarian assistance and some legitimacy as amazingly they don't trust us! It might have something to do with the piffling trifle that we've killed 9000 of them, and furthermore that pictures have been published worldwide of our troops forcing Iraqi prisoners to bugger and fellate each other. It may have something to do with the fact that although this is ostensibly a war of liberation, Iraq is paying for the cost of its own occupation by having its oil reserves siphoned off to companies owned by my mates (or "contractors", as I like to call them). It might be a variety of things, but we're up Shit Creek without a paddle, or compass, or canoe. I have to admit, I don't know what I'm doing and neither does anyone else on my team. HELP!"

PS - As regards the hostage situation, it's truly horrific. I sincerely hope that the captors display some common humanity and let the remaining bloke go. Common humanity, hoever, appears to be something lacking on both sides in Iraq at the minute.