Well now Ebbie:

* Saddam's air space- and therefore his wiggle room - had been severely constrained for a long time. We had eyes all over Iraq.

No actually we didn't have, "eyes all over Iraq". At least not according to the good Dr Blix, that was precisely one of the things that he complained about - matter of record, you can read about it in his reports to the UNSC.

* Had we gone into Afghanistan to punish and capture the al Quaeda and to confine our activities within its borders we would in all likelihood be well along today in restoring the livability of the country. And we would have kept the respect of the world.

Sort of in the category "If my Aunt had balls she'd be my Uncle". Still leaves the question about how Saddam would have viewed Iran's nuclear programme. The situation in Afghanistan today would have been marginally better. As to the US "keeping" the respect of the world. A question for you, apart from a few places at very specific times and for extremely short durations, when did you ever think that the USA had the respect of the world? - Give you a clue - Apart from immediately after WW II in Europe, Never.

* It seems disingenuous for us to keep repeating that Saddam had ignored the UN's ruling when the UN itself saw no need to go into Iraq.

As pointed out by BB, the UN sees no need to anything, anywhere, anytime, given any set of circumstances. As an international organisation it has proved itself to be a complete and utter waste of space time, after time, after time.

* It is obvious that we wanted to go to war against Iraq- and therefore we did.

Only after careful evaluation based on the information available from the UN inspectors on the ground at the time - I am talking about 17th February, 1998.

Folkiedave:

It's a pity that you didn't also quote what Barry's contention was, i.e. "GTW, we are more likely to start a war of that scale that anyone else". Barry was stating that the US is more likely to start a Global Thermonuclear War than anyone else. That contention is baseless and is not borne out by history. During the period of the "Cold War" the USA had chances to do exactly that and did not take them. I will stand by what I have said regarding the US reliance on nuclear weapons as deterrants. Your link regarding the declassified documents from the Vietnam era tend to bear out US reluctance for "first-use".

I believe that there were verification inspections, by US and Soviet Officials, in place for both START and SALT.

This long list of countries invaded by the US, bearing in mind Little Hawks definition of "invasion", any examples dave, that were:
- Intervention not at the specific request of the government of the country involved;
- Intervention not as part of a United Nations Force
- Intervention at the request of the United Nations
- Intervention as part of a NATO Force