Couldn't agree with you more Richie. It's important to use language carefully, especially when we are communicating just through words.

But Old Guy, as I see it, those who are backing the inspectors to continue their work at this time are the ones who have much better claim to say they are supporting that last UN resolution. And those who are trying to jump start a war before the inspectors have had a chance to complete their task are the ones who are trying to frustrate it.

Saddam is a horrible ruler, and he was a horrible ruler at the time when he was being backed to the hilt by the US and UK governments. All the atrocities Old Guy rightly finds so terrible were happening back then, and nobody seemed to give a damn, except the same kind of peoiple youi find marching agains the war today. Donald Rumsfeld certainly didn't have any qualms about sitting down and arranging to help Saddam get weapons and money and backup for his biological and chemical production facilities.

That doesn't end the argument of course - there's a case for saying that if you have armed a murderer and employed him to carry out murders on your payroll, the least you owe to the world is to try to stop him continuing to kill. In fact, Clinton argued as much when he addressed the Labour Party Conference last autumn.

But people who have that kind of blood on their hands ought to be a bit cautious about laying down the law as to how their protegé ought to be dealt with, when the lives of enormous numbers of innocent people are on the lines. I just don't trust the likes of Donald Rumsfeld - or anyone who employs him for that matter.