I must agree with Bagpuss. The people of Iraq have suffered terribly over the last twenty-five years. They were cannon-fodder for Saddam's war against Iran, in which, according to Gabriel Kolko's study, 370,000 people died - 262,000 Iranians and 108,000 Iraqis (though the Iranians claim 800,000 dead). The Iraqi war effort was supported in large part by the United States, who had nothing to say when Saddam was launching chemical weapons assaults against Iran. Then the Kurds, who have repeatedly rebelled against Baghdad, seeking greater autonomy, suffered horrendous chemical attacks from Saddam's forces. Many Iraqi soldiers and civilians died in the second Gulf War, though casualty figures have never been firmly ascertained, in part due to Saddam keeping that information from the UN, as well as due to the news blackouts that then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney ordered, because he argued that there must not be a repeat of the "rogue news reports which were rife during the earlier Vietnam War," which eventually swayed public opinion against that conflict. Norman Solomon writes of this issue in his excellent Target Iraq - What the News Media Didn't Tell You. Many more die even today, due to disease and malnutrition (children and the elderly being most vulnerable). The water and electrical systems of Iraq were destroyed by allied bombs in 1991, and are still in extreme disrepair. Also, the effects of DU (depleted uranium) shells are having a deleterious effect upon the people of Iraq, (as well as the people of Kosovo and Serbia, who experienced NATO air attacks in 1999). The UN sanctions did not harm Saddam, but have continued to injure the civilians of Iraq. Both Saddam and the nations who have called for continued sanctions - principally the United States and the United Kingdom - have equal responsibility for the humanitarian crisis that exists in Iraq today. My only hope is that people of Iraq will be spared too much more suffering, as it seems that the war is now just hours away . . .