BB: Just trying to show how stoopid your "prove beyond doubt" is. (OBTW, that little manoeuvre of yours is also called "moving the goalposts"). You see, BB, that the FSM (not the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the other FSM) wasn't under sanctions in no way makes them any the less dangerous for having WoMD. If there's the least possibility that that they have such, then even if they aren't inclined to skin your children alive and infect your wife with pustulent anthrax today, who knows what the morrow may bring, eh? Maybe they'll be bothered by Dubya's inflection in his latest speech of historical revisionism, or just get annoyed at the next seasons episodes of "Desperate Housewives", and suddenly want to kill us all. Or they may get invaded by terra-ists who appropriate all these WoMD. You see, the potential is there, and aren't the consequences of a mistake too horrible to contemplate?

Then there's the equally stoopid notion that the only proper action in response to such hallicinatory paranoia is to go to war. In fact, quite a range of responses do present themselves to those that look rationally ... and in fact, a majority of the U.N. Security Council (so beloved by quote-mining RW apologists) thought that, given the absence of any significant findings on the ground whatsoever (and, hopefully, a growing realisation that the "intelligence" that the U.S. had trumpeted so forcefully and unequivocally was "garbage, garbage, and more garbage"), a more rational course was to let the inspections continue, and then re-evaluate what courses were prudent.

At this point, I see that a majority of the U.S. people (as well as vast majorities around the world) see that the invasion was unjustified, hasty, enormously costly in human lives, and in the end, in fact, quite counter-productive. Summing up, just a damn pi$$-poor idea, the kind that makes you think, "what were those guys smoking?"....

No escaping that, BB. You will maintain your honour and dignity a bit better if you accept that now, rather than later when your intransigence is seen more as stubbornness and obstinate and deliberate ignorance, rather than just a case of getting fooled by those that you thought were honourable men.....

[Arne]: "Saddam was complying."

BB: Not according to the UN, who declared him in NON-compliance with 1441 on the deadline date.

Balderdash. And despite Dubya's promise to actualy seek a UNSC show of hands (even if he wouldn't succeed in getting the approval of the Council), he saw that it would be a political embarrassment for him because he wouldn't even get a majority of the Council, and so he decided to break that promise and go it alone (with ramifications down the line that have been quite untoward....).

Cheers,