BB:

Re the FAS "Iraq Missiles" page you quoted, here's what it said at the bottom:

Updated Monday, November 02, 1998 9:36:21 AM

BTW, thanks for the confirmation that the U.S. was quite 'provocative' in their "no-fly" missions. You know, "no-fly" means (or was supposed to mean) that Saddam didn't use his helicopters to go after Shia or Kurds. So enforcing the "no-fly" zone should have been shooting down any errant helos in the "no-fly" zone (of which there were none). Instead, it was dumping an incredible amount of ordnance on the central portions of Iraq.

As I pointed out, the U.S. was trying to provoke hostilities (if not just simply engaging in this themselves). To try and paint this as an Iraqi violation of the cease-fire terms (and thus that a "state of war" existed) is pretty d*** absurd. I'm surprised you'd even try such a transparently ridiculous ploy.

What part of " Recalling that in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein," is so hard to understand?

What part of "some folks think that 2000 U.S. soldiers and countless Iraqis dead is a fair price to pay to tell someone that you think they're (arguably) in technical violation of some terms of a cease-fire" don't you understand?

Do you really think that alleged technical violations far short of actual acts armed aggression or even the realistic threat of such is a good reason to actually engage in such armed aggression yourself? That's rather curious logic, in my book, and if I might add, leads to rather untoward turns of events in the long run....

Cheers,