At the risk, and I appreciate it is a risk, of getting involved in flaming...

I would respectfully submit the following. Saddam would appear to be no more of a risk now than he was before. I appreciate that that's no argument for not doing anything.

However...

There can be no justification for attacking Iraq because there is a suspicion that the regime may possess WMD(s), and that it may have the intent of using them.. This is not appeasement.. You can use all the simple metaphors you like - comparing iraq to a wasps' nest, saying that Saddam is like a mad dog - these obscure the real truth. What is being proposed is that we declare war on a country which has not done anything that can be identified as an act of agression against either the US or the UK that would justify such a response. I'd suggest that the main reason for singling out Iraq as a target just now is that Osama bin Laden has proved resolutely difficult to hit. "We should have taken this guy out last time! Let's get him now..." .

Disarming Iraq is another matter. I am not so naive that I imagine that could be accomplished easily or without the use of force. Obviously should it be demonstrated that such capabilities exist in Iraq, they should be disabled... However difficult that may in the end, turn out to be.. but proof must come first.

I do not suggest that anything within the reports is a "lie". However, much of it is a matter of interpretation and projection of likelihoods. We know from bitter and recent experience that many of the agencies operating within the "Intelligence" communities get it wrong frequently and sometimes with tragic results. Just ask the Chinese embassy in Belgrade...

Remember that few of the people involved in preparing the dossier can afford to allow "the benefit of the doubt". Particularly since the events of the 11th September last year, no-one wants to be the one to say "I doubt if Iraq has any such capability" - just in case the events of the next hour or month prove them to have been wrong.

I can understand and sympathise with the impulse to control and neutralise the threat that is perceived from Iraq, and overall I think that the world as a whole will probably stand by and let the US/Airstrip One coalition do what it likes... this time.

What I find very troubling is the role in which the US and UK will find themselves should they decide to intervene unilaterally. This is not the Falklands, or Grenada, nor even Afghanistan.

What has been proposed is "pre-emptive" action. This is wrong. It cannot be justified. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. That action has been rightly regarded as an act of "infamy". What is the moral difference between the Japanese "first strike" on the US and any "first strike" against Iraq if it occurs without the support of the UN and the international community, and in the absence of clear and unarguable evidence that Iraq does possess these weapons?

If my "attempt" at humour earlier seemed flippant, it is simply that I resent the attempt by the PM of the UK to spin us into a course of action that may lead to many many long-term problems. For all of us.

Cheers

Steven