So now Resolution 1441 wasn't much cop because it had been amended so that it didn't actually authorise war - but it still did authorise war anyway.

The UN is only as strong as it is allowed to be by its members. It can be weakened two ways - by its members withholding resources and support, and by members acting in breach of the UN Charter. The massacres in Rwanda happened because member states refused to provide the resources required. The war in Iraq was carried out in a way that involved breaches of the United Nations Charter by some of its leading members.

There were good reasons to delay the rush to war in March last year. The British contingent, for example, was woefully under equipped, and would have needed several months more to be properly prepared.

The only reason for rushing into war last March, was the political timetable of Bush. Unless of course there was another reason - that it was feared that further work by Blix would reveal that there were no Weapons Of Mass Destruction.