Dave: what rubbish. the iraq war occured because of an agenda pursued by the bush admin. and cronies. the UN was used and abused in the process. as stated upthread, the reason they are not there now is that the US cannot (will not) secure the area. that is due to insane planning by the geniuses at defense OR to the fact that constant chaos allows the US to pursue its true purpose of building permanant bases and keeping a large military prescence in this key oil-producing area. which one do you think?