Whether there was going to be a war or not, rested entirely with Saddam. Everybody fully believed the contents of UNSCOM Report of January 1999 and believed that Saddam had not destroyed his remaining WMD and stocks of WMD agents, that was why Resolution 1441 got the support it did.

Saddam's major trading partners, Russia, France, China along with Germany were, I believe, culpable because they convinced Saddam that, with their active diplomatic support, he could hold out for a second time against the UN's inspectors. They told him that sanctions would soon be lifted, they told him that the US and the UK would not act. They were wrong, sorely wrong, in the wake of 911 and taking into consideration the threat evaluation arrived at three years before in 1998, so clearly outlined and expressed by Bill Clinton, the one thing that Saddam should have realised and banked on was that the United States of America would act. He was given every opportunity to avoid conflict but chose to ignore them all.

"I'm afraid in the real world, the blind and limbless children come very far down the list of priorities Capitalism minds only the rich and powerful." - Akenaton

Your biased and bigotted view is noted. What you say might be true, but democracy based on a capitalist economy also provides hope and the opportunity for betterment. Communism and a State controlled economy serves those you mention even less.

While the "anti-American", "anti-west", lobby have ranted on about the hundreds of thousands of lives US interference has cost since the end of the Second World War, they are oddly silent about the tens of millions killed by Communist regimes in the same period.

If you take a look at the advances made since the Reform Act was passed in the UK in 1832 you will see a constant and steady improvement in the general lot of the population across the board. That was all based on a capitalist economy. On the other hand take a look at the lot of those over the same period who had to endure the experience of living under the communist regimes so admired by the likes of Akenaton. Total State control on every aspect of life leading to stagnation, despair, misery and despondency.

Akenaton might challenge that but I cannot recall many dying in their hundreds to escape to experience life under those communist regimes, the reverse cannot be said, their memorials in Berlin stand testament to that, the pictures of the orphanages in Romania stand testament to how caring communist regimes can be, the fate of Chinese villagers currently being cleared from their homes in Beijing to make way for the Olympics stand testament to that.

In the recent Tsunami I noted that the usual leftist, anti-American lot were silent. Perhaps Akenaton can explain to us where the Russian and Chinese helicopters were when it came to mustering the aid effort. How much did those countries contribute to the disaster relief? Since it fell into the hands of Communist overlords Russia, with all its vast wealth, with all its rich land, never once managed to feed it's population. It had to rely on massive amounts of aid from - guess where - America, a democratic country based on a capitalist economy.

Now that democratic system based on a capitalist economy may well not be perfect, but it is better than the alternative, and currently the best we have.