Well done M.Ted, by all means don't address any of the points made, just attack the person making them. What's that called again??

But one point you have inadvertantly made M.Ted is this, while I am capable of arguing my corner and fully prepared to do so, those holding other views are not, and cannot.

Hey Bobert - Is this documented fact or not:

"This is a time of tremendous promise for America. The superpower confrontation has ended; on every continent democracy is securing for more and more people the basic freedoms we Americans have come to take for granted. Bit by bit the information age is chipping away at the barriers economic, political and social that once kept people locked in and freedom and prosperity locked out.

But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril, especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals.

We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.

And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us."

The speech is Clinton's, the date of that speech was 17th February, 1998.

Here's some other bits of it you might like, describing the loops the UN had been run round before, it goes part way to explain why the US was not going to buy it second time around:

"Remember, as a condition of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, the United Nations demanded not the United States the United Nations demanded, and Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within 15 days this is way back in 1991 within 15 days his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them, to make a total declaration. That's what he promised to do."

"Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment."

"The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons."

"Iraq must agree and soon, to free, full, unfettered access to these sites anywhere in the country. There can be no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the inspection system that UNSCOM has put in place.

Now those terms are nothing more or less than the essence of what he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War. The Security Council, many times since, has reiterated this standard. If he accepts them, force will not be necessary. If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences."

"Saddam Hussein's Iraq reminds us of what we learned in the 20th century and warns us of what we must know about the 21st. In this century, we learned through harsh experience that the only answer to aggression and illegal behavior is firmness, determination, and when necessary action.

"In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed."

Hey Bobert, want to look carefully at that last little snippet?? Remember the date 17th February 1998:

"...the very kind of threat Iraq poses now a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists"

I suppose now that you're going to tell us it was GWB who wrote the speech for his pal Bill Clinton.

A couple of things you cannot tell me Bobert is that:

1. He never said it

2. That it is not a matter of record that he said it.

It also backs up what I have said all along. Iraq was identified as posing a threat to the USA, her allies and her interests almost three years before the inauguration of George W. Bush as President of the United States of America. That threat was identified after extensive analyses and evaluation by the Intelligence and Security Agencies of the United States of America, not plucked out of thin air the moment George W. Bush came to office, and, considering the evidence, anyone holding to that latter rather idiotic point of view is frankly talkin' Sh*te.