I was going to put this in the anti-war thread, but really it deserves a thread of its own:

"We continue to favour the reintroduction of the inspectors and we are supporting them as much as we can," said the US Under-Secretary of State, who is Washington's arms control expert. "But...our policy at the same time insists on regime change in Baghdad. That policy will not be altered whether the inspectors go in or not," Mr Bolton added. — From the BBC website.

Talk about having your cake and eating it.

Scott Ritter, who led one of the earlier inspection teams, is telling public meetings that Iraq's military capability is now little better than zero. What dose he base this on? Well contrary to popular wisdom, only about half a dozen inspections out of several hundred were interfered with by Saddam - and those were just delayed, not thwarted. Why does Ritter say it? My guess is, because he believes it's true. I can't think of a single reason why he would want to do Saddam any favours.

Such opinions, and the complete lack of evidence about WMDs (which plenty other countries have anyway) suggest that this bird won't fly.

Which must be why the US line keeps peddling the myth about an axis between Saddam and Bin Laden. Can there be anyone who seriously believes this? Saddam, again cotrary to some popular misconceptions, has no truck with muslim fundamentalism; moreover he was spawned by Saudi Arabia which bears Iraq enough emnity to have played a crucial role in Desert Storm. (According to the BBC, Washington's threatened hostility against Iraq has actually succeeded in uniting Iran and Saudi Arabia against such action.)

If Washington does plough in and destabilise the region, against the advice of even its friends, and the result is to provoke a few more 9/11s, I would have no qualms about saying the Bush administration had reaped what it sowed.