"Iraq has oil, China does not." So, Doug, this is really all about a cynical use of the terrible events of September 11 as a way of getting hold of another country's resources and making a lot of money for the people in the oil business?

That's a degree of cynicism about the people in control of the USA government that takes my breath away a bit; though looking back over the decades maybe its right after all. So often it has turned out that what seemed like paranoid fanbtasies about that kind of thing have been the truth, or have even fallen short of the full truth.

But then you suggest that "GWB is trying to PREVENT a "few thousand, maybe a million civilian lives (being killed)". And that suggests a completely different and rather less cynical explanation, and what's the fact that Iraq has more oil than China got to do with that?

I've still to hear any serious evidence that Iraq is any more of a danger to the rest of the world than a number of other states, including some with good relations with teh USA.