Thanks for the tip Kevin.

Historically, I think the balance of considered action by the President and government of the United States of America, leans more towards my belief. America has had quite a number of Presidents, who during their terms of office have faced some daunting problems, domestically and internationally. Their ability to deal with those problems has varied throughout the years but in general they have tended to get things right more often than they have got things wrong. Why this current administration's ability should be doubted by so many American catters contributing to threads on this subject stems in part as a hang-over from their last Presidential Election.

Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, is viewed as a threat. The current American administration has succeeded in flagging that potential threat and ending a period of almost eleven years in which the United Nations, as an organisation has sat idly by. I have yet to hear from any of George Bush's voluable detractors one that will give him any credit for having accomplished that feat.

Now, should the inspections go ahead and a report issued that vindicates Iraq's claim that it does not pose a threat to the region - all well and good.

If on the other hand they do pose a threat, enhanced by undetected development of WMD, and nothing is done about it, as is advocated by many here. How long will it be before some world leader has to stand up before an assembly and repeat a modified version of these words:

"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, "This was their finest hour."

A bit over dramatic - well maybe - I'd hate to find out the hard way.