The thing is, every paper I read - and that includes the right wing ones - seems to take it as read that it is virtually certain that Bush is going to attack Iraq as soon as he has the forces in place to do so, regardless of what the evidence produced by the UN inspectors may say.

Whether the paper in question is in favour of war or against war, they all seem to agree on that.

Well, maybe they are wrong. Papers do get it wrong. I hope so. But to shrug it all off as idle gossip is a bit difficult.

There doesn't really seem any way out. If weapons are found, it means a material breach of the requirements, and the war starts. On the other hand, if no weapons are found, it means they are too well concealed, and that's a material breach as well, and the war starts. Catch 22.

"Infamy, Infamy, they've all got it in for me." It was Kenneth Williams said that as Julius Caesar. Maybe it could just as well have been George Bush.

When a big country goes to war against a small country it's generally because the head of the big country sees this as a way of avoiding some domestic problem, and gaining some kind of resource overseas. And it normally gets presented as an act of justified self defence.

Sooner or later the historians tend to sort out the truth, a good many years later. When it's too late really to make any difference.