That's what I thought you meant Old Guy, but in what you wrote you seemed to be saying you thought it would be possible for the invading forces to avoid killing enormous numbers of civilians.

Now you must know perfectly well that people who are against the war do not admire Saddam Hussein, so why do you keep saying they do?

I don't suppose it is exactly an intentional lie - it seems to me it must be the same kind of thinking that Stalin and his cronies used when they accused people who were suspected of being opposed to his rule of, "objectively", being supporters of Hitler (that was in the days before he decided to cosy up to Hitler himself).

Essentially that is the logic that says "Since I believe that what you propose will lead to certain consequences, I am entitled to say that it is your wish that those things should happen". On which basis I would be entitled to say that Old Guy wants to see thousands of children burnt alive or blown to pieces. But I don't say that, because I know it would be a lie.

There seems to me, on the basis of the reports we heard on Friday from Blix and el-Baradei, that there is still a fair chance that the inspection process is going to ensure that there are no Weapons of Mass Destruction in the hands of Saddam. And neither of those men are taking about an open-ended process of inspection to stretch on for ever. Going ahead down this road, rather than starting a war with incalculable effects at this time, seems a pretty sensible thing to do.

So it will cost a lot of money and cause a lot of inconvenience to hold off on an assault for a few weeks or a fe months? So what, if there's a hope that there might not need to be any assault at all? It's only money.