Jack - You say..."Iraq has violated the ceasefire many times, both by failing to disarm and by talking pot shots at allied aircraft."

My friend, what were those aircraft doing? They were bombing Iraqui territory. They have been doing so for quite some time with righteous zeal, and they dropped a cumulative total of about 20 million pounds of explosives on Iraq between Dec 98 and Sep 99! (this was not considered worthy of being called a "war" by the press, however...)

What friggin' country would NOT shoot at foreign aircraft under such conditions??? I sure as hell would have taken "pot shots" at them if I was Iraqui! You bet I would!

And what friggin' country would disarm itself under such conditions?

What ceasefire? Britain and the USA have been fighting a limited and undeclared war on Iraq ever since the Gulf War, by one means or another.

My God...!

They couldn't find Osama (who HAS attacked the USA), and they couldn't just stand around looking ineffectual before the American public and the world, so they they are going after Iraq instead, when Iraq has NOT attacked them, so they can look victorious and "in control" and at the same time can steal the 2nd largest oil reserves in the World from a crippled and impoverished country under a vicious dictator they once funded and armed so he could kill Iranians and Kurds for the USA.