As I said, it's a choice as to whether to believe Bush's people were sincere or faking, and I can't envisage any way of settling that one way or the other. It seems pretty evident to me, as it did to the Governments of countries which dug their heels in on this point, that, if 1441 had included an automatic move to war if Saddam was not complying (in the view of individual member states), that would have been taken as authorisation for war, whatever happened, short of Saddam packing his bags and departing with all his mates.

So instead there was a resolution which left it up to the Security Council to decide whether and when to move to war. In the light of the evidence, as presented to them by Hans Blix and Co, the Security Council was not in agreement with doing that.

It wasn't just France, nor just France and Russia and Germany. It appears that the USA and the UK couldn't manage to drum up a majority of the members - otherwise why wasn't the resolution put to a vote? (The other suggested explanation for that not happening is that there was legal advice that, if it was put and failed to pass, than the legal figleaf of 1441 would have been removed. This would have meant that it would have been impossible for even the British Attorney General to find a way of avoiding telling Tony Blair that the war was illegal.)

I don't think any of this amde any significant difference to the war starting, or to the date on which it started.