Returning to the Iraq debate...

[darth vader]

... USA (well Bush to be precise, does he speak for the people of USA?) have announced that they will go into war alone if necessary, whether or not Britain follows. Is this the get-out clause the British are looking for? And should we now say no to war?

[smithers]

After 12 years of p:$$ing about letting maddas get away with murdering and torturing his own citizens and also developing more WOMD and generally taking the P out of the UN I think it's time to act rather than talk. Ultimately the only reason he is giving some minor concessions is because of the build up of UK and US forces on his doorstep. The sooner he is away the better and then we can get a middle east peace plan on the road.

[mikewith]

(All IMHO of course).

Isn't it good to know that Bush and Blair seem to be willing to ignore the wishes of the United Nations, in order to punish a country they find guilty of ignoring the wishes of the United Nations? Now if only someone could explain to me just how that will look in the history books... .assuming anyone survives to actually *write* the history of this conflict...

[darth vader]

Sorry Smithers but i can think of other countries who pose a far greater threat than Saddam and his 5 mile scuds, or who have far greater human rights problems (North Korea, China etc........)

[Dsg]

Given that significant progress on disarming Saddam has been made since 1441 (albeit encouraged by the presence of US and UK forces in the vicinity) is it not true to say that the argument for war is currently much weaker than previously ? Or am I being naive ?

[Dsg]

.... Sorry I meant to continue ..... Or is it that disarmament is not the real issue, GW just wants to kick ass and it doesn't really matter whose it is - is that what we want to put our country at risk for ?

[woodpam]

We might as well stay there and look fierce for a bit longer if it makes Iraq disarm its worst weapons - just as long as we don't actually fire at anyone. Unfortunately the US/UK bombing has already started in the no-fly zone so it's going to be difficult to stop and still maintain the pressure. I wish we had said no for many reasons, one of which is that with Iraq completely disarmed, peace in the middle east cannot happen because Iran is likely to attack Iraq and in any case the balance of power will have been destabilised in the region. We can either stay there indefinitely to keep the peace or let the worst happen. If the amount of oil Iraq has looks attractive to the US, you can bet Iraq's neighbours wouldn't mind trying to get at it. In the long term I don't know how we can say yes to war.

[DavidUK]

"...the French are just doing it to be ar$ehole$ and work it up the Americans" - you can't argue with that logic, can you?