has there actually been any evidence of WMD...

[darth vader]

...other than 6 casing shells left over from the last batch of WMD destructions, a barrel of fertilizer (found on a farm - totally dubious IMHO), and an aerial/satellite photograph of a 'dodgy looking lorry parked outside a factory'?

[mikewith]

All IMHO... no. Nothing at all. Which may account for the war becoming a campaign to liberate the oppressed Iraqis, rather than a campaign to seek and destroy WMD. Which - despite all those lovely pictures of happy locals - has nothing to do with UN Resolution 1441, as far as I can tell.

It's a very great thing that Saddam's evil and murderous regime is at an end but I still don't buy the motives behind the War. If they were as pure as Our Great Leaders would have us believe -- why did they wait so long? Why did neither Bush nor Blair mention Iraq in their elections of 2000 and 2001? Why did they pick Iraq ahead of still more culpable regimes? (I'm sure ned flanders has the answers - I'd love to see them!)

[blackfive]

Very early in the lead up to the troops going in there were media reports of some ships suspiciously sailing round in circles in the Indian Ocean. Nothing has been mentioned of them since (in Oz media anyway) - has anyone heard any updates on them?

[mikewith]

ned - ery faair of you and I'm sure we'll all be bookmarking this page just in case... but I wonder, would Tony Bush and George Blair be men enough to admit they were wrong too? Or will they be too busy "liberating" Syria... or Jordan... or Belgium...?!

[WaldoMcFroog]

Funny you should mention Syria, Mike. The US have just accused the Syrians of having concealed chemical missiles.

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Ned, since you've been pretty vocally pro-war, how would you feel if the US decided to invade Syria on the basis of them allegedly having WMD? Would you feel that they were taking the urine, or would you feel that it was a necessary step? If they then also suddenly started citing human rights abuses in Syria as another reason, would it make it okay, all of a sudden?

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Not picking you out for the purposes of castigation, merely to get an opinion. I'm not expecting you to backtrack on your existing position, but how would you feel? And to anyone else - of course! ;-)

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BTW, the Syrian spokesperson said, entirely correctly, ' Of course there are WMD in the Middle East. They're in Isreal.'