Last Wednesday, an Iraqi Airways Boeing 727 civilian airliner was climbing out from Basra, Iraq's southern port, when the ether crackled at 121.5 megahertz with an unmistakable American voice: "This is the United Nations [sic] no-fly zone enforcement patrol calling Iraqi airliner travelling at 21,000 feet proceeding at 400mph north-west from Basra. I warn you that you are subject to being fired upon - you continue to fly at your own risk."

Thus in the middle of a war against terrorism, falsely claiming a UN mandate - the "no-fly zones" are in fact imposed unilaterally by Britain and the US - an allied pilot was threatening 180 civilian passengers with airborne death. That would have created quite a desert storm.

I might not have believed this story if an Iraqi official had told me. But as chance would have it for the US pilot, I was on that flight, sitting in the cockpit with Captain Akram, who disdainfully ignored the warning. Also on the aircraft were Lord Naseer Ahmed, Britain's first Muslim peer, and the solidly Blairite MP Kerry Pollard.

Together with Sunday's incident in the Gulf, when a tanker carrying Iraqi oil sank after being boarded by US servicemen - with the loss of up to six people, including two Americans - the signs are that US policy towards Iraq is poised on a bayonet point. Bombing, argue the hawks roosting on the Potomac, has achieved two regime changes in a row, in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, without the loss of a single American in action. Time to go for the hat-trick in Iraq, they say, closing the unfinished business
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thanks to Ethel the Blog