Robert Fisk: President Bush wants war, not justice - and he'll soon find another excuse for it
Saddam Hussein's own cynicism - for he could have given UN inspectors free rein years ago - will be matched by Mr Bush

You've got to hand it to Saddam. In one brisk, neat letter to Kofi Annan, he pulled the rug from right under George Bush's feet. There was the American president last week, playing the role of multilateralist, warning the world that Iraq had one last chance – through the UN – to avoid Armageddon. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace," he told us all in the General Assembly, "it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material." And that, of course, is the point. Saddam would do everything he could to avoid war. President Bush was doing everything he could to avoid peace. And now the Iraqi regime has put the Americans into a corner. The arms inspectors are welcome back in Iraq. No conditions. Just as the Americans asked. [read more]

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US could strike in 3 weeks, some analysts say

US forces in the Persian Gulf could be ready to attack Iraq in as little as three weeks, armed with a prepositioned arsenal bolstered in recent weeks by a stealthy series of logistical movements, according to military analysts. [read more]

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Lemon Fizzes on the Banks of the Euphrates

The trap is sprung. The name of the game is containment.

Contain the wild man, the leader with the messianic and relentless glint who is scaring the world.

Surround him, throw Lilliputian nets on him, tie him up with a lot of U.N. inspection demands, humor him long enough to stop him from using his weapons and blowing up the Middle East.

But this time, the object of the containment strategy is not Saddam Hussein, but George W. Bush, the president with real bombs, not the predator with plans to make them. [read more]