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25 February 2003: "Iraq's al-Samoud II"

So it's official: Saddam set to defy missile ban
Well, no surprises there. Going by the usual pattern, Saddam will hold out and refuse to comply until a couple of days after the March 1st deadline to destroy the cursed things passes, and then—right when it looks like the US and UK have the case for non-compliance sewn up—magnanimously offer to get rid of a number of them (probably faulty prototypes). And once again, the nay-sayers to war in the UNSC will cry "Inspections are working!" conveniently ignoring the fact that Saddam ignored the deadline and didn't get rid of the lot. Saddam will, as always, do too little, too late, but it's more than nothing (only just) so it's "progress." Whoop-de-fucking-doo. The unhappy seven-year career of UNSCOM revisited.

No member of the UNSC is this stupid—there's a lot of bad faith going on here.

Frankly, it's getting to the point that I find myself wishing the US and UK would just push forward and launch the invasion of Iraq. If that jeopardises the role of the Security Council, well ainsi soit-il. I reckon the Security Council is worth saving, but right now it's not the responsibility of the US and UK to do so.
I say, launch the invasion already; if the Russian, Chinese, German and especially the French governments want to save the UNSC, they'll have to make it worth saving. The bastards have jeopardised it by being obstructionist to protect their filthy oil deals with Saddam—or in the case of Germany's Schroeder government, to avoid breaking the one election promise it hadn't broken already—and they should bear the burden of salvaging the blue flag.

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