How on earth can anyone propose a solution to your scenario in which anything that can go wrong has gone wrong? "Five years to extinguish Iraqi oil wells"? Ian, it only took Red "whats-his-name" and his boys from Texas a few months to extinguish the wells in Kuwait. I believe Iraq has less wells but I could be wrong.

Anywho, instead of proposing a debate after "Murphy's Law" has been applied in Iraq, how 'bout we start at the same time of Kevin G's earlier proposal; two years before your vision of the apocolypse?

I'd like to start but I too believe we should wait for the inspectors to find an indisputable "smoking gun" so all of the UN Security Council and most of the other middle eastern countries feel it's time to act. If we go in alone and remove SH and his cronies, we will have to remain in Iraq alone as an occupying force (and a hated one at that) until the new regime has assumed control of the country and order has been restored. UN support means all nations within the UN would assist in maintaining order. This proposal means less American casualites, less hostility from Iraqi's, less hostility from the UN, less hostility from Iraq's neighbors and, well, from just about everyone.

I'm all for going but I don't want to go alone.