ACTUALLY, THIS IS GETTING PRETTY EXCITING

France Russia and China are decidedly not cool with the US/British proposal of a March 17th deadline on Iraqi compliance w/1441.

This comes right on the heels of the revelation that documents used to show that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were faked.

I'm holding out hope that this war can be averted. I'm amused, though, at the mind games the Bushies are trying to play. Think about it: Their whole game so far has been to say that Saddam is evil and deceitful, etc. Then when they see that the inspections and disarmament efforts are taking time, they come out with all this shock and righteous indignation (the diplomatic equivalent of "well I never!") in saying Saddam is "not disarming, but deceiving". This attitude opens an interesting window to the sheer intellectual dishonesty of the entire campaign.

It doesn't matter though, no matter how much or little Saddam complies, the Bush administration will just move the goalposts.

Remember, as those first few thousand bombs rain down: Two of the most significant elements of America's "case" for war -- the content of Colin Powell's dossier at the UN a month ago, and the Niger uranium report -- were either plagiarized or absolute bullshit. But really, remember the Maine!