As the 7th day of December wanes and UNMOVIC prepares to read 12,000 pages and Mr Bush's Administration readies their rebuttals to whatever happens to be disclosed, it seems an appropriate moment to remember that old general Clausewitz.
His classic, worth re-reading every time we put young men and women on the sharp blade's edge of political policy, suggests quite early in the text that "The Aim is to Disarm the Enemy" (On War, Book I, Chapter I, Section 4).
The armchair strategists, the bloodthirsty and the threatened, the sincerely committed and the cautious, should be reminded that Weapons Inspection (and the destruction of any found), therefore, is the moral equivalent of war.
Posted by Martial