Serious newspapers beganto advocate the occupation of Baghdad and a war crimes trial for Saddam

Serious newspapers beganto advocate the occupation of Baghdad and a war crimes trial for Saddam. And once that battle was over and Saddam was expelled from Kuwait, we were told by our leaders thatSaddam had been "defanged". Our smart bombs and guided missiles had destroyed his army, our Patriotmissiles had protected us from his Scuds - and at little cost to the Western alliance Then it turned out thatall this was untrue. But at least we never claimed then that he was capable of harming more than theMiddle East. So what madness is seizing Messrs Clinton and Blair today? After seven years of inspections - sevenyears, for heaven's sake - UN arms inspectors have not been able to find all of Saddam's weapons ofmass destruction. Yet according to the Impotence Association, which represents men with erectile dysfunction, the majority of cases are treatable. The Association survey of 432 sufferers and 194 partners was published two days before National Impotence Day, February 14, which coincides with Valentine's Day. At the same time a new non-injectible treatment for impotence was launched by London-based Astra Pharmaceuticals.

Police said he would not be officially named until he had been identified by next of kin.. Relationships are being destroyed by impotence, with more than 20 per cent of sufferers reporting a break-up because of the problem, a survey disclosed yesterday. "Self-regulation, since the demise of the Press Council, has worked only to protect the press against legislative incursion on its unacceptable activities It has not worked for the public Self-regulation will always protect the self.". THE PRIME Minister yesterday launched an pounds 8m advertising campaign to promote the Government's flagship New Deal for unemployed young people amid jibes that the potential "client group" was fast disappearing, writes Barrie Clement, Labour Editor. Tony Blair's clarion call to the business community to support the initiative came as unemployment figures showed that the number of jobless 18 to 24- year-olds stood at 118,000 compared with the Government's original target in 1995 of 250,000. David Willetts, Tory employment spokesman, said the number of young people out of work was falling towards 100,000."The Government is pressing on with its expensive pounds 8m advertising campaign for the New Deal when, in many parts of the country, employers will now have difficulty finding young people who have been unemployed for more than six months."Andrew Smith, the employment minister, argued, however, that unemployment remained high by historical standards.Mr Blair said: "This is nothing less than a crusade and one that brings together government, business and people in a common purpose because unemployment has wrecked the lives of too many young people for too long.".

And ifwe really are going to participate in this obscenity again, is it not possible to do so with the humility ofmen who know what we are doing?. And we are beating the old 1991 drums ofwar, our claims so preposterous that they bury the real viciousness of the real Saddam For war is notprimarily about victory or defeat It is about death It represents the total failure of the human spirit. It could offer a real peace in the Middle East, based on human rights, justice and a Palestinianhomeland. But no, like Dan Dare we prefer to do battle with monsters. It would be best to exterminate him ..." And last weekend, when I recalledthe 1991 war and its rhetoric to an American radio commentator, I heard the same weary response "Let'snot talk about the past, Bob. What do we do now?" Well, the world might, after all, demand that all Middle Eastern states apply all UN security councilresolutions - which include an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land as well as the disarming ofSaddam Hussein. It could insist that within five years, all weapons of mass destruction in the region - notjust Iraqi weapons but Syrian missiles and Israeli nuclear weapons and possible Iranian rockets - bedestroyed.

In The New York Times, William Safire hasbeen recommending "sustained bombing of all suspected weaponry sites, including palaces occupied bycivilians used as hostages", while in The Washington Post, Richard Cohen has been saying of Saddam:"He is not .. a mole but a rat. Thousands were dying of malnutrition and lack of medicine, a million if you believesome UN officials. Mass funerals for babies (70 in one cortege on the last count) made their way throughBaghdad. Propaganda for the odious Saddam, of course; but few thought the coffins were empty.

Andthen Saddam - shrewdly appreciating that America's craven surrender to Israel's settlement building hadconvinced Arab leaders that the "peace process" was a betrayal of the Palestinians - decided to ban the UNinspectors from his palaces. And what happened? Our masters informed us that Saddam was even worse than he was before we beathim the first time. One reason he did not dare use them was the weight of Arab power ranged against him. Until the kind of coalition created during the Gulf War can be recreated, gung-ho Anglo-American militarism is offensive.Worse still, it is going to be ineffective.. THE PROSPECT of a massive aerial assault on Iraq hardened further yesterday, as Britain and the United States rejected a new inspections offer from Baghdad, and the senior US military commander in the Middle East said that he would be ready to strike within a week.