Question: More time for what? We already know what will happen.

Either the inspectors will catch the Iraqis with contraband material, in which case everyone will say this proves inspections work, without the need for war. Or they will fail to discover the media's beloved "smoking gun," in which case everyone will say this proves Iraq has no such weapons -- again, no need for war. We know, because this is what has happened over the last two months.

If regardless of what the inspectors find or do not find, the same conclusion is reached -- if the only possible outcome of the inspections is to "prove" the case against military action -- then what do we need another two months for? Let us just admit the inspections serve no purpose but to provide a convenient out for those who are opposed to war with Iraq under any circumstances, a pretext for delay, an illusion of enforcement. And then let those who are prepared to do what has to be done about Iraq get on with it.

The inspections were doomed to failure, not because of any lapse in execution, but because they were flawed from conception -- indeed, one might almost say by design. It isn't only the practical absurdity of sending a few dozen inspectors to comb through a country the size of California. The whole premise of the exercise was false. Those who insist the UN must discover "proof" that Saddam Hussein has stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, or that he is scheming to develop nuclear weapons, seem to believe they are watching an episode of Law & Order -- that Saddam is a suspect who has been hauled in for questioning, entitled to the full range of due process rights: the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, the right to remain silent, and so on.

But Saddam is not a citizen suspected of a crime. He is the defeated party in a war, a war that he started, a war that was concluded not with a peace treaty, but with a ceasefire. In return for the allies' agreement to spare his regime from annihilation, Saddam agreed to a number of conditions. Among these were promises to destroy his existing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons -- similar to those he had used in previous conflicts -- to lay off producing new ones, and to desist in his attempts to develop nuclear weapons.

As the long list of subsequent Security Council resolutions makes clear, he lived up to none of these. Though UN inspectors spent many years attempting to verify compliance, harassed and obstructed all the way, they were forced to leave in 1998 with many questions left unanswered.

Among these were the whereabouts of some 360 tonnes of chemical weapons, plus up to 3,000 tonnes of the chemicals used to make these weapons; the raw material for more than 25,000 litres of anthrax spores; and more than 30,000 ballistic missile shells used to deliver these weapons.

None of this is in dispute. The evidence is all in the public domain, including the inspectors' last report to the Security Council, in January, 1999. Yet for years nothing was done about it, until at last President Bush, in his Sept. 12 speech to the General Assembly, challenged the UN to enforce its own resolutions. After lengthy negotiations with the likes of Russia and France, Iraq's most reliable suppliers of arms and investment, that produced Resolution 1441, approved by a unanimous vote of the Security Council on Nov. 8.

The resolution is clear and unambiguous, not only demanding that Iraq live up to its previous undertakings, but that it provide "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted" access to the UN inspectors. Yet again it has not done so. In addition to its failure to provide the required "currently accurate, full and complete declaration" of its weapons programs, it has blocked inspectors from interviewing Iraqi scientists in private, secreted official documents in private homes, prevented overflights by reconnaissance aircraft, and much else besides -- to say nothing of those undeclared chemical weapons shells. Again, none of this is in dispute.

Yet if Iraq were truly blameless, none of this would be going on. If it had destroyed its chemical and biological arsenals, you'd think it would be eager to show the inspectors just how and where it had done so, not dogging their every step. The regime and its apologists complain of the injustice of being asked to "prove a negative." But Iraq has not been plying the inspectors with evidence, only to have it rejected as insufficient. It has been doing everything it could to prevent the inspectors from gathering evidence in the first place.

Is this the behaviour of a government with nothing to hide? If not, then what is the point of continuing with this charade? More time for what?