- the commitment of the Iraqi authorities, brokered by Kofi Annan, after the February and November crisis - crisis provoked by the non compliance with precedent UN resolutions - have not been maintained;

- international law, even if insufficient and inadequate in its mechanisms - allows the use of force for the implementation of UN Security Council's decisions on disarmament;

- the lack of Russian and Chinese will to implement decisions that they also sponsored on Iraqi disarmament goes against the very idea of the international rule of law (even if imperfect);

- the dangerous character of the Iraqi regime and its capacity of producing and use weapons of mass destruction is real and proved by precedents (the use of gas in the Iran-Iraq war or against Kurds), and by UNSCOM inspections, which have found facilities for the production of chemical and biological weapons;

- the dictatorial character of the Iraqi regime - of course not the only one in the world - ranks it among the most brutal of the planet;

- reported extrajudicial executions in Iraq have been over 1,500 in 1997, over 120 per month.