Translated: If the UN dithers, the US will go ahead anyway.The evidence: “From intelligence sources we know thousands of Iraqi security personnel are hiding documents and materials, sanitising inspection sites, and monitoring the inspectors themselves.”But Mr Bush indirectly acknowledged the central weakness of his case: his failure to show beyond doubt that Iraq still possesses banned weapons, and that – even if it does have them – they constitute an immediate threat to anyone, let alone America, 6,000 miles away.The best way would be conclusive proof of links between Iraq and al-Qa’ida, something the administration has not managed yet, despite strenuous efforts. Many countries, he declared, were ready to join a coalition, but, “the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others”. In fact, Mr Bush’s words were those of a power whose goal is no longer disarmament, but regime change.He served notice too that America will act alone on a mission of “liberation”, if it must. The onus was on him to do that.The inspectors were not conducting a “scavenger hunt” across a country the size of California, but trying to verify if the Iraqi regime was disarming.

Technically, it is possible that President Saddam Hussein can avoid conflict, even at a few minutes to midnight, by handing over everything he has. Which leaves …IRAQ”The day Saddam and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.”That sentence, addressed to the Iraqi people, was among many underscoring that the US is on the brink of war. In fact, that is happening, as he reiterated his strategy of peaceful diplomatic solution. America, Mr Bush proclaimed, “will not be blackmailed by the Pyongyang regime”.

Mr Bush made clear America has no designs against Iran, pinning his faith in the democratic, secular forces in that country (“The United States supports their aspiration to live in freedom”).North Korea also need not fear US invasion. The implication is that the main security agencies are not working as smoothly together as they should.THE THREAT FROM THE ‘AXIS OF EVIL’”The gravest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.”In his 2002 State of the Union, the President first identified the “axis of evil” The treatment of its three members is rather different. However, from the new issue of West Ham’s official magazine, Hammers News, we learn that what is described as the most famous building in Barking, the three-bedroom end-of-terrace house in Waverley Gardens where Mooro was born, is being sold and the prospective new owner, obviously a Hammers fan, suggests that the Football Association should put a memorial plaque on the property. When Adam Crozier was around there was talk of a statue at the new Wembley but that idea seems to have gone rather quiet. Just back from Athens is Sebastian Coe, who reports that work on next year’s Games is now some three months ahead of schedule since the redoubtable Mrs Gianna Angelopoulos got the whip out.Time the FA gave Moore’s memory house roomIt will be 10 years this month since Bobby Moore died at the age of 51 and there is still no proper memorial to the man who led England to World Cup triumph in 1966. It was 6 June when the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, advised Nato in Brussels that Nato could no longer wait for “absolute proof” of such possession before taking action. It was 1 June when the President announced, in an address at West Point [America's Sandhurst], that the US military would henceforth act not defensively but pre-emptively against terrorists and hostile states in possession of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.