Powell says there will be consequences for France's opposition to the war on Iraq. I'd suggest a huge "Merci" along with a "Nous sommes désolés." (We're sorry.) The administration seems to think that it is time to end the sanctions against Iraq. The sanctions were supposedly in place because the people ruling Iraq had used (apparently true, even supposedly on "their own people") and were thought to still possess (apparently false) so-called weapons of mass destruction. The current de facto rulers of Iraq are from a country which not only undoubtedly possesses huge quantities of WMD's, but has expressed a willingness to use nuclear weapons, by far the worst of the WMD's, against countries that don't have them. That country is the only one ever to have used nuclear weapons against people. That country has used chemical weapons, even "against its own people" (ask the thousands of Vietnam vets sickened by Agent Orange), and continues to use chemical weapons in the "war on drugs" in Colombia and "dirty bombs" made of depleted uranium in Afghanistan and Iraq. As US military bases are established in Iraq, it seems quite possible that there will be far more WMD's in Iraq in six months than there are now. It seems that if sanctions really worked against the proliferation of WMD's, now would be the time to tighten them, not remove them. (I'm not advocating continuing sanctions, just saying that there may be more justification for them now than there was three months ago.)