I wouldn't call the decision to go to war "shrill". Shrill is taking a news story, leaked by a UN organization just before the election (gee, no political agenda there) and running with it as absolute fact. Shrill is Al Gore on the campaign trail (has anyone seen him lately, thank God he wasn't elected). Shrill is a taking a "smoking gun" news story that was received on a fax and running it before checking it out just because you like the way it portrays a candidate in a bad light. Like it or not, the decision to go to war in Iraq was the culmination of years of intelligence (some of it bad), negotiations, and ignored sanctions, not a knee-jerk reaction to an anti US story leaked by the UN. As for the importance in this story, BIG DEAL. With the amount of munitions that existed in Iraq, it should not be a surprise that some of it ended up in the hands in insurgents. To me the story is who leaked it, and the way the different candidates reacted to it. Kerry jumped right on the bandwagon and blamed Bush, while, in effect, he was calling our armed forces incompetent in a time of war. Sounds awfully familiar to me. (Vietnam) It has reinforced my belief in who I want to have guiding this country for the next four years. jwm