nce is that while the war against Iraq is getting increasingly closer to reality, the reasons for the planned US attack still remain phony.

In the movie, Robert de Nero plays the role of a conniving White House political consultant who hires an eccentric Hollywood producer, played by Dustin Hoffman, to deceive the American public and justify a war in a fictionalised Armenia.

The speculation in the US is that the impending attack on Iraq is being timed to coincide with the upcoming November 5 nation-wide elections where President George Bush's ruling Republican Party is seeking to gain more seats in Congress.

The Bush administration is obviously trying to shift public attention - from ongoing corporate scandals and a spreading economic recession - to a new war against an enemy, which had no links to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
In the process, it is exploiting a terrible human and national tragedy for domestic political gains.

Skipping the dog days of August summer - when virtually every political hot-shot in Washington is on vacation - the Bush administration scrupulously moved its war rhetoric into high gear only in early September.

Andrew Card Jr., the White House Chief of Staff, was blunt: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

The coming weeks will, therefore, see the escalation of the anti-Iraq campaign while the White House seeks Congressional authorisation to wage war on Baghdad.

Last week's angry White House denial may well reflect the existence of a hidden domestic political agenda in the proposed attack on Iraq.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was furious. "Even the suggestion that the timing of something so serious (as a military attack on Iraq) could be done for political reasons is reprehensible," he said.

An unnamed White House aide was quoted as saying that the idea that it's beneficial to ask fathers and mothers to put their sons and daughters in harm's way before an election is absurd.

Still, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's dramatic turnaround in permitting UN arms inspectors to return to Baghdad has not swayed the US away from war.

Meanwhile, the surprise decision by the Iraqis may have driven a wedge between the US and Russia. The US also feels that its intense campaign for a military attack on Baghdad has been undermined by Iraq's decision to open up the country for arms inspections.
At a UN news conference last week, the two veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council were at loggerheads over how the Security Council should respond to the Iraqi move.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov expressed divergent views on the prospect of resuming UN arms inspections inside Iraq.

Powell insisted on a new Security Council resolution imposing "tough standards and tough conditions" just to make sure that Iraq delivers on its promises.

But Ivanov brushed aside the US suggestion arguing that if UN inspectors are to be dispatched to Iraq "we don't need any special resolution for that."

Of the five big powers in the Council, only the US and Britain remain sceptical of the Iraqi offer, while France, Russia and China are willing to give the Iraqis a chance to prove themselves - one way or the other.

But Bush, who only two weeks ago urged the United Nations to pressure the Iraqis into sending UN arms inspectors back into Baghdad, is now ready to dump the world body.
If the Security Council refuses to go along with Bush's proposal for a tough new resolution, the US president has threatened to act unilaterally against Iraq.

The US has had a longstanding notoriety for manipulating the world body for its own purposes.
But the Bush administration has gone one better: it is virtually holding the UN to ransom.

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