There is the hope that Saddam, despite most predictions, may still flee or be overthrown and that his armies will heed US calls to surrender. The prospect that Iraq's dictator will at last be deposed is perhaps the only clear-cut benefit of this entire adventure. There is the hope that, despite months of US scare-mongering, Saddam will not use chemical or biological weapons. There is the hope that Iraq will not quickly splinter into myriad warring factions, creeds and clans and that Turkey's likely intervention in the north does not lead to ethnic conflict there. There is also the hope that the US military strategy, reliant on relatively few, fast-moving ground troops and tanks, supported from the air, will be able to engage and seize their objectives as quickly as planned. Last but not least, there is the profoundly-felt hope that Britain's own forces will escape serious mauling - and that any casualties, unlike after the last Gulf war, will be properly cared for when they come home. Sadly, Britain's fingers-crossed foreign policy means having to hope also that the government's failure to secure clear UN and legal authority does not compromise our soldiers.

The aims of this war have been unclear all along. That confusion must now end. The objective is not a US-run Iraq or some grandiose, US-designed regional reformation. It is an independent, integrated state led by indigenous Iraqis empowered by free elections and working in partnership with the UN. Tony Blair's assurance yesterday that Britain will seek agreement to establish a leading role for the UN is welcome. Getting in is much easier than getting out; but get out quickly the US must. Whatever Dick Cheney and his far-right friends may think, they have no business there.

Stop the War website can be found at: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/