The war o­n Iraq is at an end, but the following days will be a testing time for the Iraqi people. This war started because the US administration believed that the Saddam Hussein regime has weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that these weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists.

Reading many letters written to malaysiakini, I found that many of the pro-war people voiced their opinions with the belief that liberating the Iraqi people is o­n the top of the US administration's agenda. At least that is the impression that I received.

I believe no o­ne would disagree that the removal of Saddam and his regime would provide the Iraqi people a chance to set up a democratic government of their own. But o­ne must reflect o­n the way that the Bush administration had handled this issue. The Bush administration had taken the moral high ground and self-righteously rejected all other suggestions by others in the world.

The route to the UN and Resolution 1441 was just a means that the US thought they could legitimise a war that was already pre-planned. They thought that the other main powers in the world would rally behind them as usual. They were so sure they were the morally right o­nes (as if they always have been).

Many people who are anti-war are anti-Bush, or even anti-US, but I am anti-US foreign policy. Biased politicking and policies around the world have made people very wary of the intentions of any US government.

Using words like "shock and awe" do not make people like you, but o­nly make people around the world feel the arrogance and the might that the US could impose.

The coalition of the willing was put together not because the US needed any military aid, but because they wanted support to justify the war. To be in the good grace of the world's o­nly superpower, it is really not that hard to get allies. Most of the countries do not even need to participate in the war effort, but just needed to voice their support or lend an airbase or two.

Now that the war is almost over, people are still in the streets chanting "stop the war" slogans. Why do people still do this? Ask yourself this: if the coalitions troops were not o­n the borders of Iraq in the early days of Resolution 1441, do you think Saddam would have co-operated, albeit not fully?

Now if there wasn't an anti-war all along the way, do you think the coalition forces would be pressured to conduct a swift and clean war? Would they have promised to use the oil reserves in Iraq to rebuild the country?

Would they have been troubled if Turkish decides to enter northern Iraq? Would they have thought twice before bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age? Do you think that Britain and US would have promised a road map for the Palestine-Israel crisis?

Do not be smug or gloat over the fact that the war had gone well, but instead be thankful that many of the predictions of civilian casualties have not come true. To help the rebuilding of Iraq, countries around the world should contribute through the United Nations and definitely not by joining the coalition of the willing as suggested by Oon Yeoh in his weblog (April 12).

International law should not be further compromised and a new UN resolution must be reached as quickly as possible.

The Iraqi people now face the challenging task of forming their own democratic country. Politicking has already begun, with exile leaders emerging to vie for the leadership of the country. There will be deals and compromises that need to be made between the Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurds if a stable and fair government is to be forged.

And what will happen to the oil reserves in Iraq? Of course its revenue will be used for constructing the new Iraq, but which companies will be awarded the contracts for constructions? Wouldn't that be an incentive to join the coalition of the willing?

We might have good intentions of liberating the Iraqi people, but it is the intentions of the US government that we must analyse. Compared to what the Allied troops have done during the World War II, there is nothing noble about this war. It had been a o­ne-sided affair all along, with the main casualties of war for the Coalition forces resulted from friendly fire.

The cause of this war is so muddled that people are supporting or against the war based o­n their own reasoning. And the main reason why Saddam was allowed to grow in power was due to US meddling in the first place. Let us hope that the US do not create any more of them, for they would have to remove them through 'just' wars in the future.