Smoko: War over Iraq, Jacko's illness and swapping World Cup venues

Where's the UN when you need them? Tell you what, if it gets any hotter here in the smoko room, the automatic sprinklers will go off! And I'm not talking about the weather! The debate over war with Iraq finally boiled over, with our three main protagonists each taking a contrary view. What started as a polite discussion blew up into a full-blown argument, with torrents of verbal abuse that would cause even Mark Latham to blush.

Blondie (The Good) is our resident peacenik. With the benefit of age and experience on his side, he says he has seen it all before. He remains implacably opposed to war with Iraq under any circumstances.

"It's just a cynical grab for oil, with Bush carrying out the family vendetta. He wants to control Iraq's oil, and finish daddy's business. After all, they are a family of oil barons. It has nothing to do with terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. Australia should keep out of it."

However, I suspect his reasoning is not completely altruistic. A few years short of early retirement, Blondie has invested heavily in Telstra and other major public floats, and suffered for it.

"I'll be stuffed," he cries, staring forlornly into his herbal tea. "If we go to war, it'll throw us into recession, and I may as well then throw my shares in the bin. They aren't much good to me now anyway."

Angel Eyes (The Bad) takes the opposite view. Young and gung-ho, he is all for the war.

"When the inspectors find the smoking gun, we should go straight in fighting," he declares emphatically, enveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He stresses the importance of ANZUS: "America are our allies, we have to support them. That's what allies do." As for the Security Council: "Bugger the UN. We don't need them anyhow." Only problem is, he doesn't think Colin Powell has produced that smoking gun yet.

Tuco (The Ugly) supports war, but only with UN sanction.

"It is not enough to remove the weapons, we must topple the regime, or we are right back where we started." He doesn't think war is necessary. "Surely the CIA have ways and means of putting a bullet in Saddam's head?" Tuco also questions the wisdom of sending a naval force: "Every time I see a map of Iraq, it looks to be a landlocked country."

The argument began when the discussion turned towards Australia's deployment to the region. Blondie questioned the public farewelling of our Special Forces.

"That was probably a media sham," said Tuco. "How do you know they didn't leave weeks ago?" This thought made the rest of the room sit up and take notice. Trust the devious mind of Tuco to come up with that.

Blondie then declared Howard's deployment to be an act of war: "We can't take action unilaterally."