"For governments who wanted to lift sanctions on Saddam Hussein to be suddenly saying, 'You can't lift sanctions because Saddam is gone' - it strikes us as pretty weird," the Washington Times quotes a senior State Department official as saying.

Russia and France have in the past consistently lobbied for sanctions to be lifted, citing the suffering of the Iraqi people. Critics said they also hoped to benefit from oil contracts for their firms.

Yesterday, Moscow said it was in the interests of the international community for the sanctions to be removed as soon as possible but insisted that cannot happen until conditions laid out in past Security Council resolutions are met.

It would appear that Russia and France are trying to use their veto power in the U.N. as leverage, to get profitable contracts out of Iraq. I guess you cannot really blame them too much. The lure of cash is just too great.

So, what of the U.N.? Is this not the most worthless diplomatic body on the face of the earth? What good do we get out of the U.N.? Can anyone tell me?

I think it illustrates just how useless the U.N. has become, and how pointless our role in the U.N. is. I'm all for pulling out, and acting unilaterally on everything we do. When we need cooperation from another country, we'll just have to pay for it on the free market, which is what we end up doing any way.