IF there is one metaphor that befittingly describes George W Bush's and Tony Blair's misadventure in Iraq, it is that it has been consistently marked by a desire to have their cake and eat it too. Mr Bush and Mr Blair, you can't have it both ways.

President Bush's and our able Prime Minister Blair's ill-fated adventure was preceded by a series of bald-faced lies about their reasons for going to war in Iraq against the collective wish of the rest of the world.

It is very painful for me to write that our Prime Minister along with our Foreign Secretary Jack Straw lied about the Iraqi WMD, lied about Saddam's alleged links with Al Qaeda, and lied about Saddam-controlled Iraq posing an imminent and immediate threat to the UK security.

I don't know how Americans feel about it but the majority of British people feel that Mr Blair and Mr Straw have really put out nation's credibility at risk.

It is worth reminding us that it was a war which, in Tony Blair's and Jack Straw's words, was "to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."

It was also a war that provoked world-wide dissent, had no UN mandate and whose basic premise -- the presence of WMD in Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- fell flat.

No doubt, following the Coalition Forces illegal occupation of Iraq, the discovery of mass graves of innocent people regardless of their religious and political beliefs allegedly killed by Saddam's regime was cold testimony to his ruthlessness. It is also a fearful pointer to the future of Iraq.

BUT, the main question remains and will remain unanswered for a generation. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" may have freed the nation from Saddam but FREEDOM in every sense of the word, and restoring democracy, remains and will remain elusive - like the WMD.

Our Prime Minister and our Foreign Secretary will have to recognise the fact that "real freedom and democracy" are not the ready made jackets which can be put on. It is a process and system which requires political will, good intention, and empowerment based upon truth not lies

Certainly, "democracy-freedom" cannot be manufactured by military intervention.

Councillor and Parliamentary Spokesperson IMTIAZ PATEL MSc (Blackburn with Darwen Liberal Democrats).