When the war between the U.S.-British coalition and Iraq finally began on March 20, a Japanese magazine put out a special issue headlined "The Realization of Justice or Arousal of the Devil?" to stress the importance of looking through to the essence of the war.
During the first days of the war it seemed that Iraq was going to be floored in a very short time by America's overwhelming physical strength and propaganda machine. After about the first week had passed, however, the whole world began to recognize that things were not going to be so easy.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's reckless behavior over the past decade had invited harsh criticism from the international community. The United Nations had repeatedly tried to get Iraq to allow it to carry out nationwide weapons inspections in a way that was satisfactory to the United States and others. But to no avail. And Iraq was not persuaded to correct its course.