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David Cameron will today vow to take on the "scandal" of public drunkenness and alcohol abuse that costs the NHS £2.7 billion a year
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Yes, I believe it was a just war
By Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 19.03.04Tonight, exactly a year ago, was the night that people all over the world went to bed, but couldn't get to sleep. The politicians had voted. The UN inspectors had left. The invasion force, or at least the American part of it, was ready.
As the sands ran out on the final deadline of the final US ultimatum, I was lying on my "executive mattress" at the Palestine Hotel, Baghdad, biting my nails and wondering if I was going to die. I wasn't the only one. Even at 3am, the lights in the flats opposite were on, with people moving around, getting themselves cups of coffee, coming to their windows to stare up at the sky. In London, we had the Prime Minister's word for it that he, too, slept badly, and I think that, on this occasion, we can believe him.
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