Bush claims 48 nations have joined coalition

George Bush reaffirmed at Camp David yesterday that his "coalition of the willing" against Iraq numbered an impressive 48 countries. That's 14 more than the number who rallied to his father's call to kick Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991.

The President's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, helpfully fleshed out the numbers, saying the nations in question had a combined population of 1.18 billion – about one sixth of the planet – and an aggregate gross domestic product of $21.7 trillion (£14trn) – surely more than enough to pay for the whole enterprise.

But who are these countries exactly? And just how willing are they? To most of the rest of the world, it seems the "coalition" is made up almost exclusively of the United States and Britain, with a little military help from Australia and some back-row cheering from the governments of Spain, Italy and a handful of others.

Not so, insisted President Bush, who named Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania as contributors to the war effort. And they will soon be joined by Ukraine and Bulgaria.

The administration says many of the others cannot yet make themselves publicly known. But the White House has floated the names of Iceland, Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, Costa Rica andPalau – a tiny island in the Pacific north of Australia with no military force of any kind.

In Morocco, a newspaper has reported that the government is offering 2,000 monkeys to act as land mine detectors. President Saddam must be quaking at the very thought.