THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

The irony of oil companies not investing in Iraq is that they are flush with money because of high crude prices and many people believed the US invaded the country only to secure future oil supplies.

"We have told the world we are not producing these kind of weapons, but it seems that the world is drugged, absent or in a weak position," President Saddam Hussein said.

At a press conference in Baghdad yesterday, [22nd December 2002] General Amir al-Sadi, scientific adviser to the president, issued a challenge to the US and British intelligence to offer up hard evidence that Iraq has any biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

"We do not even have any objections if the CIA sent somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites," Gen Sadi said.

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

Quote:

Resistance fighters in the Iraqi city of Falluja have placed a $15 million bounty on the heads of key US occupation figures, including Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld.

From what source did they get the money?

Now ican, read what you've written here......you don't really think this illustrates any point do you? You don't....surely you don't. ...

Did anyone working in the Clinton Admin write any position papers? Did they have any meetings, 10 days into the administration, discussing something like a need to avoid a pre-emptive strike on Iraq? The answer, as you know, is nope.......or at least if they did, no one came forward to disclose it.......

This joke is related to this subject. ... "He certainly is," the captain said. "This is the Staten Island Ferry."

Bush To Iraqi Militants: 'Please Stop Bringing It On'

... NOW, are trying to cobble together a Company from same Iraqi Army so as to secure the centre of Fallujah, so that the marines can withdraw.

You couldn't make it up. Another surprising development in this tale of how not to conduct an invasion and occupation.

Is this being reported in America?

Finish the job? Not in our lifetime


The U.S. can't "go all the way" in Iraq because, beyond Saddam Hussein, there's nowhere to go. Besides, his neighbors need to keep him around.


BY JONATHAN BRODER | WASHINGTON -- The deal that United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan struck with Saddam Hussein over the weekend may have diffused the Iraqi crisis, at least temporarily. but diplomats acknowledge it is probably only a matter of time before the world community is nose-to-nose again with the Iraqi strongman over yet another of his violations of international law.

What is not so readily acknowledged is that absent a cohesive American strategy, Middle Eastern leaders wouldn't have it any other way.

The dirty little secret of the Iraqi crisis, whether it simmers at the United Nations or threatens to boil over into armed conflict, is that the Middle East, the region that would seemingly have the most to gain from Saddam's quick dispatch, needs the petty tyrant.

Why? As long as Saddam remains in power, other leaders in the Middle East look good by comparison. For Syria's President Hafez-al Assad, for example, the focus on Saddam means less attention paid to his own repressive policies. Neighboring Iran, these days regarded as the lesser of two evils, can rebuild its economy and its military undisturbed, secure in the knowledge that either the U.N. or the U.S. will periodically slap down the Islamic republic's most fervent enemy so long as Saddam is around.

...

Finally, before any concerted action against Saddam can be contemplated, the U.S. has to get firmly behind a political alternative to Saddam. Djerijian says the Clinton administration essentially abandoned the Iraqi opposition when it failed to resolve a power struggle between two Kurdish leaders in U.S.-protected northern Iraq in 1996, prompting one to cut a deal with Saddam and the other to turn to Iran. Sensing his chance, Saddam reoccupied northern Iraq that summer, wiping out the Iraqi opposition. "That shows we have not been serious about supporting the Iraqi opposition, and we have to be," Djerijian says.

But reestablishing a political alternative to Saddam will take a long time, possibly years. In the meantime, the question that a veteran from Maine posed to Defense Secretary William Cohen during the administration's recent town meeting in Ohio bears remembering. If the U.S. doesn't go in and finish the job this time, was it going to "come back and ask my grandson and some of these other grandsons to put their lives on the line" again? The simple answer is yes. Until the United States can come up with a better plan, containment offers the least disruptive of all possible worlds.

I s anyone else as sickened as me by the pictures which came out of the Iraqi prison ?