Life In Iraq.

Lash, This is what happens when those same scientists remember what happened to the Kurds. Can you blame them? c.i.

I certainly don't blame them.
Even someone, who was willing to sacrifice their life to reveal what Saddam is up to dares not to speak, because of what will be done to their wives and children.

It is amazing to me that one solitary man can engender so much widespread fear.

What is more freightening is the fact that he has so many that supports his form of tyrany. Just goes to show that intelligence is no indicator of humanism nor sympathy. c.i.

I think there are very few in the world who support his form of tyranny. I would be very surprised if you could find many.

That there are many who either, for any of a myriad of different reasons, do not favour a war against his country, period, or who do not favour one under the command of the US or under the modalities they suggest, is really a wholly different issue. Is an old thing - just like how the many in the West who in the eighties opposed the nuclear arms race (whether or not in retrospect they look naive) overwhelmingly did not support the Soviet form of tyranny.

I also think that, like c.i., I just grossly transgressed the limits Lash set to this discussion. Apologies.

I was thinking c.i. was talking about some within Iraq supporting Saddam's regime.

There are a select group that are making out like bandits in Iraq.

Exactly! c.i.

Excerpt from MSNBC article re: cost and number of Saddam's palaces, and accessiblity of 'havens' to his loyalists. Emphasis are mine.when Iraqis lost two-thirds of their income and the United Nations was searching for weapons of mass destruction, the pace of construction accelerated.
"You have to remember this was at a time when Iraqi officials were complaining to the United Nations about a housing shortage" said one U.S. official.
The U.S. State Department says in a report out this week on Iraqi disinformation that the cost of Saddam's palaces was more than the $1.74 billion the World Food Program spent in 2001 to deliver 660,000 metric tons of food to 77 million people worldwide.
Entifadh Qanbar, an Iraqi construction engineer who worked on three palaces during the Iran-Iraq War in the late 1980s and now lives in suburban Washington, says the palaces symbolize ego and power.

"People are under the impression here in the United States and the West that the palaces are residences for the president," said Qunbar. "This is not the case for Saddam. For the bigger part, the palaces are a show of business for Saddam, a show of his existence and power. And the second part, palaces for Saddam. Each palace will occupy huge land of area and it will contain barracks for his bodyguards, training camps within the palace, depots for weapons, depots for weapons of mass destruction, prisons, torture chambers."
Qunbar says the buildings are double-walled to withstand explosive charges, and underslung with warrens of tunnels.
But there are also parks for the children of loyalists. At the Republican Palace, a water park features small man-made lakes connected by a network of canals. There are restaurants and boat docks.
At Lake TharThar, north of Baghdad, there is a giant Ferris wheel and a pendulum along with a merry-go-round and a resort village of more than 100 condominiums, all near Saddam's Green Palace.

"Diplomatic officials who have visited the palaces tell of a world of splendors not seen even in European palaces that have long since become museums,"50-foot waterfalls inside. Just another view. At the end of the article, it was stated one of Saddam's architects was murdered shortly after detailing some specifications to a French publication.

The proper title of this forum should be "Death in Iraq." c.i.

'Pears so.

Not a good time in the ole town tonight.

For my next trick, I will find a good report from Iraq.

ok!
sorry.

Lash

Great contribution----his palaces have long been a point of contention with me but the world seems to want to ignore the implications-----these to me would be worth at least two cruise missiles per palace.

Thanks again for presenting this information