moshi, to be fair, I must say that SAIRI doesn't really care who will be in power. US general or anybody. Their objective has always been to make a revolution in Iraq and create an Islamic (shia) state in Iraq, similar to the one in Iran.
BTW: if this happens, everybody will regret the good old Saddam days.

paxx: i think that was the main reason why Saddam was allowed to slaughter the opposition after the last Gulf war
they seems to be the strongest opposition party though http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1881381.stm

Well I think that those who were chearing can't be accounted for as to say they want an American presence there. If anyone knows about oppression of oppressed people, if there is a time where they can release, they'll do it. All that US/UK/AU love could have been more of a 'thank God we can express something'. I am sure that they are very glad Saddam is gone. that does not mean that they want the forces to stay too long. there is allot of mistrust there. 6 months later they wonder why they are still here and that will give extremists power (along with one liners "America is Evil" and using truths to make lies and other half cooked logic).

Then you got other who want to 'help' thier county men y getting rid of the westerners... while putting themselves in power.


As long as the US understands that the best way to keep calm in Iraq is to have help from the people in the communities.


Cops get criminals... but it is easier when the community supports them. Less 'accedints' happen that way.



Any body watch the Simpsons?

Marge makes a empationed speach full of examples, and common reasoning about why they do not need a monorail in Springfield.

Every one agrees.

Then one guy stands up and says:
Monorails are cool!
The next guy says:
Lets build it! Lets take Springfield into the future!

In house help http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/terrorism/faq.htm

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crimpol/police/index.html

Hrm. Perhaps someone here is more 'in-the-know' than I, but this story confuses me:

http://web.mid-day.com/news/world/2003/april/49683.htm

It seems we have found a site in Iraq that has radioactivity 'off the scale' of the detectors that the Marines carry, and that would be deadly if people came in contact with it for a reasonable amount of time. I know that many here don't like Rupert's news, but their link has more detail:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83821,00.html

What confuses me is the hesitation to call this a 'smoking gun'. Under what circumstances could Saddam Hussein be allowed to posess material so radioactive that it is "too deadly for human contact"?

How easy would it be to silently contaminate an area with this stuff if the means were there to transport it? With all the talk of a 'dirty bomb' in the last couple of years, material like this is far beyond tolerance, isn't it? I'm not sure why it has to explode to be a WMD, when we have already been told of numerous ways material like this could be quietly hidden near a public area or spread there to cause illness or death. Troubling.

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83821,00.html

maybe that one will work...

backerstreet,

maybe you'll get the answer there : http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030410_2002.html

Thibaud: hrm, doesn't seem to jive with the fact that they detected the radiation hundreds of yards away and that the facility itself was to hot to safely move around in. Unless, I suppose, it was sabotaged by Iraqis on their way out.

It still seems insane to me that "Tuwaitha contains 1.8 tons of low-grade enriched uranium and several tons of natural and depleted uranium." and that, other than twice-a-year inspections, they were allowed to police themselves. I'm not sure how the IAEA seals could prevent the material from being diverted as is stated in the article... it seems like the broken seals would just show that it *had been* diverted, after the fact. Trusting folks, the UN.

Anyway, isn't it backward to allow him to keep enriched Uranium and prevent him from getting the machinery to further enrich it? Seems like without the radioactive material he'd be stuck. Odd that technical manufacturing know-how is harder to come by than uranium.

Thanks for the link. Will be interesting to see what comes of it.

The line "The Iraqis were allowed to keep the material because it was unfit for weapons use without costly and time-consuming enrichment." really creeps me out.

It sounds as if highly radioactive material is harmless unless it can be made to explode... or that "costly and time-consuming enrichment" would be something that would dissuade someone like Saddam Hussein.

Who knows, maybe "costly and time-consuming" means 1000 billions and 50 years?

Dunno, but I tend to trust to UN and its inspectors. I trust it more than I trust any single country. But I know some people wish that the US would replace the UN.

I don't trust the UN, sorry.

bakerstreet's news item will likely be confirmed a few times over.

This is interesting: How CNN's people in Iraq kept a lot of atrocities to themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html?ex=1050638400&en=ea21e8c88feae21c&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

I woldn't expect you to be.

We like the UN when they do what we want, and we don't like them when they don't.
In 1991, I too thought that the UN were just a joke.

I forgot to add:

But that's just like anything else, isn't it?
The government, the police, the trials, the schools, the parents (when you're a teen), etc.

Paxx, why don't you wake up and smell the bacon burning.... your country was in bed with Saddam and that's the only
reason the French are so upset. Now they lose all that money in deals they had made with a lunatic.

paxx: considering North Korea has the ability to produce weapons-grade material *now*, and they are happy to supply Iraq with other military equipment in defiance of UN sanctions, I would say that time and expense are well within a tolerable level. Regardless, it ignores the fact that material like this is deadly even if it isn't refined further.

The whole 'holier-than-thou' thing is really, really weak and hypocritical.

Jam, what are you talking about? My country was in bed with Saddam? Excuse-me? And why would France be upset about it anyway?

Bakerstreet, UN is not perfect, but it's only legitimate means.

[ insert post #1566 here again ]

paxx: legitimate!=popular. The UN simply allows a democratic facade to be imposed upon the same Machiavellian political scheming that prevailed throughout the 'courts of Europe' and elsewhere.

If someone would have told me a year ago that I would be sitting here arguing with a peacenik about how Russia and China are right and Saddam Hussein should be left in power, I would have laughed in their face. Don't you feel odd finding yourself in a crowd like that, protecting a regime like that?

How leisurely-intellectual you'd have to be to stand among them and pretend to be afraid of the United States. If you guys want to keep going back to the 20 or 30 years to villainize the US, do the same for everyone else you are granting legitimacy to. Once the US is alienated enough, these strange alliances will need to hold water. I wonder if they will?

If you look around the poker table and you can't figure our who the sucker is...

Jam: Paxx is a Canadian, which (as far as I know anyway) wasn't particularly cosy with Saddam, businesswise or militarily. Unlike France, Russia, the US and even Kuwait, which prior to 1991 had friendly relations with the Iraqi regime. Times change as do alliances when mutual interests are no longer shared.

It's interesting especially now that when it suits a nation's particular agenda or interest, the UN is touted as the only legitimate authority on the world scene. I recall times when Russia and other nations did not think so as they now appear to. It depends on whose ox is gored at the time. As for what nation is perhaps most responsible for the UN's creation, it was none of the countries now touting themselves as standard bearers for the UN and its legal supremacy over individual's nations policies and actions. Of course the US cites previous UN resolutions (including the 1991 cease fire resolution) as authorization for the action in Iraq now. Although really one fig leaf to hide under is as good as another, I suppose. I was, however, surprised to see a Russian journalist attribute Putin's opposition to the war as based on the concern that Russia could lose considerable $$$ if its contracts are voided due to a change in the Iraqi regime.

Have you seen the looters? Incredible what they carry with them. I saw one guy walking off with a sink, some kid carrying fire extinguishers and people ransacking a bank and tearing up all bills with Saddam's face on it.

Imagine 30 years of torture, likely all the 'looters' you see either know someone or have had a family member in one of those torture chambers, I imagine they're pissed, crae.
After 30 years, I suspect we'd all let off some steam.

I like the UN very much. but I woundn't go so far as to make it a ruling body. It doesn't do much and for the most part because there are so many countries in it with there own agenda. PLUS the fact that many nations do not want the UN to be powerful becuase it could go against thier interests later on. I never expected the UN to be powerful, or ever will, because there is no nation that will want it to be so without being in control of it.

Xerraire: either that, or someone was in desperate need of a sink. If I were to go looting, I would not steal a sink.

people the world over have a real love-hate relationship with authority and force. they hate it when it's thwarting their personal desires, and love it when it thwarts the clod who's trying to loot their house.

crae
you gave me a giggle
hehe

ok, see how we take everything for granted? we all have sinks, maybe they didn't and it was so valuable to them.