Does saddam pose a threat to the US and the World.

[Epidemic]

OBL may not be in cohoots with saddam or he may. Either way the risk posed by their relationship however tenuous is tremendous. Friend or foe, the fact remains saddam has nice toys, OBL will use nice toys with impunity.

The greatest risk that saddam poses is not in life, it is in death by natural causes or coup which will no doubt happen by natural course of events with in the next 10 to 20 years. If a new religous tyrant ends up in power or simply a weak corrupt government. OBL and his ilk will get control of the toys either by sale of corrupt officials or force. Either way that prospect no matter how remote is too great a risk.

OBL would not be satisfied by the US letting israel die, OBL will not give up if he sacks lebenon, kuwait, pakistan, egypt. His job (as he sees it) is to inflict damage on the west as long as he lives.

Iraq and it's toys must be eliminated.

Now here is the trick. How do you install a solid democracy in a country in the aftermath (with out appearing to be "occupying the holy land"). The whole occupation/puppet government, is a powerful arguement that renders logic useless among the more twisted of the faithful.

Yes we have a better lifestyle, Yes we have freedom, yes we have money, but it is at the hands of westerners. Let us revolt against this government not because it is bad. Rather because it is not spawned at our hands.

Saddam must go, we must try to create stability and freedom in Iraq but do so in a fair way and hope the puppet argument does not hold up. In either case we must eliminate the saddam toybox and his toy making abilities.

As for the people who say we must take out OBL before going into conflict with another country. Well all I can say is that we are already seeking OBL with internationally recognized methods. Police work and intelligence community are the only ones who can be employed for this type of activity. I think the international community would raise a stink if the US troops simply marched on all the suspected countries who might harbor OBL. Hence the troops should be used for war efforts and the CIA and interpoll should be used for manhunts. Military and intelligence are mutually exclusive of one another.

To say we should not take on saddam and OBL at the same time is to ignore the fact that the two objectives do not relate with each other directly as far as the resources involved.

Not getting OBL is not a failure of the government it is simply an objective not attained yet. To target a single individual on planet earth with billions of dollars at his disposal is a perty difficult task. PS NATO and the UN would take a dim view of us blowing up France to get OBL

Can you explain it in detail?

As far as the other points raised, I think the answer lies in educating the Iraqi folks after Saddam's execution.

Round up the village headmen, priests, influential peeple and bring them to a tour of NYC to see what they're missing. Show them the advantages of the American way of life. Throw in a trip to Epcot center.

Leave out the seemier and sordid side of life. Kinda gloss over it.

Then let them spred the good word.

[ClubMed]

Epidemic you posed a question but you did not answer it in your post. I will attempt to answer it now. In order to define someone’s intentions you have to look at their past actions and the motives for those actions.

We all know, and it is considered general knowledge I would say, that Saddam is a dictator and his Baathist regime has over the years developed an increasingly authoritarian form of government based on the state control of Iraqi oil and the fierce repression of any opposition whether it was Kurdish, Islamic or communist.

The early ideology of the Baath regime in Iraq was pan-Arabist and over the years it has developed into nationalism. We can now discard with confidence the notion that Iraq wants to invade all of the Middle East.

Iran-Iraq War, 1980 – 1988:

The Iran – Iraq war was based on ancient Persian-Arab land and border disputes. What added to the hostilities was the Shiite Islamic revolution in Iran, Saddam felt that it would threaten his narrow power base in Iraq (There is a majority Shiite community in Iraq, there were serious and real fears that the Shiite revolution in Iran that ousted the US backed Pahlevi monarchy would spark similar uprisings in Iraq).

The Gulf War of 1990:

The Iraqi regime has been voicing sporadic claims to Kuwait for a long time, but, that baseless claim aside, the invasion of Kuwait was not simply an attempt at invading the world, and creating an Iraqi empire as is being claimed by the mass media, there are more realistic and serious reasons. The 8 year Iran-Iraq war put a great toll on the revenues of Iraq, the 1986 collapse in the oil market added to the nations problems too.

Kuwait, which had been one of the major financiers of the Iran-Iraq war (among others: Soviet Union, France, Germany, UK and USA) had loaned Iraq a substantial amount of money. The Iraqi regime alleged that the Kuwaitis had been tapping into the Rumaila oilfields (most of them in Iraq) and were being outdone by Kuwaiti oil output.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was based primarily on money and oil disputes by a nation who’s resources had been eaten up by the destructive war with Iran, and miscalculations concerning the cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the US. In other words the Iraqi regime was hoping to achieve negotiations (concessions, money, arms) with the Americans and Kuwaitis concerning a pull out. The invasion of Kuwait was not based upon any imperialistic or expansionist ideologies.

Iraqi Nuclear Heritage & Conclusion:

The Iraqi nuclear era would not have been realised had the US, French, British and Germans not supplied the know-how and machinery required. US built reactors were installed by French, British and German scientists. It would be naïve not to expect a regime with so many enemies and events threatening it’s existence not to research ever more powerful weapons (as any nations have done and would do when faced with threat). Today’s crisis is based on previous short-sightedness and the ill handling of affairs. From a purely strategic and military point of view one could have turned the Iraqi regime into a powerful and stable ally in the Middle East while maintaining strong control over it’s weaponry and movements. Instead, due to political ignorance it has been turned into an enemy that is sparking fear and panic in foreign policy makers.

Finally one last point concerning the often mentioned interaction between the secular, authoritarian Baathist Iraqi regime, and the religious, anti-secular, anti-western cooperation Al Qaida movement. If there is ever going to be any interaction between the two then on a civilian level of like minded people who wish to oust the dictator to install a government, whether secular or religious, bit definitely of their own choosing.

There will be no interaction on a governmental and senior official level between the two, to understand this means to have made one step closer to understanding Middle East politics.

From all this I still do not understand why Saddam Hussain murdered his own citizens by using poison gas, why he set fire to Kuwaiti oilfields when retreating, why he has links to terrorists......the list is endless.

I think you cannot even attempt to understand the motives of a mad man whose only objective is to stay in power NO MATTER WHAT.

I also think it's in poor taste to try and "explain away glibly" the terrorist activities of Arab sponsored/supported terrorists against the non-Arab world.

You have to just look at what they are doing and its obvious they are just a bunch of crazed terrorists out to make trouble. They have NO agenda whatsoever except to murder innocent people.

No amount of rationalization/justification can explain away all this. In my opinion, the Arab cause has been very badly affected by support of these terrorists. Had the Arab world risen with the rest of the world and condemned these people, people would have respected the Arabs.

But keeping quiet and not pro-actively condemning their perverted "cause" looks like they Global Arab Population tacitly supports the terrorists. So strong is the association that when you think Terrorist you think Arab.

Jsut my opinion.

[Epidemic]

So history lesson asside. The poor handling of history is past and is fact. (I mean explain the logic of giving middle eastern folks with huge oil reserves Nuclear powerplants)

Now that the mistakes have been made. Saddam is likely to have bad stuff burried around the country. In a max of 20 years, when saddam dies of natural causes or by coup (Assume no US intervention) will there likely be instability?

This instability combined with bad stuff burried in the ground is a really bad combination. One which could drive civilization down many notches. Terrorist attacks with large scale bio weapons will spawn a nasty war. A war in which West will be pitted against east.

I feel that saddam's weapon program has the potential to be this trigger. The end of the middle east is my only conclusion in such a case. Saddam by himself poses no threat, but coupled with the terrorists and WOMD could spell the end of the muslim culture in the east. If it comes down to a them or us scenario, I choose us. I would prefer it does not come to that. Saddam and some collateral damage is a small price to pay for such a horrific alternative.

This is what I see in my magic 8 ball as a likely scenario if the world does not take action to remove dictators, and create fair people based governments that respect the rights of most if not all in the region. Technology of today does not allow for area's of the world to spawn terrorists with out action. 100 years ago you could let terrorists exist, a few hundred people here and there dying was the impact. Now billions of lives are at risk by the actions of terrorists. As technology becomes more available the risk increases.

[ClubMed]

Well according to UNSCOM, Iraq possessed a clandestine nuclear program which could have yielded one nuclear warhead by 1992 had the program continued without the sanctions (production of nuclear weapons requires large plants and large amounts of fissile material which cannot be bought or operated under strict control and sanctions).

The IAEA and UNSCOM reports concluded that the nuclear stockpiles were gone and that the long range missiles had been destroyed.

The only thing that remained was the know-how.

So at the moment, talk of WMD's and of catastrophic nuclear holocaust scenarios is still nothing more than assumptions. There is still no proof.

The UN and the member states sent scientists to Iraq to investigate. They even sent spies (suggesting that they had no evidence at the time and needed it). These scientists of UNSCOM and IAEA (our eyes and ears in Iraq) have concluded that Iraq does not posses nuclear weapons.

What are we to do, if the US allegations go against UNSCOM and IAEA statements (both funded nearly entirely by the USA)? Obviously we must demand evidence that will silence any anti-war sentiments.

Epidemic, most of what you say is based on the assumptions of certain politicians. I guess the USA is powerful enough to wage a war, unilaterally, and based on it’s assumptions. But what would do that to their credibility? What would that do to anyone’s credibility in the same position?.

Yes I agree, if he has WMD’s then something must be done, but how can I agree with you and that school of thought when it is at this moment in time based solely on assumptions?

[kenyg]

We do have the power to act unilaterally, and I think we will if it comes to that.

The inspecters are just that - inspecters. Iraq is charged with showing them how is has disarmed. They are not meant to be detectives.

They were already found guilty and in violation by the UN.

The burden of proof lies with Iraq.

I don't wish war - but so far, Iraq has failed to show anyone that it has disarmed. Where is the Vx, Sarin, and Mustard gas? Where is the Anthrax, Botulism, and Ricin?

[ClubMed]

I think you mean that it is your opinion that the burden of proof lies with Iraq kenyg.

The UN is a court of international law, and like any (non-criminal, non-authoritarian) legal system one is innocent until proven guilty, this is fact, not opinion.

And so in line with what I just said the burden of proof lies with the one who makes the allegations, since one usually makes allegations based on some kind of evidence wouldn't you agree?

Iraq has been guilty of not handing out info in the past, this is slowly changing as the political pressure is mounting (and working).

The Iraqi regime has agreed to:

1. Spy planes,
2. Handing over more documents.
3. Further inspections with unlimited access.
4. Interviews with the highest specialists in the country.

[osprey4]

I think Saddam is basically a peace-loving man at heart. He just wants the best for his people. If he has any weapons, they're probably just for self-defense. Given enough time, I'm pretty sure he'll come clean. We just have to be willing to give him more time, just a little more time. President Bush just has to show Saddam he wants peace and that we just want to get long and all live happily ever after. The UN knows what they're doing. Has the UN ever let us down before?

"All we are saying...
Is give peace a chance."

C'mon, everybody, sing it with me!!

[Epidemic]

I would say the only assumption is timing to when OBL lays hands on a neat little toy and uses it.

It is an educated guess as to the outcome.

Fact is
When OBL lays hands on a healthy supply of compact weapons of mass destruction.

Stated Fact
He will use it. (this is almost a given)

Fact
He is associated with and supported by many (too many to count) in the middle east.

Fact
There is no effective way to defend against a terrorist attack in a free country. You can slow the attacks but not eliminate them without our eliminating the source.

Fact
The source is due to tyrannical governments oppressing the people and religious zealots.

Fact
To eliminate the source you must either remove the factors spawning terrorism politically or by war.

In all super extreme likelyhood
If he attacks on a large-scale Politically Correct ideal will go out the window. Survival demands swift and complete retribution to cut off supply of attackers.

Fact
OBL is just begging for some nice small portable technology to fall in his hands.

Assumption
This all will happen soon.

Assumption
Iraq is a likely source for this to begin. Either under current regime privately or sanctioned or when Saddam kicks the bucket.



Police are forced to make an assumption frequently. Go home and see the kids again or see if he is just reaching for a wallet.

Shooting a baddy before he shoots you is an assumption. You assume that he was aiming at you, You assume that he is moving aggressively, you asses whether his body language.

What we have in Iraq is a known cop killer resisting arrest that is still un-cuffed but is likely to have a gun and about to reach for it. Now we have to assume either he is not going to go for it or that he is.

Fact
It is has been proven that letting a hitler arm again was a really really bad idea.

Fact
Assumptions are often required when making life and death decisions. Well thought out assumptions may keep you alive as sometimes failure to assume will end up killing you. In the case of countries, an assumption can keep your people alive.

Assumption can also have the opposite result and cause much grief. Sometimes it just makes an ASSoutaUandME. I hope that we make the right assumption when the time comes.