No 2nd Resolution

[KrazyHorse]

Specifics, please...

He's giving the inspectors a rough time, but he's not opposing them and their work. Therefore the US (and UK) have jack squat. There's no reason for the UN to do anything at this point except extend the mandate of the inspectors.

[DanS]

Hershell: Again, it's value is primarily in testing whether or not he was going to throw himself on the mercy of the international community. It would have been apparent if he wanted to cooperate.

[DanS]

"He's giving the inspectors a rough time, but he's not opposing them and their work."

You still don't get it. The inspectors can do very little unless Iraq tells them where the goods are. By not doing so, he is opposing their work.

[KrazyHorse]

a) How would it have been obvious? He would have gotten on TV and bared his belly? Or would he have declared a whole mess of WMD which the US is so convinced he has, but is unwilling to prove the existence of?

b) This all boils down to whether or not you believe the wholly unsubstantiated claim by the US that Iraq most certainly does have WMD. Which may or may not be, but which needs to be proven by the US side rather than disproven by the Iraqis as the US is trying so desperately to argue now that Saddam's outplayed them.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DanS
"He's giving the inspectors a rough time, but he's not opposing them and their work."

You still don't get it. The inspectors can do very little unless Iraq tells them where the goods are. By not doing so, he is opposing their work.

So as long as we postulate the existence of WMD, then yes, Saddam is in breach of 1441.

Do you see something wrong with this argument, Dan?

[Dinner]

Up until yesterday the Iraqis refused to let former WoMD scientists be interviewed without Iraqi secret police being present and the Iraqis refused to let the scientists take their families with them when they went to testify in front of the U.N..

Saddam's threat was quite clear. He was holding the scientists' families hostage and was refusing to let them go. How can a person who knows about the weapons programs publicly testify if he knows his family will be killed as a result?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Up until yesterday the Iraqis refused to let former WoMD scientists be interviewed without Iraqi secret police being present and the Iraqis refused to let the scientists take their families with them when they went to testify in front of the U.N.

No, the Iraqis were just not encouraging the scientists to be interviewed alone. No scientist said "yes" when the inspectors asked if they wanted to be. Now Iraq has promised to encourage scientists to be interviewed alone, but has said that it will not compel them to do so.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by DanS
"He's giving the inspectors a rough time, but he's not opposing them and their work."

You still don't get it. The inspectors can do very little unless Iraq tells them where the goods are. By not doing so, he is opposing their work.

That is a nice little bit of double-speak, Dan. That was double-plus ungood!

[HershOstropoler]

How very Karl Rove.

[MoonWolf]

I haven't read everything here but have one question (remember this is real life, not a revenge against a civ in Civ3):

What's the reason that the USA want to spend 10s of billions of dollars devastating an already suffering people instead of using one percent of this to bribe of Saddam's closest workers? Starving and bombing a people will not make them riot and remove their leader. They will be too weak comparing to the leader. Instead it will first be an American playground for the weapon industry and then an American oil-colony.

(I'm not questoning the Americans here, only their leaders)

Why can't everybody just be friends....

Have a nice day, hopefully in peace

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
What's the reason that the USA want to spend 10s of billions of dollars devastating an already suffering people instead of using one percent of this to bribe of Saddam's closest workers?

We've seen how well that works with OBL.

[Ned]

Originally posted by SnowFire
Ned: Er, I think so. What are you getting at?

DF: I'l make this quick, but I see your point now. Yes, if the USA's stance was "nuclear weapons are eeeeeeevil and should be abolished- starting with you, Saddam" it would be hypocritical. However, we're simply saying that it's bad if more people had them- especially irresponsible leaders like Saddam. Bad mouth the US all you want, we don't torture/starve/etc. our citizens.

Here's another analogy you're going to take too sweepingly and miss the point of: in a minarchist Floydist system, perhaps one person is mayor and has power in Floydsville. But being a good Floydist, he isn't in favor of creating 1,000 other municipal government positions that have power- and even if he was, he certainly wouldn't want to appoint that crazy commie chegitz to one of them. Is he being hypocritical? Hey, he has power, but he's telling chegitz he can't have any either.

Snowfire, if you were seriously supportive of the NPF, you would not justify proliferation based on the US, or for that matter, Russia, China, France or the UK having them. The goal is to halt proliferation while having the current nuclear powers reduce stockpiles to zero over time through negotiation.

Iraq and the NK are the first countries, IIRC, that have signed the NPF that have embarked on programs to acquire nukes.

To the extent the world will not enforce the NPF, or for that matter, UN resolution that are aimed at carrying out the NPF, the world will not get rid of these terror weapons ever.

So, let's not talk about hypocrisy.

[Az]

What's the reason that the USA want to spend 10s of billions of dollars devastating an already suffering people instead of using one percent of this to bribe of Saddam's closest workers? Starving and bombing a people will not make them riot and remove their leader. They will be too weak comparing to the leader. Instead it will first be an American playground for the weapon industry and then an American oil-colony.

So, what you think that if the americans did follow your proposal it wouldn't be an american "oil colony"?

[Ned]

I thought this quote from a current story running on CNN to be apt on the issue of Saddam's "cooperation."

"The Iraqis also promised to respond to questions regarding their 12,000-page declaration on chemical, biological and nuclear programs. That document, submitted to the United Nations on Dec. 8, was criticized by both Washington and the U.N. inspectors as inadequate.

The deeper issues, to be dealt with long-term by experts from both sides, mostly involve complex accountability questions about old weapons programs, such as disappearance on paper of 550 artillery shells loaded with lethal mustard gas, and a lack of evidence to support Iraq's claim it destroyed large amounts of VX nerve agent. Such questions raise suspicions the Iraqis are concealing banned arms."

[Ned]

A quote from Blair,

"But if we don't deal with (Iraq) now and take a stand on it now, is North Korea going to believe us? Are any of these other countries trying to obtain these weapons going to believe us if we face this challenge and duck it?"

"When we talk about Saddam, let's reflect on his regime," he continued. "Whenever he has had opportunity, he has been at war. He has threatened other neighbours and used weapons of mass destruction."

While the prime minister said he believed Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear programme, he said he was sure of its chemical and biological weapons.

"What we believe, and I think the recent finds by the inspectors would bear this out, is that they are being dispersed into different parts of the country."