[ZULU]

Any reticence on the part of Kurds or Shiites to rise up against Saddam a second time may be laid at the feet of Bush I and that diplmatic blunderer, Colin Powell, who engineered their destruction under Saddam after the first Gulf War, which is, after all, why we are here again in the first place.

On the other hand, one of the main reasons we left Saddam in power after the First Gulf War was due to fear of angering neighboring Islamic states, who, like the overwheliming number of Muslims, view non-Muslims and non-Muslim states from an entirely different perspective than they view states run by Muslims.

The average Muslim would rather be brutally oppressed and surpressed by a fellow Muslim than emulate an non-Islamic state, which is the reason most Islamic states are economic backwaters today.

[SuziQ]

Any reticence on the part of Kurds or Shiites to rise up against Saddam a second time may be laid at the feet of Bush I and that diplmatic blunderer, Colin Powell, who engineered their destruction under Saddam after the first Gulf War,

Remember, we were there under the aegis of the UN in 1991, so we stopped when the Security council decided we'd gone far enough.

That's why it is so important that we are there today without the shackles of that debating society! The Iraqi people are naturally skeptical, and won't rally until they can truly believe that we are there to STAY until Sadaam and his ruling regime are completely GONE!

The news out of Basra and Najaf gives me hope that word is beginning to spread!