Posted on 08/03/2002 5:12:09 PM PDT by Pokey78
President George W. Bush will announce within weeks that he intends to depose Iraq's ruler, Saddam Hussein, by force, setting the stage for a war in the Gulf this winter.
Amid signs of active preparations for a war within six months, senior officials on both sides of the Atlantic have said that war against Iraq is now inevitable.
'The expectation is that President Bush will make a final decision on the timing of a war over the course of August. That would be followed by British-led efforts to get a mandate for action at the UN, either under existing resolutions or a new UN resolution,' said one senior source.
The disclosure came as US Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed an offer by Iraq to talk to the chief weapons inspector of the United Nations. 'Inspection is not the issue, disarmament is, making sure that the Iraqis have no weapons of mass destruction,' said Powell during a visit to Manila, capital of the Philippines.
'We have seen the Iraqis try to fiddle with the inspection system before,' said Powell. 'You can tell that they are trying to get out of the clear requirement that they have. The goal is not inspections for inspection's sake.'
The escalation of US military efforts comes amid signs of the first serious split between the White House and Britain over the relentless march to war.
That split emerged yesterday after John Bolton, US Under Secretary for Arms Control, admitted that the aim in Washington was to topple Saddam regardless of whether or not he allowed UN inspectors back in to complete the disarmament process.
'Let there be no mistake - while we also insist on the reintroduction of the weapons inspectors, our policy at the same time insists on regime change in Baghdad and that policy will not be altered, whether inspectors go in or not,' Bolton told Radio 4's Today programme. He said he 'certainly hoped' Saddam would be deposed within the year.
His words set alarm bells ringing in London, since the legality of any attack on Iraq - already questioned by the Government's own lawyers - depends on claiming to be acting against infringements of the post-Gulf War disarmament pact rather than simply overthrowing a dictator. Foreign Office sources were quick to dissociate the Foreign Secretary from Bolton's comments.
'Jack Straw has always said that the aim of our policy would not be regime change,' said a Foreign Office source.
In a further indication of preparations for war on both sides of the Atlantic, Tony Blair is expected to begin a campaign of softening up public opinion for war in the autumn. Bruce George, chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee, said the Government 'will have to have started explaining' its case by then to reverse polls now showing strong opposition to war.
Bolton's comments came as new evidence emerged of US preparations for war, including the building up of strategic oil reserves in the US to insulate the economy against an expected hike in oil prices that would follow the opening of hostilities.
Discreet inquiries have also been made about the availability of the oil tankers that would be needed to transport aviation and other fuel to the Gulf for use by US forces.
In a further indication that America is readying itself for war, large numbers of US Army military trucks have undergone rapid servicing by the Oshkosh Truck Corporation and have been seen being delivered by rail back to their bases painted in tan desert camouflage.
Blair yesterday faced new demands from all sides to publish the now notorious dossier of information on Saddam's nuclear, biological and chemical armoury that he has been promising to unveil since spring.
'The British public deserves to be treated with respect. We must know what the evidence is, and the evidence has got to be compelling,' said Tony Lloyd, the ex-Foreign Office Minister.
The long delay in publication has prompted suspicions that the dossier, which relies heavily on satellite pictures, is embarrassingly thin.
'By delaying publication the Government has raised expectations. There would be a political price to pay if this much promised document did not amount to more than a collection of press cuttings,' said Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman.
The determination of Bush and his closest officials to go ahead with a war has also come amid growing evidence of splits within his own administration.
Senior officials, however, anticipate that Bush will bring an end to the debate by ordering the Pentagon to prepare for war. Most in the administration expect a fairly swift victory.
'I'm absolutely convinced the President will settle on a war plan that brings about regime change,' a senior Republican foreign policy specialist told the Washington Post last week.
None is needed. See my post #124 in this thread.
The Isrealis can take care of themselves and if Isreal is such a dangerous place, well then the State department should be issuing a travel advisory for those wishing to go to Isreal, but of course that hasn't happened.
State Department Travel Warning for Israel - January 3, 2002
Updated State Department Travel Warning for Israel - August 2, 2002
Nice try.
Yes, as the months roll on, I'm getting to be a veteran Freeper. It was love at first browse, I tell ya,...way back when.
FR has enlarged my horizon and kept me informed in ways no previous news publication or service ever had, or could.
More than that, a wonderful and fine group of people hang out here, lurking and posting....a few tomnoddies and addercops, no doubt, but that is the norm for any assembly of man.
Are they talking about British law, or international law? Because international law is a crock of doo doo, a gentlemens' agreement that cannot be enforced by anyone without a substantial military. So unless Russia decides to issue an ultimatium to the US stating they'll attack us if we attack Iraq (which is utterly silly to even contemplate, since Russia has hated psycho-Islamists with good reason for far longer than we have), nobody's going to stop us, and no UN rulebook is going to have any relevance.
Yes. We're dealing with gibbering maniacs who consider suicide a sacrament. The only way we will avoid further terrorist attacks is to totally deprive them of any military capability.
This is right on target section9. BTW, I've always wanted to try your sign off -- if I may.
Be Seeing You.
Fred
That's right. This war is serious business. And we will kick some major a$$!
American style!
Vietnam was undertaken as a result of an irrational fear of communism, in reality it was just a proving ground for hardware.
The war in Southeast Asia had less justification for it than the coming enterprise.
I concur (almost).
Bush has rightly pointed out that this is a war between the United States and the Terrorist International. This International includes, mind you, states that support outfits like Al Qaeda.
I would agree, however when we know the likes of Pakistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia fund terrorism and yet we suck up to them, it sure looks quite selective that we pick out Saddam for deposing, I think we'd be better off leaving Saddam in place and taking out the Saudi's or the other Hussein in Syria. However, since we've provided Saddam a excuse for revenge, we'll never win. If and when we take him out, he becomes a martyr and then we have to deal with how many more millions of fanatics. We've already been warned by a number of Arab nations. Why are we going to purposely kick up a hornet's nest?, or is it simply rhetoric designed to run up the price of a barrel?.
Al Qaeda and Saddam have had relations for some time. Indeed, Iraq has proven a hospitable R&R station for Al Qaeda since they were driven out of Afghanistan. There have been reports of Al Qaeda operating in Kurdistan as early as last December. Indeed, Saddam and Bin Laden have had conversations going back to 1998. Finally, the United States confirmed the story the Czech Intelligence never backed off of: to wit, that Mohammed Atta met with a Colonel Al-Ani of Iraq's Mukhabarat in April of 2001. But what's more, in Iraq the Al Qaeda have access to all of Saddam's goodies.
Of course Iraq has been hospitable to Al Qaeda, they have a common enemy in us, which would not be the case had we not created a lie back in 1990 which we have to deal with now. The same people who gave us Desert Storm are running the show again and we have the same table being set.
Mr. Atta gets around. He was detained here in Florida and released, coincidentally around the same time as the President had a quick visit.
We know this. The Iraqis know this as well. We simply cannot afford to leave Iraq in the hands of Saddam.
Why not leave Saddam in power and marginalize him no different than we did to Khaddafi in Libya?. Is the answer is to rid the world of Saddam and plug in a dictator who is our buddy and will play nicely in the sandbox?.
The fact that he could give these kinds of weapons to Al Qaeda, have them act as a cutout, then watch as they are used against us is a condition that we cannot tolerate.
Maybe I've missed something here. But I've yet to review one iota of evidence that Saddam has ever taken action against this country, now I would not doubt that he has been complicit in something. If there is evidence, let's see it. It's more likely that the weapons you worry of came from us since we supplied Saddam and the Taliban with mucho weapons in years past. All I can add is that just what do you expect when you supply the planet with weapons?, sooner or later they'll get used somewhere, somehow.
This isn't about Empire. The last thing we want to do is to seize and hold a Middle Eastern country as a satrapy, especially when the Russians are pumping oil furiously and OPEC can't keep a price level worth a damn. The minute those Iraqi fields open up, the price of oil is going to go through the floor. We don't need the territory, we don't need the oil, but we do need to kill Saddam.
It's always about oil, control and empire. We've seized and are holding Afghanistan right now aren't we?, In fact we're providing personal security for the dupe we imposed on Afghanistan as we speak, I would guess that person is not a as popular as we thought.
And we're buying Iraqi oil right now aren't we?.
Dangerous psychotics who have enough money to acquire nuclear technology should give one pause. And should spur the sane among us to action.
I'm not certain that I would label Saddam a psychotic, dangerous to some, yes, but not psychotic. Frankly, I don't give a poop.
The appeasement of evil has many sirens, and the arguments for inaction are legion. These arguments are no less fatal for their being numerous, however, as the world found to its dismay in 1939.
Evil lurks in many places and takes many forms, some obvious, some not.
Who's to say that we are not the evil one's despite our intentions?.
And the events of 1939 to which you speak were formulated long before 1939 in Europe and were taking place far before that date in the far east. They do however have one common thread with modern events, they were all a result of statist militarism, the same thing we are practicing today and we are debating about.
Arguments about the sixties are irrelevant to the present situation, as are arguments about right and justice. This is about killing them before they get the chance to kill us.
Tell me then, when does it end?. What is the criteria for "winning"?. Violence begets violence. Once it begins, nobody cares about right and just, only who gets it next.
Gotta go home and see my kids.
---max
Does it matter?
Not unless you care to make the same mistakes over and over.
---max
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