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Saddam has been in power for thirty years..he's not going to do anything to jeopardize his power from within, and he's not going to France (as somone on here has suggested).

The people arming themselves say they are willing to fight the US and sacrifice themselves, all because of the US support of Israel and because of US interventions.

So...why isn't Israel behind us? Are we fighting a war for Israel, that Israel is less than enthusiastic over, against a people that may not want to roll over and play dead as quickly as we claim?

We have managed to put Saddam in a pickle; one of the key rules of negotiating is to give the other guy an out. The conversations with Iraq have gone something like this:

US: "We want to inspect to see if you have WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. If we find them, it is proof that you are in violation of the agreement you signed, and we will invade. If we don't find them, we won't believe you and we will invade."

Saddam: "We don't have any."

US: "We don't believe you. We know you have them. We're going to invade you."

Saddam: "Where are they then?"

US: "If you don't show them to us how would we know? Get ready for an invasion. We'll kick your butts because you'll never see it coming."

Saddam: "OK, we'll allow inspections."

Inspectors: "We didn't find anything. But we didn't find proof that they don't have them either."

US: "Good enough for us. We'll invade."

What are they going to do if, after we invade, we find no WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, just as they have claimed, and that the UN have not been able to find? Oh yes...Saddam is really nasty; why, he jammed our missiles so they wouldn't hit him, and he put an untrained mob against us. It's theater of the absurd.

Or, more likely, what if we invade, and Saddam uses his WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (and I have no doubt he has them) against US troops? Or worse yet (in the eyes of Washington's Amen Corner) against Israel?

He would not have used them without an invasion; he would know the retaliation would be brutal; he didn't last thirty years in that region by being an idiot. The only reason he would use them is in the event he were threatened. And by George, we're giving him the opportunity.

At the very least, the Bush War Machine should be happy...between armed civilians shooting at them, and their purchase of JDAM jamming equipment, they can blame all collateral damage on Saddam.

You're going a little beyond the subject of your original post. A debate on the wisdom or validity of the impending invasion is something quite different from whether or not Saddam is, in fact, allowing the freedom of individuals taking up arms. But, without meaning to provoke a day-long session at the keyboard, I'll shoot you a couple thoughts…

For the record, I am not a spittle-flecked, rabid proponent of the campaign to invade Iraq. I am, however, willing to accept the idea that Saddam is worth eliminating (and I WAS a rabid, spittle-flecked raving lunatic when Bush Sr. didn't go the whole nine yards and eliminate Saddam then). I believe foresight must be the bedrock of foreign policy and that foresight should be based on what is the likely historical outcome - not some pollyannaish theories about global peace like Chamberlain so ably demonstrated.

Other than that, I don't really have any more information other than that which is out there for everyone else. From that information, I conclude:

1) There is an Al Quaida connection via the shadowy meeting in, I believe, Paris. In any event, Saddam has been more than happy to make other, less direct, connects and alliances with Islamic terrorism.

2) Saddam has already used WMD on Kurds and, seemingly, on US troops that served in Desert Storm. Ask some of them. Chemical exposure badges were indicating exposure almost uniformly according to some of the accounts given by soldiers there. The story was that they were defective. Then, in the 1990's, a epidemiological picture began to develop that supports the contentions of Gulf War veterans.

3) Evidence gathered after round one shows that WMD production (nerve agents, biologicals) was a part of Saddam's enterprises. Given the fact that he has killed upwards of 2 million unarmed people and given his nerve agent use on Kurds and his outstanding treatment of Iranian combatants (remember the electrocutions and bodies being used as earth works?), I don't question his viciousness, his unilateral willingness to liquidate weaker forces with WMD or his unacceptable role in the world's make-up.

4) Reporting on NPR, no less, has it that sources in Iraq say Saddam has hidden much of the evidence of his WOD sealed in containers buried in the desert sands someplace.

5) He is working on nuclear capabilities and according to intelligence sources that examined his nuclear research operations in the wake of Desert Storm, he was nearly three years from completion at that time. Estimates before the invasion had been tendered that he was a decade out, or more.

6) I accept nothing…repeat…NOTHING that the UN says or does. To my thinking, any concessions to UN involvement is purely political theater. In the same way, anything the UN does on behalf of the United States is purely political theater. Forget even raising any credible points on anything including the date, weather conditions or the color of green grass if the source is the UN.

I have answered the questions of your original post, that is, the credibility of Saddam's campaign to arm his populace. With the additional thoughts above in mind, I have responded to the gist of your second post, which seems, largely, to be an indictment of why we shouldn't invade Iraq.

In short, I fundamentally disagree with your inaccurate and naive statement:

"He would not have used them [WMD] without an invasion…"

He has used them. He is willing to use them without defensive reasons. Thus, I assume he will use them. It is only a matter of time. In the same way, I believe this is the case with much of the evil and disorder in this world - it'll come gunning for us sooner or later and what we think or feel about it won't much matter.

In this single idea, I will support a firm, rational and consistent national policy that is proactive on behalf of US interests. For better or worse, the idea of 'Empire' is part and parcel of what we are doing here. We may not like (and I do not) but it is thrust upon us by virtue of our role and dominance in the world. America faces enemies within in the form of Marxian globalists, enemies without in the form of Marxian globalists and, currently, a resurgence of the Islamic conquest imperative.

The future, as I see it, holds inescapable conflict. Given the scope of our enemies, conflict will continue to be the price of independence in the increasingly clamorous world order. To my thinking, we cannot be faced with anything but a bitter and long conflict if the goal of preserving America as a free nation is worth preserving.

Beyond the fallacies of believing in Iraqi press releases in your first post and what I consider to be naiveté in the second post, I guess I'm not really all fired up to debate the coming invasion except to say that I tend to agree with the idea that a war on terrorism has much greater implications than many Americans (and ALL of the presstitutes) are capable of imagining.