***Operation Iraqi Freedom - Situation Room - Day 23 - LIVE THREAD***

Everywhere! | 11 APR 03 | An.American.Expatriate

[MEG33]

He started building a Mosque a month to impress the Arabs and he was Keen on building palaces.Then there's a matter of what he's stolen from illegal oil shipments.. 12billion?He gave money to terrorists in Palestine and ran terror camps.It's all the fault of the sanctions.

[Fracas]

Bravo! This ridiculous effort to rehab WJC on the back of our military has to stop - NOW!

I have another question for consideration.

Do you suppose CNN shared their knowledge (I refuse to use the word intelligence and CNN in the same sentence) with the Bush White House? Perhaps the location of the torture chambers? Perhaps the names of the torturers? Perhaps the names of the tortured - so our Special Ops could talk to them and get them out of harm's way just before the invasion?

[GeorgiaYankee]

Look what Geraldo has found. This country is overflowing with Ammo, Guns, RPGs and all kinds of crap. Not the mention all the paid mercenaries and terrorist training camps.

Why are people poor? Why are they living in mud huts in slums??? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Our troops have also found govt buildings/warehouses full of food, medical supplies and even baby food(from the Oil for Food Program).
Shades of N Korea/KimJongILL

At the Intl Airport ABC/Ted Koppel found a huge pile of empty baby formula bottles where the Iraqi forces were staying. Apparently that's all they had left to eat at the end.

[Cordova Belle]

Just arriving today after VERY busy morning...

Watched a headline crawl last night on Fox re: Powell reassuring the Turks that Kirkuk would not remain in Kurdish hands.

Now I have to ask...
1. WHAT business is it of the Turks--since it isn't their land anyhow?

2. Why SHOULDN'T the Kurds be allowed to keep Kirkuk, since
a.--they helped take it back
b.--they suffered so much under Saddam
c.--they got left holding the bag after the Gulf War

3.Who gives a flyin' fig WHAT the Turks think---they can go pound sand---they didn't let us use their accesss to the north, anyway. With friends like them, who needs enemies?

The Turks shouldn't be allowed ONE WORD of comment as to what happens to Kirkuk---not any more than the French should.

Just asking.....

[Carolina]

And a former high ranking Clinton bootlicker, to boot.

The operative word is former, not to mention ineffective but you wouldn't know it by the way the mediots are falling over themselves to give air time to these derelicts.

Unreal.

[cyncooper]

I continue underwhelmed.

Me, too. Something tells me everybody outside the "let's bring down GWB" forces find the looting mildly amusing and understandable and is temporary.

[Dog]

OMG!

[null and void]

Geesh! is your keyboard still smoking?? LOL UNREAL! (courtroom stenographer?)

Is she good or what? She earned her place in the thread header...

[ican'tbelieveit]

This is one of those "the world is not black and white, but grey" issues. If the Kurds in Iraq gain independence, then the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, etc will revolt against their governments. Hence, the Turks are crying foul in regards to the happenings in Iraq.

[Lauratealeaf]

It's a bit more than that. Mesopotamia, the old Iraq, is the very cradle of civilization as we know it.

Their past is, in many ways, our past.

It is also part of their future - tourism - which will bring a an ongoing friendly western influence to the new Iraq...

I know. I have a degree in Art History. But, I am a realist. Are we to worry more about the old civilization than the one that is to be? Do we have any deployed museum docents with guns to pound the looters? Wouldn't it be nicer to win the war before we start protecting the old Mesopotamian pots?

[AZLadyhawke]

That's just one out of (what was) 73 palaces total.

Not including of course the Billion-dollar mosque currently under construction.

[cyncooper]

Christiane's hubby is an embedded pundit with the Beeb.

He is? Well, has he said anything disapproving of Saddam or his sons?

[Carolina]

The Beeb is milking the anarchy angle for all it's worth. Beeb Babe in northern Iraq saying that the peshmergas haven't left, there aren't enough American forces there...Geez.

We've learned to hate the word quagmire, I think the next word will be anarchy.

Oh, great. Now the Red Cross is appealing to our troops to do more about the looting.

[Conservababe]

You know, the war slut interviewed her own husband on CNN about a year ago. CNN and she never said that she was interviewing her own husband. Seems he only took one trip to the middle east with Madeline Albright, yet he was introduced as a 'middle east expert'.

[two23]

Todays DoD News Briefing in Screen Caps- CLICK HERE

[retrokitten]

Some new pictures...

A Bradley fighting vehicle drives under a massive arch of swords at Saddam Hussein
Kurdish soldiers celebrate as they arrive in the city of Mosul in Iraq
U.S. Army soldiers walk near a massive arch of swords at Saddam Hussein's military parade grounds Friday
A convoy of U.S. soldiers of the 173rd Airborne out of Vincenza, Italy drive towards a military airfield in Kirkuk, northern Iraq
United States Marines Lance Cpl. Josh Carbajal takes a sip of some tea offered to him by Iraqi civilians while setting up a defensive perimeter during a patrol of a neighborhood in Baghdad
Sgt. Javier Vila, from Miami, Fla. cries as he and fellow soldiers pay their respects at a memorial service for Cpl. Henry Brown in Baghdad on Friday
United States Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines sign their autographs for some Iraqi children who approached them while on patrol through a neighborhood of Baghdad
Soldiers pay their respects at a memorial service for Cpl. Henry Brown in Baghdad on Friday, April 11, 2003.

[null and void]

No, but protect antiquties where we can...

[Carolina]

He is? Well, has he said anything disapproving of Saddam or his sons?

Well, I must confess that I put him on mute each time. I can't stand the sneering condescension. He's brought on to comment on Washington events.

The Beeb Dweeb is saying that Iraq has been left in pieces. They found some woman in the street asking, "Where are they [American forces].

I think I'm going to keep track of how often they use the word looting.

[Catspaw]

Dog, I didn't even put in the private zoo stuff in the LA Times article so I could post some of the most egregious abuses.

And that's from just ONE of his palaces. But can you imagine how much that marble cost..or the gold bathroom fixtures...the frescos...the stained glass...the statues & pictures of Saddam that are in every room & every street corner....oh, did I mention his 420 foot yacht?

Not to mention what he's spent on conventional weapons and WMD.

After the war is over and that country recovers, with good management, that country will be mind-bogglingly wealthy.

[Lauratealeaf]

Oh, great. Now the Red Cross is appealing to our troops to do more about the looting.

I am not surprised. But isn't it called the Red Crescent Rolls over there?