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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. T. who wrote (194400)	10/22/2001 2:12:49 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769670

The problem is that various allies, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, were afraid of a partition of the country by the Kurds and Shi'ites. The Kurds extend from western Turkey through Iran, and a rump Kurdistan would have increased guerrilla activity in Turkey to free its Kurds. The Shi'ites were a potential forward thrust for Iran, which had already questioned the propriety of having the Saudis guard the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and suggested that they might take military action. Thus, we left the central government with enough power to enforce negotiations, and prevent a complete split. We hoped that the formal opposition had more capability than it had, or that there would be a coup (one was planned, but Saddam caught it). The big questions are, was our intelligence faulty, and was our covert ops capability too weak?.......