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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (15494)	6/23/2002 9:11:57 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 23908

Bush's announcement does not matter. The Israelis will keep thumbing their nose at the US, continue to occupy the West Bank, continue to shell civilian market places and kill children. The Hamas and the Islamic Jihad will also kill through their suicide bombers. And now there is a new element. We have the Israeli settlers taking the law into their own hands and firing into Arab villages. The settlers have no business in encroaching into others territory in the first place. Hence I don't see what objective will be achieved through that announcement. The US has lost crdibility over there.

To: calgal who wrote (15494)	6/23/2002 9:34:27 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Some possible window dressing from Iraq: June 22, 2002 Saddam may hand power to his son to avoid attack from Richard Beeston in Baghdad timesonline.co.uk SADDAM HUSSEIN is considering stepping down as the Iraqi head of state in favour of his younger son in an attempt to counter the growing threat to his regime from the Bush Administration. Arab diplomats in Baghdad said that the Iraqi leader may not seek re-election in the presidential vote due later this year but instead allow Qusay Hussein, his heir apparent, to become the country’s leader. The Iraqi dictator, who has ruled unopposed for three decades, would remain in de facto control, much as the late Chinese leader Deng Xaioping. But the tactic may satisfy the Americans, or at least to delay their planned military action aimed at a change of regime in Baghdad by next year. “The word in the diplomatic community is that when the elections are being prepared this autumn, Saddam will not put his name forward but instead allow Qusay to go forward,” one diplomat said. “The aim would be to deflate the American threat.” Because of the obsessive secrecy of the regime and its ruling family, the plan is impossible to verify. The change would probably be used as a last line of defence, only when all diplomatic options were exhausted and a new conflict seemed inevitable. Iraq is to hold talks next month with the United Nations on the return of weapons inspectors to Baghdad. If Iraq relents and allows the team back to search for weapons of mass destruction, the threat of a new conflict would recede. If the talks fail, Washington and London are expected to press ahead with plans to start a new attack on Iraq. By most estimates the country’s military would be able to offer only token resistance. Certainly Qusay Hussein’s increasingly powerful role is not in dispute. The secretive and sober younger son, 36, is fast establishing himself as the obvious successor. He controls the Special Security Organisation, the secret police, which has suppressed any opposition to the Baathist regime. The intelligence services, which number several thousand men, are at the forefront of efforts to protect Iraq against the threat of an American attack and in particular to stop any attempt at fomenting an uprising among the disaffected Shia Muslim majority in the south and the rebellious Kurds in the north. Increasingly Qusay has also taken on a leading role in Iraq’s foreign affairs, and is thought to have been behind the recent successful attempt by Iraq to rebuild its ties with the Arab world. Working through his protégé, Naji Sabri, the Foreign Minister, Qusay has successfully masterminded the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and is now making overtures to Kuwait to patch up ties, a decade after Iraq invaded and destroyed its tiny southern neighbour. The diplomatic effort is intended to blunt American attempts at building a coalition against Iraq in the region. The new foreign policy team has also eclipsed old-time Saddam loyalists like Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister, who along with other figures has been marginalised. Although he rarely appears in public seems to lack his father’s charisma, Qusay is said to be ambitious and shrewd, unlike Uday Hussein, his older brother, who has a reputation as a playboy. However the prospect of Saddam relinquishing power voluntarily still seems unthinkable to some. “Frankly, I don’t believe he will ever step down,” one diplomat said. “He would prefer to die or see his country destroyed rather than give up power to his son.”