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Strategies & Market Trends : ahhaha's ahs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ahhaha who wrote (5632)	11/23/2002 12:28:34 AM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24758

Why does Russia not want the US to launch war against Iraq? Because the fallout from Iraq's WMDs created from technology bought from Russia, France, and Germany, driven by the prevailing Westerlies falls on Russia's bread basket.

To: ahhaha who wrote (5632)	11/23/2002 4:44:58 PM
From: NickSE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24758

Seems like the inspections are going to be a joke. Given the US is determined to take the regime down, what do you think the catalyst will be for military action? Hans Blix's Third Try Will the chief U.N. inspector agree to another Iraq whitewash? opinionjournal.com United Nations weapons inspectors have left Iraq after their first visit since December 1998, with chief inspector Hans Blix calling it a "constructive visit." We hope that as the days unfold Mr. Blix understands that his own credibility is as much on the line as Saddam Hussein's. Arguably much more so, since no one expects Saddam to tell the truth. But Mr. Blix has his own track record in Iraq, and it doesn't inspire confidence that he will go to the mat to disarm the dictator. The question now is whether the 74-year-old Swedish diplomat is going to let Saddam make a fool of him and the U.N. one more time. The reasons to worry about Mr. Blix's tenacity go back to the 1980s when he was director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is supposed to police global nuclear proliferation. At the time Mr. Blix pronounced Iraq nuclear free. But the world later found out, thanks to documents seized after the Gulf War, that Saddam was perhaps only months away from getting a bomb. "It's correct to say that the IAEA was fooled by the Iraqis," Mr. Blix admitted to the Guardian earlier this year. Yet if he'd learned any lesson, Mr. Blix didn't show it when he was still leading the IAEA after the Gulf War. In particular, he still refused, despite pleading from his fellow inspectors, to insist on surprise inspections that would deny the Iraqis time to disguise weapons sites. All of which explains why Mr. Blix is the man Iraq has all along wanted to lead any renewed U.N. inspections team. Saddam's minions insisted on Mr. Blix over Rolf Ekeus, who also had previous experience in Iraq but was much more tough-minded. The U.N. hired Mr. Blix. Even now, after a unanimous Security Council vote, Mr. Blix is sending mixed signals. For example, he has resisted the U.S. and British demand to question Iraqi officials outside that country and offer political asylum if need be; he's afraid the Iraqis will resist and says he doesn't want confrontation. But why would any Iraqi risk his life by telling the truth about Saddam from inside Iraq? And asked last weekend on CBS's "60 Minutes" whether an inspector had to be "tough and aggressive," Mr. Blix replied that "aggressive is an American quality. You're aggressive in business, that's fine. Aggression is prohibited under the U.N. charter, and as a European, I would rather use the word dynamic and effective, if you don't mind." It's always possible that Mr. Blix is hiding a new steely resolve behind this continental politesse. And every so often he does show a hint of determination. "The production of mustard gas is not like the production of marmalade," he told reporters this week. "You're supposed to keep some track of what you produce. There must be documentation, records of what was produced." That's a reference to the inventory that Iraq must produce, by December 8, of all of its weapons stockpiles, sites and programs. Iraq is still insisting that it has almost nothing of the kind. But Mr. Blix has access to U.S. intelligence that lists more than 100 such sites and stocks. Mr. Blix's first big test will be whether he insists that Saddam admit to everything right up front, as the latest U.N. resolution demands. President Bush anticipated this moment when he said this week in Prague that "Saddam Hussein has been given a very short time to declare completely and truthfully his arsenal of terror.'' If Saddam plays to type, his December 8 gambit will be obvious. He will produce just enough inventory to appear to be cooperating, while withholding his most sensitive nuclear and biological details. He will then hope that Mr. Blix, backed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, will call this progress and make it difficult for Mr. Bush to declare it a "material breach" of the U.N. resolution. The result would be another whitewash, just like the one Mr. Blix sanctioned a decade ago. His failure then has led to years of greater terror in Iraq and turmoil in the Middle East. His obligation now is to make amends by insisting on complete Iraqi disarmament.