To: Eldon Slife who wrote (17454 ) 3/8/2003 6:00:42 PM From: sea_urchin Respond to of 81149 Eldon, thank you for reading my rantings and also for taking the trouble to reply. Please believe me, I do appreciate your anxiety about Saddam as well as most of the reasons given for why he should be removed. I also accept that he is an evil man and that the world would be better off without him. In the circumstances, however, you must appreciate that he was not responsible for 911 and, as I understand it, that is where the anger of the American people is directed. Saddam is merely a substitute for the one who really did it.thememoryhole.com Unfortunately, I am old enough to have learned the truth in the expression that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Although I am fortunate not to have been in war myself, I have read and learned that there is probably no greater evil than war, itself. Thus, to me, it makes no sense to combat one form of evil by starting another, possibly a far greater one and especially when the intention is supposedly to do good. I have also read that many ex-servicemen, including generals and other top "brass", from the US and UK are opposed to war with Iraq for a variety of reasons. One of these reasons is that the war could unleash a backlash from Muslims everywhere who perceive that this war is being started by the US at the behest of the "Zionists" and for the benefit of Israel. There is also a widespread view that the US is doing it to gain control of the oil but that is another story. As I have stated repeatedly, I would like to give Mr Blix & Co a chance to finish their work. I know the US and UK view is that Saddam should have disarmed "instantly" but that is clearly impossible for a particular reason. This reason concerns the biological and chemical materials which the Iraqis say they destroyed in 1991 and for which there does not seem to be any documentation. General Al Saadi, the Iraqi head of "disarmamentation", said this himself at his very first press conference. Even Donald Rumsfeld quipped that, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". In fact, I heard Richard Perle talk about this very problem in a BBC interview this evening. Of course, and understandably, he says that the discrepancy between what Iraq said they once had and what they now say they have now is because they have hidden it. I say "understandably" because Perle has been wanting to remove Saddam for many years already and is looking for any reason to do it. A reason why I believe that there is no particular threat from these WMD, if he has them, is that Saddam knows what the retaliation will be if he tries something. The US and UK governments, and many people on the forum, say that they are not prepared to trust him --- but this is not about trust. No-one trusts him. It's simply that he knows what will happen to him if he uses them. He's toast! Which brings me to his apparent reluctance to comply with the dictates of Resolution 1441. Is he playing "chicken"? --- simply so that he can hide some old VX gas and a bit of anthrax! With 250,000 troops on his border and hundreds of airplanes ready to carpet-bomb him! If he is, then he is a most remarkable man. He has nerves of steel and the courage of a lion. He should go to Las Vegas and compete in the championship for the world's best poker player! There is, of course, another explanation as to why he doesn't own up and show the stuff --- he hasn't got it. And that's the explanation which I believe is most likely, and the reason why I would like to give the weapons inspectors as long as they require to satisfy themselves.