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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (14915)	3/18/2003 5:05:56 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

A last, best hope against war still exists By William Ury Commentary > Opinion The Christian Science Monitor from the March 18, 2003 edition csmonitor.com BOULDER, COLO. – With war seemingly imminent, the last best chance for peace is a negotiated exit for Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. Indeed, this very moment - with the threat of a devastating US and British military attack - offers the best opportunity yet to persuade him to leave Iraq peacefully. If Mr. Hussein did go, it would be an extraordinary victory. The US and British threat of military attack would have succeeded without war. Tens of thousands of lives would be spared, and hundreds of billions of dollars would be saved. The rift between the major powers could be mended and the integrity of the UN Security Council would be preserved. Is it possible? Hussein told CBS news correspondent Dan Rather last month: "We will die in this country and we will maintain our honor in front of our people." But Hussein also told Mr. Rather he wouldn't destroy the Al Samoud 2 missiles - yet he started to do so within days. Saddam Hussein is homicidal, but he is not suicidal. A man who surrounds himself with 3,600 guards, changes sleeping places almost every night, has 20 dinners prepared so as to confuse possible assassins places a premium on his own survival. The world is full of ex-dictators who swore they'd never leave peacefully - yet did. Think of Haiti's Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, Uganda's Idi Amin, and Ethiopia's Mengistu Haile-Mariam. Think of Gen. Raoul Cedras, who relented only when the US invasion of Haiti had begun. Hussein is not the psychological type to retire. Yet, as a man dedicated to the "revolutionary struggle," he has in the past recognized the practical need, on occasion, for tactical retreats in the service of a long-term strategic advance. If Hussein could imagine himself living to fight another day - at the helm even of a self-styled Iraqi government-in-exile, depriving the US of the prize of occupying Iraq and its oil - then his all-consuming thirst for power might just urge him to take the exit option. He could even portray it publicly as a victory just as he did with his utter defeat in 1991. In a recent speech to his commanders, Hussein made a tantalizing reference to the ancient Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh: "The king gave up the helm and left his senate leading the country till his coming back." While Saddam's "coming back" would clearly be unacceptable, the challenge is to make a genuine exit as attractive as possible. If Hussein, his family, and his government were offered haven in Syria, Libya, or elsewhere ... if Saddam were offered immunity from war-crimes prosecution as Secretary Rumsfeld has publicly suggested ("a fair price to pay to avoid a war") ... if the Arab League and the UN were willing to take temporary control of Iraq, as proposed by Sheikh Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, then just possibly Hussein might say "Yes." Of course, Hussein has a history of miscalculating. If his past is any indication, he might not seize the chance until the bombs were actually falling. Therefore, it would be wise to establish in advance a reliable communication channel impervious to "e-bombs" and to put on the table an operational, reliable, and attractive offer for Hussein to accept that would not require any negotiation but the simple word "yes." The chances of success? No one can know. But the moment might come when, faced with the choice, Hussein might find government in exile in a Libyan beach resort attractive compared to death, or trial by an international tribunal. The US needs to make the road to that resort as easy as possible. The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu counseled 500 years ago: "The acme of victory is not to win a hundred battles but to win without battle." That is the prize we need to seek. • William Ury lives in Colorado and directs the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. He is coauthor of 'Getting to YES' and author of 'Getting Past No: Negotiating With Difficult People.'

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (14915)	3/19/2003 1:49:32 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

A Great Column By Maureen Dowd... The Perpendicular Pronoun By MAUREEN DOWD Columnist The New York Times March 19, 2003 WASHINGTON — Sometimes I feel as if I've spent half my adult life covering a President Bush as he squares off against Saddam Hussein, an evil dictator who invades his neighbors and gasses his own people. But while on the surface this seems like Groundhog War, the father-and-son duels in the sun with Saddam are breathtakingly different. The philosophical gulf between 41's gulf war and 43's gulf war is profound and cataclysmic — it has sent the whole world into a frenzy — yet it can be summed up in a single pronoun. "The big I," as Bush senior calls it. The first President Bush was often teased about his loopy syntax. But it was a way of speaking that signified the modesty and self-effacement his mother had insisted upon. He was so afraid to sound arrogant if he used the first person singular that he often just dropped the subject of a sentence and went straight to the verb. "Mother always lectured us — in a kinder, gentler way — against using the big I," Poppy Bush said. He is so shy of "I" that he has never written a personal memoir. Even though he came to politics with a sparse résumé, compared with his dad's stuffed one, the cocky W. was always more comfortable with the first person perpendicular. When I asked him during the 2000 campaign about why he hadn't inherited his father's phobia about the dreaded singular pronoun, he laughed and self-deprecatingly replied, "That's the difference between a Phi Beta Kappa and a gentleman's C." During his war overture on Monday night, W. was not afraid of the first-person spotlight: "This danger will be removed. . . . That duty falls to me as commander in chief by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep." The whole approach of the father, who had once served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and loved nothing more than to drag world leaders out on his cigarette boat and give them mal de mer, was a clubby "we." He and his secretary of state, James Baker, had a coalition of 90 countries for Desert Storm, and they constantly schmoozed world leaders trying to maintain international order. The hawks of Bush II are not afraid of disorder in the pursuit of American dominance. They have no interest in any coalition — except their own. They see the international "we" as an impediment to joy — and to destiny. The Bush doctrine is animated by "the big I." That self-regarding doctrine, concocted by Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle back when W. was still merely a presidential gleam in Karl Rove's eye, preaches preventive pre-emptive preternatural pre-eminence. The only holdover from the first Bush administration's land of "us" is Colin Powell. When the secretary of state was asked whether the decision to go to war reflected the pre-emptive Bush doctrine, he recoiled, crying, "No, no, no." While the president seemed to endorse Mr. Powell's attempt at diplomacy, it's now clear that he simultaneously adopted Dick Cheney's plan for a military buildup that was bound to upend the diplomatic effort. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that even though Mr. Cheney receded into the background for months, he was choreographing events like Pluto, lord of the underground. In his undisclosed locations, he had dinner parties with anti-Saddam intellectuals and reached out to Iraqi dissidents and plotted the war with his old pal Rummy, letting Colin Powell vainly spend his prestige at the mealy-mouthed U.N. We'll never know from the ultrasecretive vice president whether he also touched base with oil industry types, since Halliburton and other big construction companies that give to Republicans now stand to make millions in contracts for reconstructing Iraq and reviving its oil industry. And so we arrive at this remarkable moment, when a Bush who squeaked into office with an ordinary guy's appeal, not knowing very much at all about the globe but promising a humble foreign policy, has turned decades of American foreign policy on its head. Asked on "Meet the Press" about the ire the president's approach has provoked around the world, Mr. Cheney was dismissive, proclaiming Mr. Bush to be "Reaganesque." President Reagan always said to aides, "You have to be both revered and feared." This crowd has the fear part down cold. They have a long way to go on the other. nytimes.com

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (14915)	3/19/2003 2:50:12 AM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Interesting Golden Rule of Thumb. Message 18720387 lurqer

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (14915)	3/19/2003 3:44:04 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Global Insight: "Iraq War Scenarios" globalinsight.com "The Economic Impact of War with Iraq" globalinsight.com ............. Global Insight History Global Insight was created with the purpose of combining the two leading economic and financial forecasting companies in the world - DRI (formerly Data Resources Inc.) and WEFA (formerly Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates) - to form the world's preeminent company in its field, operating as DRI•WEFA. Now that all client products and services have been fully integrated, the company has changed its name to Global Insight on October 28, 2002. ==============