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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (89055)	4/2/2003 4:05:51 AM
From: bela_ghoulashi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This is good (a two-fer): 1. WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- Russian military advisers have told Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his government that the main Allied drive on Baghdad will not take place until mid-April and will then come around the west of the city, Russian journalists and analysts with strong links to Russian military intelligence now claim. upi.com 2. U.S.-led coalition forces marched toward Baghdad Wednesday after a series of key military victories against Iraqi troops and battles against Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard units. U.S. troops were pushing hard on two fronts from the southeast and southwest -- to outflank five Iraqi Republican Guard divisions south of Baghdad and cut them off from the city in an encirclement battle that would force the surrounded Iraqi elite troops to surrender before they could fall back into the city. upi.com Maybe the Russians are helping us after all...

To: LindyBill who wrote (89055)	4/2/2003 7:28:10 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I have been reading the Turkish news sites daily for quite a while now, as well as the Kurdish news sites. It is my belief that the real sticking point was and remains the Kurds. The first time it appeared that we had a done deal, the Kurds started screaming bloody blue murder, and it appears that the Bush administration backtracked, and the deal fell apart. All the rest of it - France, Germany, EU membership, popular opinion, and Turkish pride being offended by being portrayed in US cartoons as being greedy - all were part of it, probably, although the Turkish press wasn't reporting anything about France and Germany. EU membership has been mentioned only with respect to the situation in Cyprus, and the trial of the PKK leader, which the EU court says violated his civil rights (not sure why, I think because he was sentenced to death, although they say that the tribunal wasn't impartial). Whoever wanted the Kurds must have prevailed on whoever wanted the Turks that we could do it without the Turks but not without the Kurds, and that has proven to be the correct assessment. In my assessment, the final decision was military, not political, and it was made by the US.