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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Louis V. Lambrecht who wrote (33840)	5/16/2003 2:02:38 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

SAFQUA NEWS: THE BAGHDAD BARGAIN Louis, The questions just keep popping up so terribly inconveniently all over the net. Here's one of my favorite collections: atimes.com SNIP: "Much of the world was surprised. After the spirited resistance in the south of Iraq, how could Baghdad possibly have fallen in only two days? An Asia Times Online investigation in Baghdad, Tikrit and Najaf has yielded a clear certainty among Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi'ite, as to the answer: The Pentagon and the Ba'ath Party leadership made a safqua ("secret deal" in Arabic) for the (almost) bloodless fall of Baghdad. Crucially, this safqua may have included a package of American green cards for top Republican and Special Republican Guard commanders and their families. "Shaku maku"? ("What's new"?). "Makushi"? (No news). In the answer to this popular exchange in Baghdad slang, makushi has been replaced by safqua. " SOME QUESTIONS THAT OIL SLICK DICK AND RUMMY HAVE SKIPPED: How did American forces manage to storm into and take over Baghdad with practically no resistance? In Basra, which is much smaller and which was relatively lightly defended, there was no pro-Anglo-American uprising, and the city took three weeks to be subdued. What happened to the 20,000-strong, well-equipped Special Republican Guards, charged with the defense of Baghdad? Where did they melt away to? How come there was no coordination between the Ba'ath Party-Republican Guard defense of Baghdad and the jihadis who poured in from Syria, Algeria, Yemen and Egypt to help? How come the Republican and Special Republican Guards did not destroy a single bridge in Baghdad - an effective tactic to delay the American invasion? How did the entire Iraqi cabinet manage to escape? This includes Saddam and his sons, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Dr A K Hashimi (Saddam's personal adviser), the ministers of defense, economy, trade and health and the unforgettable, insult-laden Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf of the information ministry. Similarly, how did the vast majority of the Ba'ath Party leadership and the Republican Guard evade capture or surrender? What happened to the infrastructure of the regime - the bulk of the estimated 500,000 elite? What has happened to Saddam? Is he still in Iraq, in Taramiya, not far from Tikrit, or in Mecca, as per wild speculation in the Arab world? Why were the oil fields in northern and southern Iraq not set on fire - a tactic already used by Saddam in Kuwait in 1991? Where are Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction - the official reason for the war?