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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Orcastraiter who wrote (6658)	6/25/2003 5:55:13 PM
From: Scott Bergquist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8683

"reveals the weakness in the argument.." Give just ONE.. ... One example of where an argument was weak, or strong, because of name calling. Not even two, (insert PC name here). Just one. Realize your problem. You believe religiously; that what you believe is true, is a fact, when it is -only- an opinion. A religious "fact" is "true" because the believer says so. The believer thinks others are not believing him, only because they are not really thinking about what he says. You cause me to recall an incident where one city councilman sued another for defamation of character at public meeting because he was called a "scumbag" by the defendant. The judge issued a summary judgment in favor of the defendant, as he could not find a authoritative definition of what a "scumbag" was! BREAD! More to everyones interest is what this USAID official says about the contracts and rebuilding Iraq: Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), said Bechtel, the U.S. company awarded a $680 million contract to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, would subcontract half the work to Iraqi firms, a level significantly lower than Bechtel predicted two weeks ago. "We are just wrapping up the assessment, but of the $680 million, I would say that of the supply side, maybe 75 percent of the stuff we will try to get from Iraq," (Bechtel) Senior Vice President Cliff Mumm, in charge of the Iraq contract, added. Some businessmen have been seeking foreign partners to bid for contracts, aiming to capitalize on low labor costs in Iraq, where an Iraqi engineer would cost about $200 a month. "These foreign companies never used to pick up their phones when I called," Ghassan Kubba, Vice-Chairman of Hikmet Kubba & Sons, an Iraqi holding company with interests ranging from banks to soft drinks. "Now they are running after me." "We need to employ as many Iraqis as we can to get the economy moving. That is critically important to social stability," Natsios said. (<< WHAT!! What could he be thinking??!! THINK, Man!! PROFITS! THINK PROFITS!) Natsios said Iraq had skilled technocrats and engineers but lacked institutions after 35 years of Baathist rule. "We do not have a capacity-building problem," he said. "What we have is a failure of governance through a tyrannical regime that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and left no institutions," he said.