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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (21792)	7/6/2003 7:17:41 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Of course, if we do the old cui bono? test, we can both easily figure out who probably is behind this thing... That's my guess as well. But it's a guess and I'd like to have something more than logical guessing. Because of their relationship with the UK [which is not good], I doubt they would give it directly to UK intelligence, so an intermediary is certainly expected. I don't know how deeply they would want to cover their tracks, but it's possible, even likely, that there would be intelligence they would give directly to the US, which would explain why so much [sic, all] of the information the US gave to the UN inspectors turned out to be BS. jttmab

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (21792)	7/6/2003 12:31:03 PM
From: BubbaFred	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

Blair 'expected war to last four months' Kamal Ahmed, political editor Sunday July 6, 2003 The Observer Tony Blair has revealed for the first time that coalition forces in Iraq believed the war against Saddam Hussein would last for 125 days, suggesting why the military were so ill-prepared for the post-conflict situation. In an interview with The Observer, the Prime Minister said he had spoken to General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in Iraq, who had said the war was likely to last four months. In an admission that raises the question whether military intelligence understood the state of the Iraqi armed forces - which crumbled in the face of the American and British 'shock-and-awe' campaign - Blair said criticisms of the post-conflict situation were premature. 'When I was talking to Gen Franks the other day, he reminded me that under the original timetable for the conflict, it was going to take 125 days after the ground action began to complete the conflict,' Blair said. 'Well we are still within 125 days now, so I think it is possible to exaggerate the problems and difficulties.' The Prime Minister said Britain would retain a military presence in Iraq for as long as necessary. He pointed out that Britain still had armed forces in Kosovo and Afghanistan, years after the wars there had ended. 'This was never going to be a situation where you could just go in, invade a country, topple the government and walk away afterwards. And therefore I don't think that it is in the least surprising that it will take some time. But it is very important people realise this, we have still got a military presence in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, but it is a fraction of what we had at the time of the crises in those countries. 'Already today we have got only a third of the troops we had at the height of the [Iraq] crisis. We have got 5,500 foreign troops coming in the next few weeks. So having a troop presence there is not the same thing as having the same number of troops as we had during the conflict, or even now.' Deaths of British and US troops at the hands of forces still loyal to Saddam Hussein and others angered by the tactics of coalition forces have led to questions about how much planning there was for rebuilding Iraq. The violence in Iraq continued yesterday when an explosion outside a police station killed seven recruits to a US-backed Iraqi police force and wounded dozens in a town west of Baghdad. The blast, believed to have been caused by fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein, came a day after a broadcast accredited to the deposed Iraqi dictator calling for an uprising against US and British forces, and warning against 'collaboration with the invaders'. Many areas of Iraq are without reliable water and power supplies and there is growing resentment among many Iraqis that there is still an 'occupying force' in the country. Lawlessness is also rife. Paul Bremer, the US chief administrator in the country, revealed last week that the preparations for what would happen after the war were inadequate. He said the imposition of law and order remained the priority. 'We will stay and make sure we get the job done,' Blair said. Downing Street has said it is well aware of the criticisms that the lack of discovery of Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction was creating difficulties. The Prime Minister pledged he would publish information on what evidence the Government had in an orderly way. 'I think the important thing is to do this, not in bits of information coming out, but in a proper disciplined way and then share the stuff with people,' he said. 'The intelligence that we received was intelligence replicated in intelligence services right round the world, and, given the record of Saddam, I have got no doubt it was correct. 'Remember I was raising the issue of weapons of mass destruction way before these issues [came up]. We bombed Saddam in late 1998 because of this, so when the intelligence evidence comes to you from our security services that are the best in the world, you don't turn round and say well I have got a hunch that it is wrong, so I am going to ignore it. You have got to act on it.' politics.guardian.co.uk