"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...
"Dav1936531" wrote in message
...

We (the US) have fallen into an extremely serious credibility trap laid
out by
Saddam.

Occam's razor. It is entirely superfluous to presuppose a prepared
trap by Saddam. This set of conditions would have occurred
regardless of his presence and fate. It is an entirely predictable
consequence of the larger political framework in the Middle East
and the conflicts in Iraqi society. For anything else to happen would
have been near-miraculous.

Indeed; if anybody set any kind of a "credibility trap" to anybody there in
Iraq, then the US admin. Why construct "information" about something for
which there was no firm evidence? Why not clearly and honestly say what it
was all about?

Remove a crazy dictator that was terrorizing everybody - including his
closest relatives, was responsible for three wars, for deaths of hundreds of
thousands (foremost Arabs and Iraqis), for disturbing the peace and
spreading the hatred, for disturbing prosperity and the development of the
whole region, and negative influence on the world economy, and somebody that
is responsible for Iraq - a prosperous country at the time he rose to
power - laying in ruins now. There couldn't have been a better "excuse" for
a war against it, and such an open "confession" couldn't have been misused
by the Arab media either.

In the way the whole matter was "constructed" the US admin damaged its own
reputation as first, and caused itself immense problems. What is that good
for I don't know.

Saddam is probably hiding in some basement; lying awake at night
wondering just when his few remaining followers will realize that
he is more a liability than an asset. In the interest of justice, it is
very
important to arrest him and bring him to court. But as far as security
is considered, it won't make much of a difference. Terrorists do not
need something to fight for, only something to fight against.

In fact - if still alive (which I doubt) - he's not even in "control" of
anything but 15-20 closest body-guards, and few poor people they terrorise
in order to ascertain his safety.

On the contrary, I'm convinced that since May this year Iraq is not any more
a battlefied between the US and British troops and the former Iraqi regime,
but a battlefield in the "War on Terror", where the matters of the "other
side" are massively run by the foreigners - not by Iraqis, and certainly not
by Saddam. Of course, parts of the former security system are still
functioning, and supporting the foreigners with hideouts, weapons, and
supplies. Due to the failure of the US military to really destroy this
system (they, of course, blew all there was on intel and security forces HQs
early during the waar, but started targeting the really operating and
functioning elements of the scurity system only at a much later stage during
the war, in the week before Baghdad fell), this is now therefore likely to
become a longer, costly and very bloody conflict, and the longer it takes
the more problems the USA are about to encounter there. Given the wrong
"excuse" used for starting this conflict, of course, the whole situation is
meanwhile seen by the public under more than a very bad light.

Worst of all, there are now two large battlefields where the fighting is
likely to continue for years: Afghanistan and Iraq. Given how overstretched
the US resources already now are, this is nothing like a pleasant situation,
especially due to the fact that additional emergencies elsewhere are likely
too.

But hell, as the situation in which the US admin has put itself by now is,
there is neitehr a solution for the actual backgrounds of the problems at
hand (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), nor can one put all the 3 millions of
"former" Ba'ath Party members in Iraq in a front of a wall and shoot them in
order to make it impossible they to support the foreign idiots that come to
Iraq - and so end at least the war there.

Tom Cooper
Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php
and,
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat:
http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...hp/title=S6585