Why are France and Germany pro-Saddam? Follow the money.

[RonOnGuitar]

KHIDHIR HAMZA, the former director of Iraq's nuclear weapons program explains the reason for French and German support of Saddam in detail:



Why are France and Germany pro-Saddam? Follow the money.



BY KHIDHIR HAMZA

Tuesday, February 11, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST



My 20 years of work in Iraq's nuclear-weapons program and military industry were partly a training course in methods of deception and camouflage to keep the program secret. Given what I know about Saddam Hussein's commitment to developing and using weapons of mass destruction, the following two points are abundantly clear to me: First, the U.N. weapons inspectors will not find anything Saddam does not want them to find. Second, France, Germany, and to a degree, Russia, are opposed to U.S. military action in Iraq mainly because they maintain lucrative trade deals with Baghdad, many of which are arms-related.



Since the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 we have witnessed a tiny team of inspectors with a supposedly stronger mandate begging Iraq to disclose its weapons stockpiles and commence disarmament. The question that nags me is: How can a team of 200 inspectors "disarm" Iraq when 6,000 inspectors could not do so in the previous seven years of inspection?



Put simply, surprise inspections no longer work. With the Iraqis' current level of mobility and intelligence the whole point of inspecting sites is moot. This was made perfectly clear by Colin Powell in his presentation before the U.N. last week. But the inspectors, mindless of these changes, are still visiting old sites and interviewing marginal scientists. I can assure you, the core of Iraq's nuclear-weapons program has not even been touched. Yesterday's news that Iraq will "accept" U-2 surveillance flights is another sign that Saddam has confidence in his ability to hide what he's got.



Meanwhile, the time U.N. inspectors could have used gathering intelligence by interviewing scientists outside Iraq is running out. The problem is that there is nothing Saddam can declare that will provide any level of assurance of disarmament. If he delivers the 8,500 liters of anthrax that he now admits to having, he will still not be in compliance because the growth media he imported to grow it can produce 25,000 liters. Iraq must account for the growth media and its products; it is doing neither.



Iraq's attempt to import aluminum tubes of higher tensile strength than is needed in conventional weapons has been brushed aside by the IAEA's Mohammed El-Baradei. He claims there is no proof that these tubes were intended for modification and use in centrifuges to make enriched uranium. Yet he fails to report that Iraq has the machining equipment to thin these tubes down to the required thickness (less than one millimeter) for an efficient centrifuge rotor. What's more, they don't find it suspect that Iraq did not deliver all the computer controlled machining equipment that it imported from the British-based, Iraqi-owned Matrix-Churchill that manufacture these units.



Mr. Blix also discounted the discovery of a number of "empty" chemical-weapons warheads. What he failed to mention is that empty is the only way to store these weapon parts. The warheads in question were not designed to store chemicals for long periods. They have a much higher possibility of leakage and corrosion than conventional warheads. Separate storage for the poisons is a standard practice in Iraq, since the Special Security Organization that guards Saddam also controls the storage and inventory of these chemicals.



What has become obvious is that the U.N. inspection process was designed to delay any possible U.S. military action to disarm Iraq. Germany, France, and Russia, states we called "friendly" when I was in Baghdad, are also engaged in a strategy of delay and obstruction.

In the two decades before the Gulf War, I played a role in Iraq's efforts to acquire major technologies from friendly states. In 1974, I headed an Iraqi delegation to France to purchase a nuclear reactor. It was a 40-megawatt research reactor that our sources in the IAEA told us should cost no more than $50 million. But the French deal ended up costing Baghdad more than $200 million. The French-controlled Habbania Resort project cost Baghdad a whopping $750 million, and with the same huge profit margin. With these kinds of deals coming their way, is it any surprise that the French are so desperate to save Saddam's regime?



Germany was the hub of Iraq's military purchases in the 1980s. Our commercial attaché, Ali Abdul Mutalib, was allocated billions of dollars to spend each year on German military industry imports. These imports included many proscribed technologies with the German government looking the other way. In 1989, German engineer Karl Schaab sold us classified technology to build and operate the centrifuges we needed for our uranium-enrichment program. German authorities have since found Mr. Schaab guilty of selling nuclear secrets, but because the technology was considered "dual use" he was fined only $32,000 and given five years probation.



Meanwhile, other German firms have provided Iraq with the technology it needs to make missile parts. Mr. Blix's recent finding that Iraq is trying to enlarge the diameter of its missiles to a size capable of delivering nuclear weapons would not be feasible without this technology transfer.



Russia has long been a major supplier of conventional armaments to Iraq--yet again at exorbitant prices. Even the Kalashnikov rifles used by the Iraqi forces are sold to Iraq at several times the price of comparable guns sold by other suppliers.



Saddam's policy of squandering Iraq's resources by paying outrageous prices to friendly states seems to be paying off. The irresponsibility and lack of morality these states are displaying in trying to keep the world's worst butcher in power is perhaps indicative of a new world order. It is a world of winks and nods to emerging rogue states--for a price. It remains for the U.S. and its allies to institute an opposing order in which no price is high enough for dictators like Saddam to thrive.

Mr. Hamza, a former director of Iraq's nuclear-weapons program, is the co-author of "Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda" (Scribner, 2000).



www.opinionjournal.com/ed...=110003053

[Seismic Anamoly]

Quote:

---

In 1989, German engineer Karl Schaab sold us classified technology to build and operate the centrifuges we needed for our uranium-enrichment program.

---

"Boom, Boom..Out Go Tha Lights!!"



Pat Travers Band



Great post, Ron...

[MIKE BURN]

Holy news..... I missed the part which says, that all money combined, European companies earned with business relations in Iraq, equals not 1/10th., the U.S. earned with Iraq by simply selling weapons, weapons, weapons, weapons.......

[Seismic Anamoly]

Quote:

---

Germany was the hub of Iraq's military purchases in the 1980s.

---

[MIKE BURN]

Give me some facts.



I can read the German report of the

"Bundesverteidigungsministerium".



Your allegation is wrong and stays a allegation.



Furthermore stop driving away valued community members,

or you go earlier than Hussein.

[NRKofOver]

I'm very uncomfortable with stories like this. It would appear that along the way all the nations with the technological abilities would have realized Saddam was a nut. This includes the US, we can't be left out because we knew he sucked when we trained and armed Iraq just because they were fighting Iran.



One of the really big shifts that has to happen in the world is a different approach to foreign policy and everyone's involvement with psychos. I don't know much about European or Russian behavior regarding this stuff, but I do know that the US has spent decade after decade creating one problem after another for short term benefits. We put Noriega in power and then had to arrest him for being a drug dealer when he wouldn't play anymore. We trained and armed the Taliban when they were fighting Russia. We trained and armed Iraq in the early 80's.



So as far as this article goes, I hope everyone realizes that the US is just as guilty of this @#%$ and it has to stop from everyone, including us.

Read all about ME!

[RonOnGuitar]

Actually, Mike, if you read the article you see that it was composed by the former director of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, Khidmar Hamza.



I think it's understandable for Europeans to be upset when corruption and criminal activities of their leaders are brought to the world's attention, as Mr.Hamza and others are doing. It's not very pleasant, but he clearly explains why the leaders of France, Germany and Russia are extremely desperate to keep Saddam Hussein as Iraq's dictator-for-life. According to this former director of Iraq's WMD, greed on the national and personal level has overtaken any good judgment the French, German and Russian leaders had on the Iraq question. I'm sure you agree that such things should not be covered-up or hidden by European leaders from European citizens.



==Ron==

[RonOnGuitar]

The problem here , NRK, is that these countries continued to run weapons to Hussein long after the rest of the world had refused to do likewise by mutual agreement(which Russia, Germany & France violated). In fact, France was caught running weapons within just the last few months.



France is probably a worse offender than Germany or Russia, in that Chirac is not just a crook, but a hypocritical one at that! Citing that fact, British publications even have refered to him as "Saddam's whore". Good quote accompanying side by side pics of Chirac & Saddam:"Cherchez la difference [spot the difference]. One is a corrupt bully who is risking the lives of our troops. He is sneering at Britain, destroying democracy and endangering world peace. The other is Saddam Hussein."

media.guardian.co.uk/pres...86,00.html



==Ron==



Another honest review of the French lack of moral guidance:

frontpagemag.com/articles...sp?ID=6822



De-Gauling the World

By Lowell Ponte

FrontPageMagazine.com | March 25, 2003





PONTEFICATIONS



WHO SHOULD BE NEXT, after the ouster of Saddam Hussein? What evil nation should next be de-fanged or demolished in our urban renewal in the global community of nations?



Should it be North Korea, the Orwellian Marxist madhouse now building nukes and bracing for attack, with its long record of selling any weapon it can acquire to anybody willing to buy it?



Should it be Iran, a theocratic dictatorship closely allied with terrorists, now rushing with Russian help to produce the raw materials for atomic bombs?



No, we should instead go after and disarm an enabler of terrorists that already possesses at least 464 nuclear weapons and has demonstrated an eagerness to put atom bomb capability into fanatical hands in the Arab Middle East.



This nation also helped provide Saddam Hussein with biological weapons and with the chemical weapons he used to kill thousands of his neighbors as well as thousands of fellow Iraqis. Only months ago it was, in violation of international embargoes, helping provide Hussein with fuel for rockets now being used against American and British troops.



This cynical and utterly immoral nation that deserves to be the civilized world’s next target for assertive disarmament of its weapons of mass destruction is FRANCE.



In retrospect, we now can see that France should have been disarmed long ago. Its megalomania goes back to Napoleon and even before. France, by its threatening diplomacy against Austria-Hungary, precipitated World War I.



Its betrayal of Poland and cooperation with Nazi Germany via its Vichy accommodation prolonged World War II. (It’s national railroad SNCF now faces a lawsuit for its friendly complicity in shipping 76,000 Jews in cattle car railway “convoys” to Nazi death camps. Only about 2,500 of those Jews escaped liquidation.)



Following World War II, France rushed to acquire the power and prestige of nuclear weapons. It received some U.S. and British help in doing this, and also in being given a permanent seat and veto on the Security Council of the new United Nations despite its collaboration with Hitler.



But in the postwar era, while other once-imperial powers gave up their colonies, France tested nuclear weapons in Africa and the South Pacific – reportedly tested chemical weaponry in what it called a “District of France,” the rebellious Muslim North African colony it ruled with an iron fist, Algeria.



Its hyper-nationalist President Charles De Gaulle in 1965 declared that the French were “a race created for brilliant deeds” but that this was thwarted because their “destiny was in the hands of foreigners.”



Within a year he declared the autonomy of France’s growing nuclear arsenal, withdrew French troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force structure (but not the Atlantic Alliance), and ordered all NATO troops to leave French soil by April 1967.



As April Fool´s Day approached in 1967, American troops were busy smashing NATO electronic equipment in its Paris headquarters so that these sensitive tools would not be left in untrustworthy French hands.



With De Gaulle´s approval, the commander of French forces General Charles Ailleret propounded a new national strategic doctrine – tous azimuts. French nuclear missiles and bombers henceforth were to be aimed to “all azimuths,” all points on the compass. In this French geopolitical triangulation, their nuclear targets were not only Moscow and Leningrad, but also New York City and Washington, D.C.



This doctrine ceased being discussed much by French military planners after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, but the mindset behind tous azimuts persisted and is evident in the anti-Americanism of France’s current Gaullist President Jacques Chirac.



In Gaullist thinking, France would rule the world by standing between the West and the Soviet Union, superior to both because France would hold and could shift the balance of power between them by tilting its policies.



France rushed to build its Force de Frappe, its “strike force” triad of bombers, land-based missiles and submarine-based missiles. This socialist welfare state soon recognized, however, that it could not afford a true Superpower arsenal – but merely a nuclear force big enough to “tear an arm or a leg off” an invading enemy. The names it gave to weapons systems, such as Le Triomphant and L’Inflexible accurately reflected French pretensions but not France’s very limited capability.



To help fund its weapons development, France became a major weapons supplier around the world, arming virtually any regime that promised lots of cash. It sold Mirage jets both to Israel and to surrounding enemy states such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Only weeks prior to the current war’s outbreak, France in violation of embargoes reportedly was supplying parts for Hussein’s delta-winged Mirage jets.



During the 1991 Gulf War, 24 Iraqi Mirages were flown into neighboring Iran for safekeeping. Iran has kept the nuclear weapons-capable aircraft, never returning them to its foe Saddam. It came to light in 2002 that Iran has been dealing very quietly with France over spare parts and maintainance for them, probably as delivery systems for its own incipient arsenal.



This column wonders whether Iran or Iraq know that the Mirage in all its various models is built by Dassault, a corporation still largely owned by the family of Marcel Dassault. He was born Marcel Bloch, son of a Jewish physician. After barely surviving the Buchenwald concentration camp, Bloch changed his name to Dassault, his code name as a fighter in the French Resistence. He later played a role in the development of Israel’s nuclear weapons capability.



How ironic it is that Saddam and the Ayatollahs have based their air power on Jewish-designed, Jewish-built aircraft.



Deep readers who savor the ironies of history might enjoy Marcel Dassault’s 1969 autobiography, The Talisman.



France, we are told, has tilted in favor of Saddam Hussein to satisfy the nearly 15 percent of its population that is Muslim and fast-outbreeding the other 85 percent. It fears terrorism from the Muslim world, and blames Al Qaeda for the bottles containing the deadly poison Ricin found days ago in the Paris subway system. (Ricin, ironically, is one of the poisons France developed for military use in its own chemical warfare program.)



Iraq itself, despite French efforts to protect Saddam Hussein in the United Nations, has acknowledged that French assistance was a major source of its own biological weapons capability. It also was among the key foreign suppliers of “precursor” chemicals used in Saddam’s chemical weapons program.



No wonder that Saddam’s inner circle was cheering Saturday and singing “Oh, The Franks Are Coming! The Franks Are Coming!” at news that Iraq’s ally had deployed its first 39 French soldiers and two armored personnel carriers within easy spying distance of the vital Yank airbase at Qatar.



French treachery towards Anglo-Saxon Western civilization continues today as it has in the past. We know now that France lured U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell into agreeing to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 by lying to him, promising that no French veto would follow.



Following this backstab to America, France now threatens another unilateral veto against any measure giving administrative control over Iraq to the victorious allies Great Britain and the U.S. France, to advance its own power and vanity, again threatens to destroy world order – as it did against newly liberated nations of Eastern Europe – unless it is given a huge, profitable hunk of power and money from rebuilding Iraq.



And even as war rages – a war France caused by letting Saddam Hussein believe he could defy the U.N. – ABC News reported that France is still working to keep Saddam Hussein – and France’s dirty billion dollar deals made with him – alive by providing Hussein with safe exile in Mauritania in west Africa.



French depravity can no longer be tolerated. From its decades of sheltering convicted child rapist and movie director Roman Polanski, to its complicity with Hitler, to its eagerness to provide socialist ally Saddam Hussein with a nuclear reactor capable of churning out hundreds of nuclear weapons, barbarian France should now be viewed with disgust by all civilized human beings.



France is morally unfit to be trusted with the kinds of megaweapon technologies that can be entrusted only to mature, adult hands. It is also morally unworthy of holding veto power in the United Nations Security Council.



The United States and Great Britain should now demand that France relinquish its entire arsenal of up to 482 nuclear weapons.



France pretends to be a nation of peace. In recent years it has acceded to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, called for tougher enforcement of treaties against chemical and biological weapons, and re-named its Force de Frappe the Force de Dissuasion.



With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, France faces no military threat that warrants such weapons of mass destruction. It should cancel its plans to upgrade the remaining bomber and submarine legs of its nuclear triad.



Until now France has said it will not consider reducing its nuclear arsenal until Russia and the U.S. have lowered their numbers of weapons to France’s own level. By this method, it demands Russian and U.S. disarmament as a cynical way to boost its own relative power in the world. (Russia, too, has aided Saddam Hussein for its own profit in ways that are killing American soldiers in Iraq, but this is a topic for another column.)



But if France wishes to lead the world by inspiration and nobility, and to be looked up to by idealists everywhere, it should lead by example – by dismantling its own atomic arsenal to inspire others and create a more peaceful world.



France should also be told to turn in its Veto stamp and permanent seat on the Security Council of the United Nations. It should retract all threats made against nations, from Eastern Europe to Turkey, applying for membership in the European Union – and should publicly apologize to the many it has threatened.



France may remain a non-voting member of the Atlantic Alliance, its safety insured as it has been for more than half a century by the nuclear umbrella of Great Britain and the United States.



We will not invade or militarily attack France, of course. But if it persists with dreams of grandeur and schemes to weaken the United States and Great Britain, we should recognize that France is now an enemy of civilization and bring it to its knees by one or another method of economic warfare.



To be a great power, a nation must have morality. France has lost all morality, all honor, all trustworthiness. It is unworthy to hold any seat at the table of the great nations, at least until it repents, spends at least half a century repaying the millions of people it has injured, and learns humility. Our world and its peace-keeping institutions need thus to be de-Gauled.

[NRKofOver]

Ron, I see what you're saying. But I'm not sure that the US is really concerned about 'what the rest of the world' thinks we make questoinable decisions. I wish I could believe that the US has completely changed it's policies with regards to our agreements with nations throughout the world. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if we're supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons, training and who knows what kind of technology even though we have solid evidence that much terrorist support comes from that country. I honestly think all the developed nations in this world are guilty of this questionable behavior. France or Germany or Russian selling weapons openly to Iraq after UN sanctions is pathetic to say the least but ethics seem to elude national leaders in so many countries that I can't say I'm surprised that they did it.

Read all about ME!

[Phil Frazier]

It's obvious that some are trying to push blame on other countries in order to make the USA seem OK. Other countries are guilty, as well but that doesn't absolve the USA. The USA is imperialist and has a long history of imperialism. Yes, most of the other countries are and have been, also.





This illegal invasion is about control of territories and oil. I don't see how anyone can contradict that.

Phil on Artistlaunch



Phil on 1Sound



IntoMusic.co.uk



Sound Click









     

[RonOnGuitar]

"This illegal invasion is about control of territories and oil."



Well, you struck out on the "illegal invasion' part, Phil - but you're correct on your latter point! Details below:



==Ron==

No blood for French oil

Helle Dale



"No blood for oil" — so goes the oft-repeated chant of demonstrators against the looming war against Iraq. Both in the United States and abroad, American oil companies and their supposed puppets in the White House stand accused of running the show. Oh, please. As far back as the Vietnam War, the U.S. government has been blamed for being in it for the oil.

If the United States was so concerned about Iraq's admittedly significant oil wealth, why didn't we occupy the country after 1991? Why are we risking now going to war, very possibly provoking Saddam into setting fire to his oil fields and shutting down his exports to us? Why would any of this really matter given that imports from Iraq account for only 5 percent of total U.S. oil imports (2002 figures), and costs much less than going to war does.

Instead of looking at U.S. economic interests, let's look for a moment at the business interests of U.N. Security Council members opposed to going to war. Their business interests are certainly as important as ours; they have for reasons that are otherwise unfathomable chosen to side with a nasty, brutal dictator, a threat to stability in the Middle East and the security of the United States.

Most of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, of course, do not have the power to veto a mission against Iraq. Cameroon, Guinea and Mexico may have a vote as rotating members, but only the five permanent members can bring everything to a halt — the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France. On Iraq, as on many other recent issues, we find the United States and Britain arrayed against the latter three.

"France controls over 22.5 percent of Iraq's imports," according to the "CIA World Factbook." Some 60 French companies do $1.5 billion in trade with Iraq under the U.N. oil-for-food program. France's largest oil company, Total Fina Elf, has negotiated deals to develop and explore the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields, which are estimated to hold 25 percent of Iraq's reserves. From 1981-2001, France sold Iraq 13 percent of its arms imports.

Russia, according to the same source, controls 5.8 percent of Iraq's total imports. From 1981-2001, however, Russia supplied 50 percent of Iraq's arms imports. Under the oil-for-food program, Russian trade with Iraq amounts to an estimated $500 million to $1 billion. A Soviet-era debt to Iraq of about $7 billion to $8 billion, generated by arms sales during the Iran-Iraq war, is still outstanding. And Russian oil and gas companies have contracts to service and develop sites throughout Iraq, with a $40 billion economic agreement between Iraq and Russia reportedly having been signed in 2002 to allow oil exploration in western Iraq.

China, meanwhile, also controls 5.8 percent of Iraq's annual imports. Under the food-for-oil program, China's Aero-Technology Import-Export Co. (CATIC) has contracted to sell "metereological satellite" and "surface observation" equipment to Iraq. CATIC has also received U.N. approval to sell optic cables to Iraq, which can be used for secure data and communications links for military installations. From 1981-2001, China was second only to Russia in sales of arms to Iraq.

Saddam Hussein, of course, knows the blackmail value of these long-standing business ties, and why wouldn't he? In the Weekly Standard this week, Melana Zyla Vickers reports on the revelations contained in "Notre Allie Saddam," published in France in 1992. In an interview with authors Claude Angeli and Stephanie Mesnier, Saddam had this to say about French politicians, " 'With respect to the politicians, one need only refer back to the declarations of all the political parties of France, right and left. All were happy to brag about their friendship with Iraq and refer to common interests. From Mr. Chirac to Mr. Chevenement . . .politicians and economic leaders were in open competition to spend time with us and flatter us.' "

Unfortunately for him, Saddam's French friends betrayed him in 1991, when France joined the U.S.-led coalition in the first Gulf War. "If the trickery continues," Saddam warned the following year, "we will be forced to unmask them, all of them, before the French public." Is President Chirac thinking along the same lines, one wonders.

Now the United States, too, traded with Iraq in the 1980s. However, U.S. sales to Iraq stopped cold after the Gulf War, and resumed only on a greatly limited scale in 1997, when the U.N. oil-for-food program kicked in. Last year, Iraqi imports from the United States totaled just $31 million, mostly in technology for oil production. On the export side, Iraq sold the United States some $3.5 billion in oil.

What is more, this trading relationship is one that the United States is prepared to jeopardize in order to remove Saddam from power and root out his weapons of mass destruction. Let's face it. It is not the United States that is out to protect its business investments, outstanding loans and arms sales.

As the U.N. Security Council grinds towards its resolution on Iraq Number 18, let us not lose sight of the fact that protestations of pacifism, idealism and feigned high-mindedness can mask something far more crass — trade with a brutal dictator and a menace to the peace.

[Phil Frazier]

The Brits controlled Iraq from 1920 to 1958. they were cut out of the pie. After '91 they didn't get back in the game very much, so now they decided to go in again.



The US felt it was losing out therefore the illegal invasion. This time the territory will be carved by the USA and Britain.



Why didn't the USA overthrow Sadam in '91? Can't wait to hear the right wing asnwer on that.

Phil on Artistlaunch



Phil on 1Sound



IntoMusic.co.uk



Sound Click









     

[debbie mannas]

who put saddam in power in the first place. All the right wing reports lightly skip over the CIA engineered coup that got the Baath party in power in 1963, when saddam was 2nd in command and quite notorious for being a torture expert, and having a previous failed coup.



I see not one mention of the US role in Saddam's power here.



At the end of the day, all sides motivated by greed and power are culpable, but let's not forget which parties are compounding the crime here by this invasion.



Saddam is not as big a threat to the world as this administration. This is very clear in my mind and in the mind of public opinion outside of the US, I believe. I don't see why our sources of information should be less believeable than right wing sources... or why objective third party opinion such as that in Asia or other "uninvolved" countries should come into question. There is no ulterior motive here. We see what we see, and make our call.

Edited by: debbie mannas at: 3/31/03 1:54:37 pm

[Phil Frazier]

There is a pattern. Iran- controlled by Britain. Then the USA with CIA overthrew a Govt. and put in puppet the Sha. Studying US and Brit imperialism is the key.

Phil on Artistlaunch



Phil on 1Sound



IntoMusic.co.uk



Sound Click









     

[NRKofOver]

Quote:

---

Saddam is not as big a threat to the world as this administration. This is very clear in my mind and in the mind of public opinion outside of the US, I believe.

---

I think that is the easiest explanation for the differences in those that support war and those that don't. I truly believe that the US is more of a threat to global stability and any kind of world peace than any other single nation. Saddam sucks, but he was never a threat of significance to anyone, IMO, but with this war making France, Germany, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Russia, North Korea, and anyone else who doesn't agree with us enemies, that is a serious threat to everyone in the entire world.



I'm still amazed of the polls I read that say the vast majority of Americans believe in the war, but they also believe the war will create more anti-American hatred throughout the world, it will ultimately result in more terrorism on US soil, it will result in a destabilization of the Middle East, and yet with all the negatives, they still support the war. What are the positives? That Saddam is no longer around? That's a pretty small positive in the face of so many potential negatives.



www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm



Check out this site about a third of the page down for very recent polls regarding this.



I kind of wonder what the thinking is here, that the removal of Saddam is so important that destabilization in the Middle East and really the world is justified. Just odd to me.

Read all about ME!