"Miller, Jeffrey" wrote: > Whether you're for or against the upcoming war, I think most reasoned people with a > shred of honesty in them believe its going to happen, and we'll hardly lose (even > if, as is likely, its a far more serious contest then the WH is admitting) My > question is, what then? So we depose Saddam.. then what? What do we _do_ with him? > > kill him -- I'm sure W hopes this'll happen in combat, because it would save a ton > of headaches, but what if he manages to survive? Do we line him up against a wall > someplace? ..and on what grounds?
My guess is that Saddam has a multitude of emergency escape plans in place, and as soon as he sees the jig is up, he'll disappear to Argentina or someplace else he can live anonymously, rather than risk being killed or face trial. I also think, though, that the soldiers going after him won't especially go out of their way to capture him (vs. killing him). > international court -- on what charges? "gassing his own people"? There's enough > clouds around this charge to make it difficult to stick, and it would highlight US > involvement in both this and Kuwait (our military assistence to Iraq and > greenlighting the Kuwait invasion.) Is that something we really want to remind the > region of? Do you really think Saddam's not that bad a guy? Just some bad PR? How would Saddam's gassing the Kurds after the Gulf War highlight US military assistance to Iraq? > exile -- who'd take him? ..and is he truly going to be out of power if his backside > is parked on a rock in the middle of the Indian Ocean? A few countries have already offered to take him. And I'm sure a few others would also accept him and his money. > As a further question, why can't we just provide a list of exactly what the Iraqi > government needs to do in order to avert a war? Why, after Blix releases a somewhat > positive report, are we suddenly insisting on "regime change" as a requirement to > prevent invasion? The US has wanted regime change since the Clinton Administration. This is not "sudden". Iraq already fully knows when it has to do to avoid a war: They need to stop firing at our airplanea. They need to give *full and total* cooperation to the inspections. And there is absolutely no one arguing that Iraq is giving full cooperation, not even Hans Blix. Iraq's whole modus operandi has been to only cooperate with the inspections when they're put under the most intense pressure: When the UN became divided over the Iraq sanctions (France and Russia wated to end them so they could make money in Iraq), Iraq kicked out the inspectors. Iraq only allowed inspectors back in under direct threat of US force. But even then they drag their feet as long as possible, such as with destroying those missiles: Saddam refused to destroy them, but then when it appeared the US could use that as its trigger point, they started destroying them. I believe that Iraq cooperation with the inspections is directly proportional to the immediate threat they are under, and if the threat went away (ie: if the US backed off and pulled out its troops), the cooperation would quickly go away as well. (Which is the crux of why I'm supporting the war - I just don't think the inspections will work, regardless of how much time we give them, because Saddam truly doesn't want to cooperate, and without cooperation, the inspections are near worthless.) -bryon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
