Hi Harry, At 10:48 12/03/03 -0800, you wrote: <<<< Keith and UPS, Fascinating discussion! >>>>
If the outcome isn't likely to be so tragic, the whole drama is becoming more fascinating with every minute that passes. Blair, so desperately needing a second resolution specifically authorising the use of force (or else his own Labour Party will fall to bits) has now drawn up a list of tests that Saddam must pass. The first two are particularly mischievous. The first asks for Saddam to give a TV broadcast in which he will humiliate himself in the eyes of his own people, the second for the destruction of mobile biochemical vehicles for which there is no evidence that they exist. At the UN, the lady who is the Spanish Foreign Minister has very sensibly torn up the UK list of tests saying that they're so barmy that they couldn't possibly be debated, never mind voted on. A little later, Rumsfeld poured scorn on the tests, and the French and Russians confirmed that they would still veto anything that didn't give more time to the inspectors. Blair's credibility, in the eyes of America, the UN, the Arab world and, above all, most of the English electorate, left or right, is now almost completely destroyed. About the only thing that might save Blair (and then probably for only a few more months) would be an ultra- peaceful occupation of Iraq and the immediate capitulation of Saddam without complications. Somehow I can't see that happening and Blair will be shamed into resigning well before the summer if the Labour Party has any chance of a continued existence over here. Otherwise the Labour Party will go into oblivion, much as the Liberal Party did at the beginning of the last century. As I previously wrote in my remarks to UPS, the position of the leader of the Labour Party in England is so trenched about with lengthy procedures and voting formulas that Blair, in normal circumstances, is impregnable unless he voluntarily decides to resign and allows successors to be proposed. No longer. Blair's political career, and that of about half-a-dozen others including Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Geof Noon, the Defence Minister, are now probably finished for good. I cannot see how they can survive. <<<< War seems inevitable, whatever may go on at the UN. Something occurs to me. As you know, enormous areas of the desert are due to be barbed wired as prisoner-of-war camps -- complete with toilets! The most important thing to happen in those early days is for them to be filled up with scores of thousands of Iraqi conscripts. This will be magnificent propaganda for the US as to the unwillingness of Iraqis to fight for Saddam, if the people in Baghdad and elsewhere are exposed to it. >>>> I didn't know the plans for POW camps. I'm inclined to think that the Americans won't bother overmuch about taking prisoners. Instead, they'll be racing up the Tigris valley to throw protective cordons around all the oil fields -- particularly the immense Kirkuk complex where the Iranians are already gathering forces of Shia Muslims to keep the Kurds away. So it's very possible that the only real fighting that the Americans will take part in will be here -- not against Iraqis but against Iranians and Kurds! As for the rest of Iraq, my guess now is that the Americans will probably not need to bother. I agree with you that few Iraqis will fight for Saddam. Just as Saddam was stupid enough to deny a free market in the negotiations for the development of Iraqi oilfields two years ago, kicking out the America and UK oil corporations, so he's been stupid in assuming that his secret police and Republican Guards could hold down the whole nation for ever. His head is likely to be stuck on some railing in Baghdad fairly early on. If the Americans throw the lightest ring of troops around Baghdad, then it's likely that their work will be done for them because there'll be a bloodbath between the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds. An additional tragedy is that the Christians and Jews in Baghdad are likely to be slaughtered, too. How long it will be before a new and stable form of government will emerge from all this mayhem is anybody's guess. (HP) <<<< On the other hand, the strategy of Saddam should be to pull his troops back. However, with luck, he'll do a Hitler and insist his troops fight to the last man -- which ploy should fill the camps. >>> But I don't think he'll be able to hold them together -- as I've described above. (HP) <<<< A problem with two different armies is logistical. You'll recall the British casualties from friendly US fire in the earlier Gulf War. I would expect that the Brits will be given the job of surrounding Basrah and protecting the oil fields across the border from Kuwait. (Actually the same oil field with the border crossing it.) >>> Yes, I think that this is what the Americans have in mind for the Brits. (HP) <<<< There have been some stories of British tanks not doing too well in desert conditions, which again might be reason not to send them across the desert like cavalry. Shiites in Basrah have been hammered by Saddam's boys and might give support to taking Basrah. (Though they must have memories of how we let them be slaughtered last time.) We might get a surrender without urban fighting which is eminently desirable. >>>> True, our tanks are fairly useless in sand (thanks to our incompetent Ministry of Defence, full of ex-army and navy duffers). Our rifles get jammed, too. I think it's possible that the Iranians will invade Basra and southern Iraq while the Americans are mainly engaged in charging up north. The Brits won't be strong enough to go into the city and will stay well clear. Maybe if the Iranians make the right noises to the Americans (saying, for example, how sensible it would be for the Shia Muslims to be re-united, and that they'll gladly negotiate oil contracts with American oil corporations), then they might get away with it. It would give the Americans a chance to show the world how "reasonable" they are. (HP) <<<< We'll know about it before too long. >>>> Too true. I would suggest that if the Americans go to all this trouble of invading Iraq in order to ensure future oil supplies, then they might as well do some useful ethnic tidying up while they're at it. First of all, allow the Iraqi Shias to join with Iran, as already mentioned, and secondly, carve out a sufficiently-sized territory in northern Iraq from Turkey and Iran in order to give the Kurds their own nation. As in Africa, there are far too many artificial national boundaries resulting from imperialists (mainly the British) drawing frontiers right through ethnic regions. Keith ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
