> -----Original Message----- > From: Bryon Daly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 03:07 PM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Re: V-I Day +1 - endgame scenarios? > > > "Miller, Jeffrey" wrote: > > > Do you consider the inspection process to be truly > ineffective, even > > given its monumental task and what it managed to achieve before we > > pulled out the inspectors? > > Yes, I think that without Iraq's cooperation, the process is > truly ineffective. In one of Han's Blix's speeches that I > listened to, it seemed to me that he partly felt that way > himself. (I say that because he stated they were not > detectives whose job it was to track the WMD down and instead > repeatedly stressed the need for Iraq's cooperation in doing > so.) I agree that the inspections are a vastly monumental > task, but I'm not sure what it's managed to achieve.
One of the reports from '98, before inspectors were pulled out, reported "80% effectiveness" based on having a list of items they were trying to account for, items we knew they had, material that was dual-purpose, etc. The remainder was unaccounted for, either through destruction during the war, or theft (or misintentions?) > My thought is that it's pretty easy to hide a bio-warfare (or > even nuke) research lab in a country the size of Texas, when > there's only a few hundred heavily-supervised inspectors to > search the whole country, and > where peoples' silence is easily bought with death threats > and murder. Something's bound to slip through > the cracks eventually. nitpick - its the size of California, not Texas ^_^ Say I agree - where on the list of countries with bioterror programs ruled by despotic nightmare governments whould we start? N Korea? Pakistan? Iran? Any number of former Soviet republics? > > Why do you think I disagree with a war? :) Not only do I think wars > > are perfectly legitimate means of accomplishing goals, I think that > > oil is a perfectly valuable thing to spill blood over. > > I detect some sarcasm... :-) I disagree on the "war for > oil" theory, but we've already debated on that a bit in a > previous thread so I won't touch that here. Actually, I'm moderately serious - I think oil IS a huge, giant, important reason to go to war! I just think that we should be _honest_ about it, either as a goal or an outcome, instead of trying to cloak it in concern for the Iraqi people or security for the US. > > Speaking off-the-cuff - war should always be the last resort of a > > peace-loving nation. It should be wielded as a credible > threat, but > > not until other options are played out - unless or until there is a > > credible, legitimate, and urgent threat that can only be > overcome in a > > timely fashion by the application of force. I don't see that > > situation existing today. > > Fair and reasonable enough. > > My concern, though, is that the urgent/legitimate threat > won't become apparent until a nuke goes off in Washington DC, > or a plague of Anthrax hits LA, due to some terrorists > supplied by Saddam (but untraceable back to him). Where abouts are you located, out of curiosity? I've noticed a trend amongst my friends that people in BosNYWash, Texas, and LA seem to be concerned about this, but the rest of the country (even Seattle, a likely "first strike" target of N Korea, if it comes to that) aren't as fearful. Has anyone seen numbers, charts, graphs, etc on geographic distribution of.. well, "fear"? For my part, I'm honestly not that worried about this. Yes, we need improved security. Yes, we need more precautions. Yes, we should have better intelligence and law enforcement practices... but I'm really, honestly, not gibbering under the couch with fear. Saddam just doesn't have the resources, and has far too much attention payed to him, to pull something like that off. What we /should/ be worried about is actively belligerent nations like N Korea. Now /that's/ something that's got me worried.. -j- _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
