At his press conference today, Blair was asked about his visit to Bush tomorrow and he laid great stress on post-war reconstruction as being the reason.
This reason is ridiculous. This is the last thing that Bush will be interested in at this stage of proceedings. Besides, I've just read today in the FT that Clare Short, the Minister for Overseas Aid Development, and expressly charged with the UK end of any such reconstruction operation has only just returned from discussions in New York. She pronounced herself to be "hopeful" of progress in talks on the reconstruction of Iraq -- to take place *after* the fall of Saddam Hussein. No, I think Blair's visit is far more important. I think he's petrified as to what will happen in the next day or two when the present stand-offs outside both Basra and Baghdad end and Bush sends his tanks into the cities. He might instruct them to fight their way through even if it means blasting a few (hundred/thousand?) houses out of the way as the Russians did in Grozhny or the Taliban in Kabul. If Bush decides on this then I'm sure that UK army officers will refuse to carry out General Frank's orders, and if Blair doesn't publicly criticise Bush then he'll have no more than a few days left as UK Prime Minister (and, I judge, Bush won't have more than a few weeks as President because, surely, someone will put this man away in the madhouse). I think that the Americans must fully realise now that their main assumption about the easy collapse of the Saddam regime has failed badly. As regards his strategy for Baghdad, Bush is in a very serious dilemma now. He's quite capable of deciding to go in with all guns firing, but I think -- I hope -- he'll be restrained. If further bombing of Baghdad in the next day or two doesn't cause a regime collapse, then his dilemma will increase. The whole world is watching. In order to save face I can only think that he'll leave caretaker troops around Baghdad and then proceed to Kirkuk to get his hands on the northern oilfields. Then what does Bush do? Wait for the rest of the Muslim world to rise up against him? For them to deny oil to America?, to deny him overflights?, to close down US embassies and consulates, for the Wahhabis to swarm over the royal palaces in Riyadh and massacre all the Saudis? Just what might Bush be unleashing? Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ 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
