Originally posted by SLY
[Plz , don't reply to this post before covering the left points in my previous one .
Thanx. ;)

I have several times already.

Originally posted by Raskolnikov
[Fist off, the "ignorant" nation of Iraq sports a 70% litteracy rate. Second, expatriated Iraqis (even those who don't agree with war) and people who've been in Iraq recently and have been able to talk to Iraqis out of sight of government officials consistantly report that there is virtually no loyalty to Saddam outside of the Ba'ath party and the Republican Guard. That means mass defections of soldiers and quite possibly an uprising of the people just as soon as they know help is coming. I might be wrong, but I think the average Iraqi takes Saddam's propoganda about as seriously as I take the "Pot = Terrorism" advertisements on the TV here in the US.

When I said "Ignorant" I wasn't refering to "Illitteracy" , 70% Litteracy rate is just the rate of grown ups (above 15 or 18 , not sure) who can JUST read and write ... You haven't seen their media , you don't know how are they living , so you CAN'T compare them to someone like YOU.
You can see an ad or something on TV and disbelieve it's credibility or whatever , cuz you've got thousands of other TV & radio stations , magazines, papers , etc.
On the other hand , Iraqies got nothing to base their knowledge on other than the Baath party controled media ... i.e. They don't know anything the government there doesn't want them to know , so they are partialy IGNORANT ... From a strict point of view , you can say they are totaly ignorant politicaly.[/quote]
I have seen some translations from Iraqi television - pretty rediculous stuff. I honestly don't see how anyone can take it credibly. How is propoganda supposed to curb word on the street? It can't. Especially when people know people who've disapeared into Government custody and have never come back. One journalist talked about asking a cab driver about the people's support for Saddam (as indicated by the government propoganda) and the cab driver rolled his eyes. If you see 100% support for propoganda on camera and nearly 0% support off camera people aren't buying. They're covering their asses so they don't end up dead. No information source other than Iraq's own media support your conclusion here - I've never heard a single expatrioted Iraqi say that their family who's remaining in the country buys it, they say that they've simple given up on hope.

It's pretty naive to beleive that weapons and weapons production can't be hidden and hidden easily inside a nation the size of Iraq isn't possible. The best experts available, Saddam's own escaped weapons scientists consistantly say just that and that they doubt his plans for WMD development have changed at all. Saddam's strategy is simple - give up a little bit here and there, hide the rest, wait for the world to give up.

Ok , but you can't be so sure of the credibility of information you get from escaped scientists , or even if you trus & depend on them and take their words to be true , these ain't solid proves or evidence ... We're talking about war here , probably millions of innocents are gonna die for some suspections .... Gimme something that's hard and solid plz .
I don't mean that you can trust the credibility of Saddam instead , but it's all about proves , SOLID PROVES not SUSPECTIONS.

12 years ago the burden of proof was put upon Saddam Hussein, the ball's been in his park for quite some time and he's done nothing with it. As to hard and solid statistics, the highest vaugely credible estimates for Gulf War civillian fatalities is around 100,000. That's a number that a US Government Agency (I can't remember the acronym at this paticular moment) chose that didn't look too high or too low. The fact is, there's no way of knowing how many civillians died in the Gulf War, but what we do know is that casualties were comparitively light. It is clear, (and this information comes from Guitar Tricks' own educatedfilm, Anesty International and a lot of other human rights organizations, NOT the US government (though Colin Powell has cited these sources) that well over 500,000 Iraqi civllians have died from malnutrition or the inavailability of weapons as a direct consequence of UN sanctions since the end of the Gulf War. That's an average of 45,000 a year, 120 people a day. How many more have to die under sanctions? And do you honestly beleive for a second that Saddam Hussein isn't going to exploit the lifting of sanctions to it's fullest?

The U.S. can always claim that Iraq is hiding something , but I'm NEVER going to believe untill they give some real proves or find some nuke heads out there.

The problem is that nothing is being found, UNSCOM can still account for very little of Iraq's KNOWN arsenal and no new information is really coming forward.

Yeah, Al Somod 2s are being destroyed, but at a very slow pace, and we have know way of knowing how many were actually produced, so there could be considerbly more quietly hidden in a secluded location. Next, Iraq still has produced no evidence at all that they've destroyed tons and tons and TONS of Anthrax and other biological/chemical agents that we know they had as late as 1998.

Iraq has reported some sites for inspectors to check out and calculate the amounts of destroyed bio/chem agents , and the pre-investigations tends to lean towards Bagdad's side.
You haven't been following the news lately , yeah ?

Actually, I have. They've recovered some chemical and biological agent filled bombs from a few sights, but the problem is the sites are a decade old. I'm am talking about stockpiles UNSCOM knew for a fact to exist in 1998 and HAVE NOT been accounted for as of Hans Blix' last report. That is a BIG problem.