Bush just finished a news conference with our British, Spanish, and Portuguese allies, and the U.N. has one day to get on board, or diplomatic efforts to disarm Iraq will be finished. This is an incredible moment in history, and the future of the United Nations may be at stake. I hope to God that this operation goes well.
Good decision by the Bush admin. It will be interesting to see how this plays out on the world stage.
I was astonished when Bush interrupted Prime Minister Aznar of Spain with an angry response to what I guess was a question from a reporter. (I wanted to say angry tirade, but I'm trying to be openminded) It was a strange moment, at least to me.
Yup, good idea. When you keep saying that you're going to do something, then let deadlines pass without doing anything, you've finally got to do what you gotta do. Take Saddam out. And do it quick so it doesn't upset my college basketball watching on Thursday and Friday.
Just wondering, has the US ever gone to war without UN support? I'm thinking of the precedence it would set and possible repercussions in the future. I agree Saddam needs to go, I just wish it had been sooner.
Before the UN existed. If we're blasting them back to the stone age (won't be that hard), then we might as well take international relations a few decades back while we're at it.
Depends on what your definition of war is, in the post ww2 era, Korea and Gulf I were probably the only ones that the US did get permission. Grenada, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo... some yes, some no. Actually most of the commands from the UN are ignored by countries left and right. The Soviets invaded Czechslovakia, Hungary and Afghanistan while thumping their noses at the UN. Isreal and its Arab neighbors have been fighting for so long without much regard to Security Council resolutions either.
Smokey: Oski is incorrect. The fact of the matter is that the UN has only sanctioned *two* wars in all of its history - Korea (which was a fluke because the Soviets walked out the previous day) and the Gulf War. Every other war fought by every single other country - US included - since 1945 has been without the UN's permission. What would be unusual would be for the UN to actually sanction a war against Iraq. It is normal for it to be at an impasse; inaction is it's normal state of operation.
Lots and lots of fireworks in this one boys, is what they're saying. More than EVER seen in one place from what I heard. crazy, huh?
Thank goodness for our Spanish and Portuguese allies or this would be a nightmare. They have released their entire fleet of Galleon ships for mine location support.
But what shall we do without the gallant Belgian army and illustrious Canadian navy? Trying...very hard...to...hold back...French...jokes.....
An acquaintance of mine told me over the weekend that he read (didn't say where so caveat emptor) that the Israelis had intercepted a communique from US Central Command last week stating that the war would begin on Tuesday March 18th. Don't know how reliable the source is, but it certainly fits in with the one day ultimatum to the UN. My opinion? Junior has wanted war all along, and now he's going to get it. I hope it is over quickly. I believe the war part will be over quickly, but the "nation building", something he campaigned against in 2000, will be going on for a very long time.
I truly wish there were a peaceful solution to this matter, but I know there's not. But I would like to know this from anyone who can answer...why are we so focused on going to war with just Iraq? We know that North Korea has missiles that can reach California, why aren't we going to war with them too? I feel like Bush is just hell-bent on finishing the job his father didn't.
We still need the UN to rebuild and peacekeep Iraq. A larger coalition would give us more flexibility in the coming war. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5470-613866,00.html Planners gamble on support from Iraqis By Michael Evans, Defence Editor WITH conflict in Iraq possibly only days away, military commanders admit that the blueprint for disarming and toppling President Saddam Hussein includes a significant degree of risk. Although the build-up of forces has reached 225,000 American and 45,000 British military personnel, the total number of combat troops who would cross the border and fight to Baghdad is probably less than 120,000, of whom about 15,000 are British. The rest of the British ground force are logistics troops. The Kuwaiti border is 350 miles by road from Baghdad, so large numbers are needed to supply the fighting units with ammunition, fuel, food and water. The coalition’s armoured strength is also nothing like the firepower for Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The 120 Challenger 2 tanks of the British Army’s 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, represent about one third of the tanks in the whole coalition. By now, the tanks of the 4th US Infantry Division (mechanised) should have been ready at bases in southern Turkey for an assault on northern Iraq. Because there is still no permission forthcoming from the Turkish parliament, the division and its tanks have had to be “counted out” of the battle order. As Saddam ordered his commanders yesterday to organise Iraq into four military regions to counter an invasion, coalition war planners said that the overwhelming air power, technology and armoured manoeuvre capability would more than compensate for the size of the combat force. The classic warfighting doctrine of never going to war without a 3-1 superiority over the enemy has had to be put to one side. The Americans and British are going to war with the minimum number of troops, with one third of the tanks and the coalition force that drove the Iraqi occupying army out of Kuwait in 1991. Senior military sources acknowledged that the war plan was a “gamble” and was partly dependent on finding an acquiescent Iraqi population once the invasion force crossed into Iraq. “It’s a big country with potential huge ethnic problems, particularly among the Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south, so you can see why we need the population to be acquiescent,” one military source said. The main problem would come if advancing troops became bogged down and the planned momentum was either disrupted or halted. “With such a limited coalition (US, Britain and Australia), there won’t be other troops to call on to help out,” another military source said. The final elements of the build-up have not been completed. America’s B2 Stealth bombers, expected to be among the first aircraft over Baghdad, were continuing to deploy from their home base in Missouri to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. None is due to be based at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, where 14 B52s have taken up residence. The key coalition command centres for a war with Iraq are totally ready. They include the combined air operations centre at Prince Sultan Air Base, 50 miles southeast of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Because of Saudi sensitivities about military action against a fellow Arab country, the Americans had arranged an alternative air- campaign headquarters at al-Udeid, north of Doha in Qatar. However, the airstrike stage of the battle plan will, after all, be co-ordinated from Prince Sultan, after private Saudi approval. The key American and British air commanders are now at the base working out the details of the planned air attacks. For his own preparations for war, Saddam has divided Iraq into four regions: the north including the oilfields at Kirkuk, commanded by General Izzat Ibrahim; the south, including Basra, controlled by General ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for his use of chemicals against Kurds at Halabja in northern Iraq in 1988; the central area, embracing Baghdad and Tikrit, Saddam’s birthplace, commanded by Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s younger son; and the rest of the central region controlled by Mizban Khadr Hadi, of the Revolutionary Command Council. Saddam decreed that he would retain sole authority to launch aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles against invaders. Looking beyond the war, the American blueprint allows for a security force to stay in Iraq for at least a year while an acceptable administration is created. That would impose a huge strain on the British Armed Forces. Under the Government’s Strategic Defence Review blueprint, the Forces have been configured to provide a division-size warfighting formation of up to 25,000 troops, for a maximum of six months. After that, the British commitment would have to be reduced significantly, perhaps to a brigade of 5,000 to 8,000. “If no other countries are prepared to step in because of the lack of a UN mandate, what happens? We certainly can’t keep a division in Iraq for ever,” one source said.
Personally, I kind of think that once a country has nuclear weapons that can reach your shores, you step a little softer than you do against enemies who don't have that capability. One of the arguments I've heard from others defending war now instead of later with Iraq is that if you wait for Saddam to get a nuclear weapon (not saying that he ever would necessarily, but this is the argument), you severely limit the options in dealing with him.
It is because we are still attempting diplomacy with North Korea. North Korea has talked really big, but they have done nothing and have a history of talking tough and doing nothing. Iran is also a case where diplomacy still will work, because we understand that a peaceful political revolution could happen in the near future over there. These two places are completely different from Iraq and that is why war has not been talked about yet with either of the two.
