I apologize for the ridiculous insults....I just feel you take pleasure in being deliberately contrary at times,
I have never done this, thanks.
- the regime, while "toppled" still retains vestiges of power in Baghdad and elsewhere...intense ground fighting persists btwn coalition forces and those loyal to Saddam.
- a large portion of Iraq's intelligence apparatus, republican guard, and elite republican guard, all intensely loyal to Saddam, remain unaccounted for.
Great. But alive or dead, there has been extremely little evidence to suggest that they (the troops) are recieving or have been receiving any orders from Saddam since the beginning of the war. From all of the reports I have read, commanders of groups of Iraqi soldiers seem to be taking it upon themselves to decide whether to fight or surrender; hence the non-uniformity in the way Iraqis are engaging the US military.
- if Saddam is not dead and has managed, for instance, to escape to the north,
according to AP (so it must be right) "Ten or more Iraqi army divisions - as many as 80,000 troops - were in the area between the capital and the Kurdish-controlled areas of far northern Iraq, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said Wednesday." While it's not inconceivable that these divisions would drop their arms and surrender if their leader were proven dead, his presence in the vicinity, along with a republican guard battalion, paramilitary irregulars, and the intense loyalty of his tribesmen in Tikrit- a gopher's den of command bunkers - you have the prospect of a drawn out guerilla war being contested by a supposedly "toppled" regime.
This could very well happen whether Saddam is alive or dead. Regardless of how long it takes to roust out the last of his supporters, Saddam's regime is over. Period. He isn't coming back into power. I don't see that his life/death is going to have any effect on the future of Iraq.
-all of this is taking place while at the same time, we are occupying much of the country, basking at least for this moment in the warm welcome of a newly liberated people. This won't last. The sooner we do our business, establish the framework for a functional, modern democratic Iraq, and get the hell out of dodge, the better. To the extent that the presence of Saddam and his sons can extend and complicate our mission, so much the better for them to be proven dead as soon as possible.
Finally, you have to remember that any dictatorship necessarily functions as a national cult of personality - the government embodied by a single person. This is evident in the seemingly myriad paintings, statues, and monuments that appear to decorate every corner of Iraq's landscape.
Which are apparently being torn down by Iraqis as we speak.
Consider that in Iraq, this cult has persisted for more than three decades, largely through violence and intimidation. While its not absolutely necessary to the creation of a free state to do so, the committment to a new Iraq would be largely emboldened by quite literally killing the old Iraq, as embodied by Saddam.
I agree to a certain extent, but will say again that I don't think that his life or death is going to have much bearing on the government that it seems mor and more likely the US and Britain are going to install in Iraq. Hmm, final quote from Ari Fleischer re: whether Saddam is dead or alive
In the bigger scheme of things, it really doesn't matter because whether it is him or whether it isn't him, the regime's days are numbered and are coming to an end.
Not that what he says necessarily matters very much, but at least I'm not the only one who thinks so :)
<img src=http://thereisnogod.faithweb.com/images/toocute2.gif>
!! 2% !!<font color=white>