http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=84189
Anyone else heard this? Could there be a grain of truth in it?
Well, it contradicts what Debka says and if there was a glimmer of truth to it, Debka’d be screeching about it madly.
Even if true, I’m not sure what the problem is. Wasn’t exile for Saddam one of the alternative solutions advocated by persons and countries opposed to the war?
Isn’t it odd that a solution advocated by such persons is now being used as an attack by the same persons on the United States?
Sua
Because such persons are hypocrites who wallow in dishonesty and hatred, of course. In any case, Iran’s news service should be considered as reliable as Pravda during the Brezhnev years.
Even if it is true, I’m not sure what the problem is. Wasn’t exile offered to Saddam by the United States as a way to avoid war? Isn’t it odd that the same solution offered by the United States is being turned around and used as a pretext by the United States to attack (or at the very least sanction) another Arab country?
I read a story onAl Jazeera about how the commander of the Republican Guard is supposed to have cut a deal with the US- surrender of the RG fo rsafe exile to “undisclosed location”, ( next door to Cheney’s). The report cited Le Monde as the source of the story. I thought this might’ve been what the thread was about. I hadn’t come across the claim that the OP is about. Maybe the two are connected?
If it were true I think it would have been an excellent deal to strike. Minimizing civilian & military casualties, and damage of property.
And I am / were certainly opposed to this war Sua.
Exile for saddam was also advocated by the US administration as a way to avoid war.
Russians supposedly were actually in Baghdad during the war, and had sold Iraq some of its weaponry. So that raises a point of connection.
It would be quite the wool-pulling event if all the talk of “decapitating” strikes was all melodramatic hooey to cover the escape, certainly not out of the question. But if the US was really part of the deal, Bush would risk loosing all his credibility should the deal ever come to light (and everyone knows people in both Russian and American governments talk), make all the pinpoint strikes seem pretty damning for the administration’s trustworthiness.
However Iran isn’t exactly a bastion journalistic truth, I’m not sure what they’d gain from this rumor - other than giving Saddam an air of invincibility and sanity, as well as stripping America’s ridiculously efficient invasion of Iraq of legitimacy.
Well, it did strike me as odd that the Iraqi army, battle-hardened through years of fighting with Iran would crumble like a bunch of boy scouts. American air supremacy/smart bombs/technological advantage don’t come close to accounting for such an easy victory.
I guess such a news source carries at least as much credibility as the morons in the western media.
An interesting article. A grain of truth? I don’t see it.
However, I wouldn’t be altogether against the idea of not chasing Saddam if he gained sanctuary in some “safe” country. He’s not an ObL with some idealistic following. We were willing to let him go into exile a month ago, why not now? The one problem I do see with that is it would reduce, or delegitimicize, our ability to take action against those officials who remained in Iraq.
IMO, that news story doesn’t even pass the laugh test. It may have been motivated by the shock in some quarters as to the ease and speed coalition forces won.
Why some in the Arab world and elsewhere have this myth their military is any match for US forces is beyond me. Iraq had no significant air defense, the regime was unpopular and the fly zones had been in effect for years.
The ground war in 1991 was only a few days and Iraq’s military was even weaker now than ten years ago. In the meantime, US guided weapons had improved substantially in accuracy, speed of trageting and reliability. Vicotry would have been even quicker had we not been concerned about our own and civilian casualties.
Here’s an article from Salon:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/04/14/baghdaddeal/
(It’s pretty much unsourced guesswork–not much more credibility than one of these SDMB posts, really. But I thought it was relevant.)