[A-List] War in Iraq

["Tariq Mahmood" <zaogir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 

 Yasser Alaskary wrote:

News Analysis
January 13, 2003

• Suggestions this week that a war on Saddam may be delayed either to the summer - reports of US soldiers being prepared for war in hot weather, or to the autumn with Blair saying that "the UN had a real role to play". This can mean any of the following:

1. War is really being delayed and alternative options are being discussed.
   • This, however, is unlikely for the following reasons:
   1. Military preparations are not only continuing but intensifying. Only hours after ordering 35,000 extra troops to head for Iraq, the Pentagon ordered another 62,000 on Sunday. Furthermore, such a large number of troops cannot be maintained for too long in the region without military action.
   2. Other British and almost all American officials are still saying that war is the most likely option.
   3. Last week saw some high profile meetings between American and Iraqi opposition leaders, indicating that preparations for a post-Saddam Iraq are still continuing.
2. The US/UK have some hidden evidence that they believe will clearly show Saddam in breach of the UN and guarantee backing for war from the UN Security Council, possibly even with another resolution. So they are now in the process of giving the impression that they want to avoid a war and are willing to give inspectors the time they need until they release this information before Blix's January 27th report.
3. The US has decided to go to war without the UN. To cover its back and to quell opposition in parliament and the country, the UK government is creating the impression it wants to avoid a war and would like to go through the UN, so that when the US announces they are going alone, Blair can claim he is forced to join so as to influence and restrain the US.

• Blix said in his latest report that his team had not found "any smoking guns", but that Iraq's 12,000 page weapons declaration "failed to answer a great many questions". Saddam, in his annual Army Day address, accused UN weapons inspectors of being spies - possibly indicating that when he feels he can no longer buy himself more time or when inspectors are close to finding his weapons he would expel them.
  
• Trigger for confrontation with Saddam seems likely to take place within the next couple of weeks over interviews with Iraqi scientists, and/or more intense searches by the inspectors, and possibly even the fate of a missing American pilot from the '91 Gulf War.

New Analysis provided by the Iraqi Prospect Organisation.