From: Gene McAloon 

On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 23:32:43 -0700, Randall Parker
 wrote:

>Well, first of all, Saddam was already throwing up tons of roadblocks to
>the UNSCOM inspectors before the air strikes. Why do you think the air
>strikes were conducted in the first place? Saddam was gradually
>degrading the ability of the inspectors to do their work. In doing this
>Saddam had the support of the French, Russians, and Chinese on the UN
>Security Council. Read the accounts of the UNSCOM inspectors. They are
>clear on this.

Pure fantasy.  Saddam was doing nothing to hinder the first inspection
regime and began to hinder somewhat the second regime under Butler because
he knew what
even the US public found out only later, that under Butler the inspection
teams were riddled with CIA agents.

When Butler began to contradict the findings of the earlier team under
Ekeus, his excuse for not finding anything was that Saddam was hindering
his teams. Other than objecting to the teams entering Saddam's so-called
palaces, the teams
had freedom to go anywhere on short or no notice at all.  Butler was lying.
He did nothing but lie during his tenure and when the US public and the
world discovered that Butler's teams had degenerated into nothing but an
arm of the CIA, Butler and his teams had to go.

To lessen what was already a scandal, Clinton decided that the best way to
put an end to the scandals was to put an end to the disgraced inspection
teams altogether. He did that by announcing he was going to start bombing
Iraq and therefore the teams had better get out before the bombing started.
They did and Clinton bombed for four days and used the start of Ramadan as
an excuse to halt the bombing.  At that point, Butler and the disgraced
inspection teams were out of the picture at last and the scandal pushed to
the back burner.

Saddam did invite the inspectors back in and the UN in its wisdom dumped
Butler and appointed a Swede. You are right that Saddam invited the UN back
in because he feared what everyone feared, that the crazy Bush
administration would start a
pre-emptive war against Iraq.  You claim it was the French, Russians and Chinese
on the Security Council who "supported" Saddam. In fact, no one
on the SC did so. Bush's SC resolution authorizing war was never even
introduced and was not because Bush could never get a majority of the 15
votes necessary for it to pass.

You say the UN is a joke. What is really a joke is your fantasy scenario
about what happened.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5