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| Iraq |
| 'US won't leave Iraq while Saddam supporters remain active' |
| 2003-07-24 |
| Top Pentagon adviser Richard Perle said here Tuesday that US troops could not leave Iraq while a band of what he said were some 30,000 armed supporters of Saddam Hussein's fallen regime remained active. He added that Washington has a generally positive view of President Vladimir Putin — who opposed the Iraq war — but would in the future judge the Russian leader on his actions rather than his public pronouncements. "There were of course many reasons for starting the war in Iraq," Perle told reporters when asked about US and British troops' failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq more than three months after the campaign began. "We are clearly starting to see that up to 300,000 people were killed and buried" by Saddam's regime, he said. Perle added that "we are absolutely certain" that weapons of mass destruction are hidden in Iraq — Washington's motive for launching the offensive against Baghdad — but that it may take dozens of years to find them. "We don't know where to look for them and we never did know where to look for them," he admitted. Asked by a reporter when he thought the evidence of those weapons may be found, Perle joked: "I hope this will take less than 200 years." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #8 Weapons, weapons, weapons. Why cancha findem U.S.? Well, what if, for instance, they're buried in cemetaries ? Who's gonna be the one to dig up a few thousand gravesites to find chemicals ? Oops, wrong one. Sah-wee dead people. They could be (and are) f**king anywhere. STFU about the GD weapons. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-7-24 2:51:21 PM |
| #7 LH - I couldn't have said it any better lol. Proves you've got a good sense of humor ;-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-7-24 12:15:37 PM |
| #6 In my humble opinion Putin should have: (1) Given that handful of Islands back to Japan in exchange for financing a major upgrade to the transiberian railway. (2) Taken a real good look at what made Hong Kong and Singapore so wealthy and tried to duplicate it in Vladivostok. and St. Petersburg. (3) Sold half of the rusty Russian nuclear fleet and as much of the nuclear arsenal as possible to the US so that the Yanks could clean up the mess and be happy an environmental disaster and doing something about nuclear proliferation while putting a lot of hard currency into Russian banks. (4) Sided with the US during the War on Terror to help justify the brutality in Chechnya. |
| Posted by: Yank 2003-7-24 11:14:00 AM |
| #5 LH - Ok - you can quit yer day job now - you've got the timing thing down pat! |
| Posted by: PD 2003-7-24 10:16:28 AM |
| #4 Well, since i dont often get to gloat can i at least point out that I NEVER much liked Putin - didnt think being ex-kgb was a great qual, and never understood Dubyas closeness to him. I kinda liked Yeltsin. I guess im just tolerant of unfit, undisciplined leaders who waffle. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-7-24 10:03:04 AM |
| #3 Anon1 - Amen. I had very high hopes for Russia - and Prez Putty looked like he had the skillset (ex-KGB & "smart" I thought) to rapidly bring them out of the "roaring 20's" gangster daze. Wrong. He seems to have done almost nothing domestically to turn things around. If the Russians weren't naturally stoic, they'd have hung him, by now. Internationally, he's failed to control nuke tech and other sensitive tech worth a tinker's damn, he's lied to Dubya's face and 6 months later stabbed him in the back, tried to play Sov Union-style power games at the UN and rebuffed the US companies who've offered some sweet deals to develop the vast resources of Siberia - as well as foot a big chunk of the bill to rehab his oil industry infrastructure, which is falling apart. OPEC needn't fear Russia - they aren't fixing their gear and production levels are dropping. As for the post, an on-topic response is that Perle seems to be too happy to take the reporter seriously. Hey, he got what he wanted and knows the fallout is typical ankle-biting poitics that will result in nothing significant. |
| Posted by: PD 2003-7-24 8:54:18 AM |
| #2 what a waste, too. He had so much potential: i mean, after Yeltsin he had to look good: sober as opposed to drunk fit as opposed to about to drop dead from abusing his body a disciplined martial arts blackbelt as opposed to a fat old slob But you see, looks aren't everything: in fact in a leader, they aren't even anything. And at a time when Russia has it's own Chechyn Islamofascist problems you'da thunk he'd appreciate an ally. |
| Posted by: Anon1 2003-7-24 7:27:33 AM |
| #1 "judge the Russian leader on his actions rather than his public pronouncements" It's about fucking time. In fact, apply this to everyone. Pres Putty, who fancies himself a master spy & strategist, sex symbol & pop idol, and probably Premier & President-for-Life, is a myopic self-absorbed egotistical moron who has severely harmed the interests of his country through asinine mishandling and mismanagement of Russian foreign policy, domestic policy, security, and future prospects. If the Russian people ever pull their adoring heads out of their asses and flush this turd, they should give the US a call. Until then, Dubya would be wise to let this fool stew in his own borscht. What a loser. |
| Posted by: PD 2003-7-24 6:12:02 AM |