Posted on 02/15/2003 10:25:37 AM PST by knak
HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - The Iraqi Embassy in Helsinki sought information about anthrax from the foreign ministry in October, Finnish media reported Saturday.
The query - reportedly lodged about a month before the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Baghdad - sought suitable methods ``for the early detection of anthrax,'' the Ilta-Sanomat newspaper reported.
The request also concerned ``ways of protecting against anthrax, as well as methods, procedures and equipment needed for decontamination,'' the tabloid said.
Ilta-Sanomat said that the head of the foreign ministry's political division, Markus Lyra, confirmed the report.
``We did not answer it (the request) at all, and there have been no further discussions,'' Lyra was quoted as saying. ``It is not our field.''
``One wonders, whether it was intended simply for propaganda or similar purposes,'' he added.
Foreign ministry officials were unavailable for comment Saturday.
Who do you think is engineering this, and why? There seems to have been a remarkable behind-the-scenes downfall.
Why think events are engineered by anybody?
Generally they are not.
The Law of Unexpected Consequences rules.
Let me rephrase that then. What do you think happened?
It occurs to me that the delay not only gives us time to prepare, but may also be the best way to prevent a significant terrorist attack.
UN logic is that our attacking Iraq will prevoke terrorist attacks. Thus, Saddam and his agents can't afford to attack us first because such action would prove that Bush and Powell right and the UN and the Axis of Weasles are wrong. So the backchannels at the UN that know for a fact that Iraq has WMD must be pleading with Saddam to not use them or else the UN will be relegated to the ashheap of history. So as long as we have the full force and might of the United States military pointed at Baghdad with the hammer cocked, it is in Saddam's interest to keep the "cut outs" and sleeper cells parked in the garage.
The question then becomes, how long can we keep the troops (and the public) at this ready state?
A game of chicken of global proportions. Only, I think we have the upper hand. If Saddam is kept in check until we are ready, then all goes as planned. If Saddam activates the sleeper cells, lots of people die, but we send in the troops, remove Saddam and expose the UN as worthless.
Remind me to never play poker with G.W. Bush.
The exact operation orders time table is already contained in sealed orders in top secret safes across the middle east.
My guess is we will launch everything we have during the no moon phase at the end of the month.
I hate to make this comparison, I do it only in terms of the military consequences, but "you know who" held up the launching of Operation Barbarossa for a fatal 6 weeks in 1941 while sending critical armor to Yugoslavia on a side trip.
That 6 week delay meant Barbarrosa stalled in the snow at the gates Moscow in December 1941. That 6 week delay cost them the war. Without it, they would have cracked the back of the USSR in November and gone on to victory.
(Thank God they delayed and failed, of course.)
But that lesson of the fatal 6 week delay is drilled into every West Point cadet's skull.
My guess is the turn of the month will see the greatest combined airborne, air mobile and armored attack in the history of warfare. All done on a black night, by the time the sun is up we will be in control of a hundred critical junctions, with US and UK airpower keeping the few Iraqis who do not surrender pinned in place.
On this, we are in full agreement. I'm just trying to figure out what we are trying to accomplish in the UN since France will likely veto any resolution allowing the use of force. Despite France's stance:
Washington launches new drive to swing UN votes
I have no doubt our military is ready, or just about ready, on the warfront. I don't go as far as TGS in his theory that the attack on Iraq is many months away. But I wonder whether we are entangling ourselves in the UN machinations to buy us time to deal with the Dark Smallpox Winter on the homefront.
Particularly in light of this revelation: Schroeder Covered Up Iraqi Smallpox Stockpiling.
He has been taken off the chess board.
You can't use real logic to argue against "U.N. logic." If there's another terrorist attack, the U.N. can continue to claim that there's no proven link between the attack and Iraq. That's the whole problem with this new world of deniable, covert actions.
The point is that this isn't about proving objective facts (or testing hypotheses against actual data) like in science, nor is it even like proving something in a court of law. It's about how each country perceives its interests will be best realized and how each country decides that its security will be best protected.
Whatever is impelling France and Germany to take the stance that they're taking won't change because of some logical argument about facts, nor will it change because of a terrorist act that you or I would trace most probably to Iraq. If they decide that their interests are best protected by denying a connection with Iraq, then they'll deny a connection with Iraq. (Obviously there might come a point where everybody would agree that this was patently false; for example if Iraq owned up to it publicly, then France and Germany would have to change their tune. But of course this isn't too likely right now.)
My guess is that most countries privately have a very similar view of the likely underlying facts, but, based on those facts, each reaches a different conclusion regarding how best to protect its own interests. No doubt it's also true that some leaders are smarter than others; in addition, public opinion in each country is different, giving each leader a different domestic situation to deal with.
The whole strategy is a thing of beauty. There is no certainty that disaster can be avoided -- this is a very dangerous situation we're in, make no mistake -- but the dynamics this strategy sets up are about as good as you can get. Wait until France and Germany find themselves having to buy anthrax vaccine from the US and the Brits -- then the ironies will really hit home.
Yes. I meant to ask your view on how this came about.
Same methodology we're now using to take the UN off the chess board. Colin Powell played the role of the administration's bleeding heart, and supplied Arafat with enough rope to hang himself.
We're trying to accomplish the dismantling, or at least the discrediting, of the U.N. as a weasel organization that defends tyranny and terrorism. We're also letting France and Germany back themselves into a corner. They'll be sorry they're there when push comes to shove; they're betting on the wrong horse.
If nothing has changed, what analysis would have led us to hold back at that time, but to proceed full force now?
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