Though I don't believe Saddam will resume a leadership role of a state; he
obviously knew that facing the US forces head on would lose many of his best
men. He and his advisors saw how quickly Afghanistan's Taliban and al Qaeda
fell in regular combat; in tough terrain. Iraqi forces would have been easy
to overcome, if they stayed in their tanks and vehicles, rather than
changing clothes and joining the rest of the civilians.

I don't know whom the Shiites will side with, but the news has more British
victims in Basra.

Iraq looks like a quagmire because even sabotage makes the news. Soft
targets continue to get hit. The fight to win over the support of the
Shiites, is stalling. And if no wmds are found, there will be continual
debate in the UN.

..................

TonyZ2001 wrote in message
<20030823045302.07063.00000292@mb-m26.aol.com>...

Let's remember how except for a few cities
in the south, Iraq fell quickly and
almost without a fight.

There wasn't one bridge blown, even though
all had been rigged with explosives, ditto
for the major dams and the oil fields and refineries.

Some of us here discussed how it seemed
that we were being led into Baghdad.

Iraq's 400,000 man army seemed to disappear
overnight, very few attempts were made to down
US planes, unlike 1991 where the skies were lit
up like the 4th of July, and very few SCUD missiles
were launched.

Yeah I know that we advanced quickly, but there
were no attempts to stop that advance, there was
no real attempt to fight.

Now almost 5 months after Baghdad fell, attacks
against our forces and against Iraqi infrastructsure
are increasing, and getting more sophsiticated.

Now I ask you to remember something that I have
posted here for years, that the Antichrist would be
a "Master of Stratagem", and one who deals with
the Occult. Recent reports show that Saddam was/is
deeply into the Occult, and others are questioning
if perhaps he had planned the apparent collapse of
his forces to allow them to fight this Guerilla war
and trap the coalition forces into a fight they cannot win.

Tony

"About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up, who will turn
their attention to the prophecies, in the midst of much clamor and

opposition."

Sir Isaac Newton