Willy Pete alleged to have been used in Falluja

[Rick]

Never said that it is equivalent just that, in connection with what I've always been taught, and some of that was in JROTC and the Merchant Marine Academy, white phosphorous is technically a chemical weapon.

My biggest issue with occurrences like these is yes s@#t happens in war, it's virtually unavoidable. That's one of the prime reasons why one needs a better reason to start a war than what we had. Some abstract fear of some possible hostile act in the remote future does not qualify. One of the first rules of ethics is the rule of universality, thus if something is true it's true across the board. Therefore, if it is justifiable for us to invade Iraq because they scare us, then anyone we scare (I imagine roughly half the world) would be justified in invading us.

The protecting us from terrorism etc. explanation doesn't hold up for everyone. There those of us who'd rather let a terrorist kill us than see America make the changes that it is.

[Splinty]

As someone who has done two tours in Iraq,I personally am in favor of any weapon or weapons system that kills or supresses the enemy and lowers the risk to me and my comrades. I have no desire to harm innocent people, or cause anymore harm than I need to do my job and get back home safely. Those people (civilian non-combatants, not the insurgents) who stayed in Fallujah, knew we were coming and they knew we were coming in with "guns Blazing". At that point the responsibilty for their safety was in their own hands, not ours. I'm not an uncaring person, but at that point if they suffered harm from WP or whatever,well, I feel for them, but what did they expect? An I beleive if put that way to most of the supposed "outraged masses" who read the reports of the supposed "atrocities" they would agree.Or at least understand where the military commanders were coming from when they ordered their use. To me this whole debate in the press is just another case of the politicians and the press trying to profit at the expence of the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen on the ground.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Rick:

Never said that it is equivalent just that, in connection with what I've always been taught, and some of that was in JROTC and the Merchant Marine Academy, white phosphorous is technically a chemical weapon.

Since the US military does not classify WP as a chemical weapon (nor any other military in the world I know of), I'd be curious as to what they were thinking.

If you want to be really technical, a pointy stick with the end lit on fire is a chemical weapon. But no one in their right mind would put such a thing in the same category as mustard gas and VX nerve agent.

The protecting us from terrorism etc. explanation doesn't hold up for everyone. There those of us who'd rather let a terrorist kill us than see America make the changes that it is.

I'm not unsympathetic to your general point, but I think you're speaking towards issues far removed from WP. If it comes down to letting terrorists kill me or shooting WP rounds at them, I'll shoot them. Frankly, I think you would too.

[shlitzzlipzz@hotmail.com]

Whats diffperence between the White Posperous used in Pallajah and anywhere in WWII2?

Many blew up and burned but was the US wrong in Worldt War 2?

Whats the major specifications that make them break and chop up and spread and make metal or posperousinousiss?

[shlitzzlipzz@hotmail.com]

Excuse my spellings please. I understand you all like each other and make funs of others. Thats OK with me.

I write many discourse examinations of weaponinging types as my officxial job type.

[juan_gigante]

It's a wonder you would still have a job. That is, if what you said were true. And don't try to claim you're not a native English speaker. No non-native English speaker will list their location as "hell, USA". Even the non-native speakers do significatly better than you. Come on. If you want respect from us, show us a modicum of respect and give 10 SECONDS to edit your post. I mean, come on, really. If you don't want to get made fun of, don't give us ammo to do so with.

[shlitzzlipzz@hotmail.com]

I have no job. Is that important?

PS May I assume that your threats are al non-physical?

I am trained to kill/maimed all in non-light conditions. Its a little easier actually.

[Bigduke6]

I think BFI has one aspect of this issue covered well in CMSF. Unquestionably, the VP penalty for getting U.S. forces killed is going to be severe. As Splinty makes very clear, if you are in a war survival becomes your top priority, and screw any one who says different. If some one disagrees, let them lay their life on the line, and see how willing they are to put anything else besides their own personal survival on the priority list. Fear of death really focuses the mind that way.

The question is, of course, whether keeping U.S. soldiers alive at all costs is the best way to fight an insurgency. From a theoretical point of view, it would have been possible to send Marines armed with only with 45 caliber grease guns into Falluja, no support, and order them to fire only when fired on. It would have gotten a whole lot (more) Marines killed and wounded, but on the other hand fewer Fallujan civilians would have been killed and wounded. Maybe RIA would have done a story on the kind foreigner-respecting humanistic U.S. Marine Corps, rather than the illegal WP-using U.S. Marine Corps. It's possible to lie in a positive light too, after all.

Another option, arguably even better from the POV of keeping Marines and Iraqi civilians alive, would have been never to send the Marines in at all, and instead commit to a decade or two of infrastructure construction and police work. Penetrate the insurgent ranks with informers, improve the lot of the general population, keep it up for ten years or more.

Whether or not that policy is possible in a splintered, xenophobic Middle Eastern nation with no democratic traditions and a tradition for authoritarianism and corruption stretching back to before the beginning of recorded history, when the country trying to do it (America) historically has proved incapable of supporting a war for more than about three years unless decisive victory is coming, is a political topic and who wants to get locked down?

Rather, I want to suggest another great "real-life" wrinkle to CMSF. See, corruption and double-dealing is pretty much the way of life in the Levant, and it goes at least double (or is that quadruple if you are double-crossing, 2 x2 = 4 after all) if foreigners are involved. So, what does that mean for U.S. forces invading Syria?

Well for starters, besides the sattelites, U.S. forces can be expected to achieve battlefield effects by simple bribery, by just buying off enemy field commanders. It worked in Gulf War I, it should work in Syria. So in a CM battle, the U.S. player can instead of buying only troops for a fight can purchase bribes - call it money in a numbered Swiss account - and at the moment of his choosing the U.S. player can execute the bribe. This could (or could not) pay off in terms of inelligence on the enemy, enemy units simply refusing to accept Syrian player orders, or even sometimes Syrian units going to the U.S. side.

That's pretty "outside the box" for a wargame, huh?

Of course it would have to go both ways. All those translators and Iraqi support troops that would be tailing along with the Americans, how loyal would they really be in a war with Syria? What if Akhmed who is translator to 1st Stryker Brigade has a cousin Abdul, who lives in Syria and would just love to have the Stryker Brigade attack his business competitors?

I can see it now: "Oh yes most definately Mr. Sryker Brigade commander colonel Sir, there are LOTS of Syrian insurgents in that house appliance warehouse. Better be safe, level it, they're fanatics in there you know."

Smart bombs go in, ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom, the Americans move on, and suddenly Abdul has monopolized the Aleppo home appliance market. Even better, Akhmed will eventually introduce Abdul to the U.S. occupation authorities as a pro-Westerner with whom American can do business.

In a game this could go against the U.S. player via VPs lost for buildings destroyed, obviously.

An even more entertaining wrinkle is if Akhmed the translator gets bought off/intimidated by the Iraqi insurgents, or maybe even finds Allah, and starts working secretly for the Syrian/anti-American side. This could have all sorts of gaming implications:

*The game pops up this message: "UAV IDs enemy infantry at grid 123456, Humint confirms them as civilians". In actuality it's Syrian Commandos with AT-14. Humint (the translator's translation of what the locals were telling him) was lying.

*The game pops up "Enemy AT section HERE". In fact there is nothing there, again, the translator was lying.

To implement this wrinkle fully, allow the Syrian player points to buy traitors on the U.S. side. It should be expensive, but possible - after all the idea is to simulate war accurately.

Of course, if you build double-crossing into the game, then you have to answer the question: If the Stryker colonel hauls out his Beretta and shoots his double-dealing translator dead, is that VPs for the U.S. side or the Syrian side. Hmmm......

[ November 20, 2005, 03:03 AM: Message edited by: Bigduke6 ]

[FAI]

Originally posted by shlitzzlipzz@hotmail.com:

Whats diffperence between the White Posperous used in Pallajah and anywhere in WWII2?

Many blew up and burned but was the US wrong in Worldt War 2?

Whats the major specifications that make them break and chop up and spread and make metal or posperousinousiss?

In WWII, nobody was fighting to win the hearts and minds of the civilians. It was a war for survival. Even atomic weapons were introduced, and that was a much bigger fish to fry than some smoke-and-heat generating weapons.

In Fallujah (and Iraq), it was all about hearts and minds. Too much collateral damage, and you'll see military victory in all the battles but eventually the war will be lost.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

[snips]

The question is, of course, whether keeping U.S. soldiers alive at all costs is the best way to fight an insurgency. From a theoretical point of view, it would have been possible to send Marines armed with only with 45 caliber grease guns into Falluja, no support, and order them to fire only when fired on. It would have gotten a whole lot (more) Marines killed and wounded, but on the other hand fewer Fallujan civilians would have been killed and wounded. Maybe RIA would have done a story on the kind foreigner-respecting humanistic U.S. Marine Corps, rather than the illegal WP-using U.S. Marine Corps. It's possible to lie in a positive light too, after all.

I suspect that the method you suggest would, in fact, have worked quite well, on condition it were done with an army of millions rather than mere tens of thousands -- and under those circumstances quite probably with less total loss of life on both sides (apart from the inevitable firearms accidents associated with deploying millions of M3 grease-guns).

It is a well-established principle of riot control that the level of effect you can achieve on a large mob of recalcitrant people depends on the number of people you deploy muliplied by the level of violence you are prepared to use. You might be able to control a riot with a dozen blokes with firearms, or achieve the same level of control with a thousand men carrying pick-helves. I expect that the same sort of calculation applies further up the spectrum of conflict, too.

Unfortunately, the whole thrust of NEC, Digitization, Medium-weight brigades and all that hullabaloo is to achieve the same level of effect with smaller (and cheaper and more deployable) forces. I have yet to be convinced that it will offer the level of improvement people are expecting for top-end, high-intensity conflict. It seems reasonably certain that digitized forces will be far less capable than the same money's worth of well-trained old-fashioned inf and engineers when it comes to low-intensity conflict.

It would be agreeable to think that CM:SF will be able to reflect the spectrum of conflict in this way, but I doubt that it will, as the average wargamer is interested in high-intensity conflict and has little interest in the low-intensity stuff (and the same goes for the US Army, outside the Special Forces).

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

[snips]

Well for starters, besides the sattelites, U.S. forces can be expected to achieve battlefield effects by simple bribery, by just buying off enemy field commanders. It worked in Gulf War I, it should work in Syria. So in a CM battle, the U.S. player can instead of buying only troops for a fight can purchase bribes - call it money in a numbered Swiss account - and at the moment of his choosing the U.S. player can execute the bribe. This could (or could not) pay off in terms of inelligence on the enemy, enemy units simply refusing to accept Syrian player orders, or even sometimes Syrian units going to the U.S. side.

That's pretty "outside the box" for a wargame, huh?

It's exactly the kind of thing multi-player boardgames have repeatedly shown themselves to be good at showing -- think Diplomacy, Machiavelli, Illuminati, Mordred. Getting the same sort of mechanisms to work in a computer game might be a bit tricky when you want to play against the AI, but shows another good reason for using an agent-based approach.

So, who wants the next version of The Sims to be set in the CIMIC cell of a Division HQ?

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

In a game this could go against the U.S. player via VPs lost for buildings destroyed, obviously.

[snips]

Of course, if you build double-crossing into the game, then you have to answer the question: If the Stryker colonel hauls out his Beretta and shoots his double-dealing translator dead, is that VPs for the U.S. side or the Syrian side. Hmmm......

I suspect that you might even need several different flavours of VP, rather than have them all interchangeable, so that a player might achieve (say) a military victory, a moral defeat, and a public-relations draw. The advantage to being the "rotating-eyeball religious fanatic" player would then be that you could be humiliated militarily, disgraced morally, suffer a public-relations disaster and still point to your smashing religious victory of 100 VPs to nil, because nobody but you is allowed to score points on the religious victory track.

All the best,

John.

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, an overall low intensity warfare simulation would be very cool to make. I know for a fact that the US DoD is looking for all sorts of things like this because they really don't exist. A few narrowly focused "games" have recently been developed, one of which role plays decision tree events (i.e. you make this choice you go here, you make that choice you go there). For people with a strong interest in the non-combat elements of a combat zone this would be a big hit. Unfortunately, it is also a big development effort. I suppose if the DoD upfronted 5 years worth of R&D money I might be tempted to do it, but not for less. It's just too huge and likely not commercially viable without major additional effort.

Splinty, that's my take on the "right way" to do things. Do your best to minimize damage and casualties, but in the end you have a job to do that involves risks to property and civilian life. That's just the way war is, and no amount of complaining is going to make it inherently any nicer.

The problem is that the politicians who started and manage the war in Iraq have so isolated themselves from just about everybody that they have left the United States and Great Britain (in particular), and everything these nations stand for, as magnets for criticism. And since the US is the largest force and the most visible one, they get the lion's share of the abuse. The magnatisim for criticism and abuse is far stronger than usual, and far more than it need have been. And that is what makes me the most upset as an American. The US should not be in such a fragile PR state that a little use of a legal weapon like WP should be kicking up such a storm. But because the vast majority of the world's populace thinks the war in Iraq is an extension of colonialism, not a matter of self defense, then every little and big thing that goes wrong there is prime fodder for attack. Not to mention that the CIA has said the war in Iraq is actually increasing the recruitment of terrorists to the cause.

Steve

[ November 20, 2005, 09:25 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[yuvuphys]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The problem is that the politicians who started and manage the war in Iraq have so isolated themselves from just about everybody that they have left the United States and Great Britain (in particular), and everything these nations stand for, as magnets for criticism. And since the US is the largest force and the most visible one, they get the lion's share of the abuse. The magnatisim for criticism and abuse is far stronger than usual, and far more than it need have been. And that is what makes me the most upset as an American. The US should not be in such a fragile PR state that a little use of a legal weapon like WP should be kicking up such a storm. But because the vast majority of the world's populace thinks the war in Iraq is an extension of colonialism, not a matter of self defense, then every little and big thing that goes wrong there is prime fodder for attack. Not to mention that the CIA has said the war in Iraq is actually increasing the recruitment of terrorists to the cause.

Steve

Two minor points, then the major one. First, we were a magnet for criticism before, people only needed an excuse to attack us. It's just that now they have a real good excuse, whereas before they had to wait for one. Second, we're trusting the CIA now? I'm sure we've helped the recruiting of people who were already inclined to join, but were undecided, but the important question is how this will affect recruiting in the long run.

The major point...yes, what the US stands for and has become a major magnet for criticism. But in my humble opinion, if we hadn't done what we did, everything this country stands for would have been a lie. Don't forget the UN and many other major powers were on Saddam's payroll for the tune of billions of dollars; they have no moral ground to stand on. One of the things the US stands for is doing what's right even if others don't want you to do what's right. And frankly, if we draw criticism for standing up for this, then I'll wear that criticism as a badge of honor. It is much more noble to be spreading what the US stands for than acquiescing to those who betray what we stand for.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly think there are valid criticisms for the US's actions, but a vast majority of what goes on ala Europe is far from that.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by yuvuphys:

Don't forget the UN and many other major powers were on Saddam's payroll for the tune of billions of dollars; they have no moral ground to stand on.

If you consider that to be a 'truth', then I guess you also believe that the US foreign policy is dictated by Halliburton.

[Bigduke6]

yuvuphys,

The minor point is of course that a majority in Britain opposes their country's troop presence in Iraq, and some one correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it was that way the first day the British were there.

The major point is that America may well in stand for doing what's right, in your opinion, but that's probably not an opinion held universally, even in places where you might expect it.

America stands - or sadly in some cases stood - not for some a nebulous right over wrong, but for basic and clearly-enunciated humanitarian principles: democracy, personal freedoms, the separation of church and state, a government by and for the people, "life, liberty and the purfuit of happineff".

Those are the ideals that have commanded international respect for the U.S., for the last two centuries and change. Right and wrong in the face of criticism only enters into it when the U.S. supports those humanitarian priciples. Usually it has.

If "modern Europe" is against the recent U.S. intervention in Iraq - and you are quite right they are - you might ask yourself why. The U.S.' leadership after all liberated just the entire continent, about half during WW2, and the other half after the Soviet Union crumpled. If any group of foreigners should be supportive of the U.S. invading a country in the name of democracy, it should be the Europeans. So why aren't they?

I submit it is because Europeans see what the U.S. is doing in Iraq as contradicting, not supporting but contradicting, the humanitarian values the U.S. has stood for for so long, and that the Europeans have embraced.

Modern Europeans for practical purposes have democracy and freedom of speech and individual rights quite comparable with the Americans, and it is on the face of it a little astounding that so many of them disagree with the U.S. foreign policy...if in fact they think that foreign policy is driven by Jeffersonian democracy and the like.

And another thing. The Europeans may be relatively inexperienced compared to the U.S. in terms of representational democracy (apologies to the English and the Icelanders, I'm talking continent-wide here); but there is no group of people on this planet better acquainted with how geopolitics work, and the price peoples must pay in blood and treasure when geopolitics not humanitarian principles drives a government's the foreign policy decision-making.

If you look at the European map it is hard to find a single country that was not, at one time in the last 500 years, at minimum a great power or part of one. The entire continent is a quilt-work of battlefields.

Europeans as a group moreover are better, not worse but dramatically better, educated than Americans, skilled than Americans at speaking foreign languages and functioning in foreign culures, and in knowing the limits to one culture's enforcing its will on another. After all, European history is their history.

So, if Europeans as a group are hostile to a U.S. foreign war, I would say it would make sense for smart people in the U.S. to pay attention. Not because the Europeans are a threat or an enemy - that ended a half-century ago at least. But rather, because Europe is besides the U.S. the other bastion of democracy and individual rights on this planet. If Europeans see something wrong in U.S. behavior, you can't blow that opinion off as you can criticism from the Kremlin and Pravda.

If you are honest about trying to understand why your foreign policy is catching such flak, you may well have to consider the Europeans know what they are talking about.

So...I really hope one of the CMSF modules has NATO-type contingents in it.

[yuvuphys]

Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by yuvuphys:

Don't forget the UN and many other major powers were on Saddam's payroll for the tune of billions of dollars; they have no moral ground to stand on.

If you consider that to be a 'truth', then I guess you also believe that the US foreign policy is dictated by Halliburton. </font>

[yuvuphys]

Bigduke6,

That 'major point' was in responce to Steve's discontent with the war, and wasn't meant as a response to the European dissent to the war. That requires a whole different set of arguements that I wasn't trying to address, though I could if I wanted to. I live in the middle of a bunch of really smart people who tend to agree with the Europeans, and I end up arguing with them a lot

[Sergei]

Originally posted by yuvuphys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by yuvuphys:

Don't forget the UN and many other major powers were on Saddam's payroll for the tune of billions of dollars; they have no moral ground to stand on.

If you consider that to be a 'truth', then I guess you also believe that the US foreign policy is dictated by Halliburton. </font>

[juan_gigante]

yuvuphys, perhaps you'd like to explain why 52% of all the kickbacks that Saddam received were from U.S. individuals and corporations, and how this fits into your "corrupt UN" scheme. Or explain this quote from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations:

Originally said by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations:

"The United States (government) was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions. On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."

[Tarquelne]

Ooo! And we were doing so well at keeping this from becoming a political discussion (still verboten, IIRC), let alone "Justifying GWII, round 561,473."

Perhaps a distraction:

WP is the devil's pus. It's Satanic. I really like the idea of multiple victory tracks. Perhaps a "Manifesting Hell's Will" track?

Collateral damage and weapon use:

This is what Steve's said before in response to similar posts:

Yes, the new Victory Conditions do include ROE (Rules of Engagement) considerations along with others. For example, we will be able to weigh victory for stuff like "get your convoy to x location by y time without taking more than z casualties". We can do this in a way that is not necessarily apparent to the player ahead of time, or it can be explicate. In other words, Victory Conditions in CMx2 are going to be nothing like what they were in CMx1. That's one of the reasons why we expect CMx2 to be far more interesting

(I found the above in a past post of Sergi's. If he hadn't been distracted by political matters he

might have posted that excellent info. again. Hint hint.)

Lots of "hooks" for VP penalties and bonuses would be nice. Entering certain buildings, for example, or not entering them... VP adjustments for using certain weapons would be good too... though I'm not sure how many players would be keen on having their "military victory" spoiled by PR considerations. Though it sounds neat to me. (And quite realistic.) Without seperate VP-type tallies BFC might have to install more Whiner Filters. (Or lower Madmatt's dosage, maybe? BTW, is he really mad mad or is it just a publicity thing?)

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Tarquelne:

(Or lower Madmatt's dosage, maybe? BTW, is he really mad mad or is it just a publicity thing?)

He's actually as sane as any of us. In his own, irrationally violent, way.

[yuvuphys]

Would you like to point to PROOF that

Sort of like your proof? OK, fine, here's what I netted from ~10 minute google news search:

France Ambassador for life bribed:

http://www.nysun.com/article/23244

Amount of corruption occuring on UN/Kofi's watch:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110007578

Russian Parlimentarian bribed, French Abassodor bribed (again), member of British parliment bribed:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-11-17-oil-for-food_x.htm

Investigations into oil for food going on in:

US (at least 2), UN, Switzerland, Austrialia, France (not comprehensive list):

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20051116-1535-un-oil-for-food.html

A summary of Volker's report, incliding bribes to 3 Russian political parties and Chief of Staff of Putin, French Undersecretary to the UN, French Interior Minister, Regional President of Italy, and the British parlimentarian again, not to mention detailing action taken BY KOFI ANNAN HIMSELF to change the report before it was issued:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/wm913.cfm

Now, I could keep listing sources clearly stating that bribes took place, but I'm going to assume you're capabile of doing so yourself if you actually take the time to do it and aren't too scared of what you might find.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />UN and many other major powers were on Saddam's payroll

? US right wing nutters have been making all sorts of claims that we Europeans were collectively bought by Saddam Hussein, but I haven't seen any real proof of that. The Food for Oil program was corrupt (to what extent is unclear), yes, and even Kofi Annan's son was involved in one scam operation, but suggesting that Kofi Annan or any European governments were bought by Iraq to oppose the war just shows how biased against UN and Europe you are and how willing you are to uncritically swallow any BS generated by the Republican spin meisters and media. It is 100 % comparable to how left wing nutters claim that the war started because Dick Cheney got paid by Halliburton to be given reconstruction deals. Simple as that. </font>

[yuvuphys]

juan,

Yes, US companies took bribes; but US politicians didn't. Big difference. Now the companies that took bribes are on the wrong end of some criminal investigations (might be in court now?). Time will tell if these investigations get pressed to where they should be, and if those investigations in france do the same.

[Bigduke6]

Getting back to CMSF, how about blowing up things of value? The very simplist version would be a bridge over the Tigris, here comes the Stryker column and BOOM! Rats, shoulda used a HUMV. And tie victory points to it, so many if the bridge is blown, so many if it stays intact.

But that's far from the limit. Let's have pipelines and oil wells. True Syria doesn't have many wells if any at all, but it does have the main pipeline by which Iraqi oil gets to the Med, and if some one thinks that wouldn't be a focus of medium-intensity warfare, check out the last two wars in Iraq. Same deal as before, you have a neutral object whose survival or not influences VPs. And of course if there's oil in a war then THERE'S FIRE, AND EVERY ONE IN A WAR LOVES FIRE, MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Except of course if the soldiers in question are U.S. Marines in Falluja. In that case they hate fire so much, and are so caring of the civilian population and indeed the sensitivities of their insurgent opponents, they use warm fuzzy non-incindiary WP.

[Drusus]

Originally posted by yuvuphys:

Excuse me? The UN program was corrupt to the tune of over 12 billion dollars. Bribes were paid to politicians to the tune of millions of dollars. I'm sure Saddam gave all those people money out of the goodness of his heart, not because he was getting something in return, right? I'm sure Kofi didn't know his son was getting kickbacks, and I'm also sure Kofi didn't interfere with an investigation info oil-for-food, because he has nothing to hide, either him or his son, right?

If you can proof that Kojo was part of the program, I am very interested to hear it. There was a firm which was a part of the food-for-oil program and Kojo happened to work in it. If you find more, please tell me. You can start digging here: BBC news

Also, if you are saying that UN or that any country was bribed to act against the war then feel free to give the facts. Yes, there were inviduals in many countries who took bribes. And some of them were politics. But to say that if you bribe Galloway you have stopped the British from going to war then you are wrong...

Also, somebody would be inclined to say that the US is in a way doing the same: BBC news This is as in: "If you are against the war, your corporations will get good deals from oil-for-food" and "If you are fighting with us, your corporations will get good deals from reconstruction programs".

I could go on but I think I have said too much already. But just one more thing. I think that the war could have been a good thing. But the reasons were wrong. And the plan was wrong (the part after mission accomplished, that is). And I am afraid that there will be fighting and bad things happening in that country for a long time. I mean as in civil war or some kind of not-so-free government. I ofcourse hope I am wrong.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by yuvuphys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />UN and many other major powers were on Saddam's payroll

Excuse me? The UN program was corrupt to the tune of over 12 billion dollars. Bribes were paid to politicians to the tune of millions of dollars.</font>