Robert S. Thau wrote:
> Iraq, in particular, isn't currently threatening anybody;
> the weapons surveillance regime would have to go away for quite some
> time for Iraq to be able to pose a threat, and as I've mentioned
> before, no one is talking about removing the inspectors, just about
> easing the sanctions.
Iraq has removed inspectors. Unless that is changed, the facts
on the ground right now are that Iraq is not being properly
inspected for compliance. All the talk isn't changing those facts.
As to their threat analysis, maybe I'm just a little too close
for comfort right now to take that risk.
They still have operational Scuds-
no one knows how many. The are also very likely to have Anthrax and
other nasties.
We were here in Israel
in 1991 during the War. We did the gas masks/sealed room thing.
That was 3 weeks after our wedding (honeymoon with gasmasks :-).
The first night of the war
I saw incoming scuds hitting the heavy industry we have in the
Haifa harbour - maybe 5km from my house. About a week later I had
gone out to make a phone call from a payphone since we didn't
have a phone at home. Until then, all the attacks had been
at about 2AM, so I figured it wasn't a big deal to walk to the
corner (about 700meters) without my mask at 6PM. When I got
there, I heard 'nachash zefa' - that was the military code that
would go on all the radio stations to alert the siren operators
to turn on the air-raid sirens. The 'nachash zefa' code
was coming from a car radio that was parked at the corner.
Suddenly, the place was deserted. Usually there was about 30 seconds
from 'nachash zefa' till the sirens came on, and about 2-3 minutes
after that till the Scuds showed up. Not that night though.
I just ran for home.
I didn't get there before the missiles though - I saw the whole
fireworks show, with the Patriots coming up from the beach in
the west and smacking the Scuds from the east right over
my head, out in the open - it was like having 50-yard line seats.
Beats any 4th of July you've ever seen.
Frankly, I don't want
to see anything like that again. From my perspective, this
is personal; Saddam tried to get me once, I'm not in favour
of anything that gives him a second chance. Mind you, he's
not the only one I'm worried about. We've got a jimdandy
little neighborhood here with Iran, Syria, Lybia; a whole
bunch of fine, upstanding neighbourly citizens :-( Iran
is apparently about to go nuclear - that should be fun.
Ron