<HTML>In a message dated 8/29/2003 12:30:13 AM GMT Daylight Time, jbujes@covad.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"> "...as evidence, officials say former Iraqi intelligence operatives have confirmed since the war that Saddam's regime sent "double agents" disguised as defectors to the West to plant fabricated intelligence. In other cases, Baghdad apparently tricked legitimate defectors into funneling phony tips about [supposed] weapons production and storage sites." So, let's see: Saddam sent double agents to plant fabricated info so that the U.S. could invade Iraq... and Saddam was interested in being ousted by the U.S. because... Joanna </BLOCKQUOTE> Who says Saddam has to be interested in being ousted by the US? By some point, Saddam doesn't have to be anything but a cold-eyed realist to realize that nothing he does is going to change the US interest expressed consistently by multiple US administrations in his ouster. (Heck, whatever some of may think of subtle points about a nation's legitimate national interests, even most of lbo-talk thinks Saddam is pretty reprehensible; we just wish he had never been installed in the first place.) Asuming efforts to oust him are inevitable Saddam has every incentive to make the effort as costly as possible. So why not lure the evil single-minded Shrub-ists into a nice gnarly quagmire where he can stress supply lines, take potshots at the troops to his heart's content, and embarrass the hell out of the US on the world stage? Plus, not being a fanatic scholar of counter-intelligence tactics, I am just going to take a wild guess that many intelligence agencies deliberately feed their opponents bad information at times just to see who is talking to whom and where links are. As I recall, Saddam can play spy games with the very best of them! This would be the cue for advocates of justice and human rights to lose a fixation on weapons of mass destruction and focus on broader definitions of democracy and human dignity. So how about a UN force NOT commanded by the US??? And as for the poll mentioned earlier, some of the interpretation is in how you spin  the results: sounds to me like a sizable majority is very skeptical and wants US influence very constrained or elminiated. DoreneC </HTML>