This is the third or fourth time I have heard all this. If they are finally going ahead with it, great, although it is rather late by now and they have lost some credibility; this should have been completed back in november. At least the UN is losing power; it has outlived its time by about half a century.
I fear though, that it'll be like Afganistan. They go in, change the regime, then go out, and everything will turn back the way it was.
uh yeah, that's the whole idea; keep things the way they are except with a new government, since the country is fine otherwise for the most part.
Remember, most civilians WILL fight the US as they see Bush as a greater enemy then Saddam as Saddam has given them food, free education etc.
And I suppose their way of thanking him for this incredible generosity of his is lynching his republican guard officers if they try to go out on the streets alone?
This is just one of the things the US severly underestimates. the Iraqi's aren't exactly fond of the Americans and won't let them occupy their houses/cities without a fight.
A majority of local fighters will probably only stand up in Hussein's hometown, and even there they will hardly put up a fight; groups of mobs cannot really stand up to cruise missiles. Then there is also the fact that if this were all actually true and Iraq really would put up a hard fight, warning the US would be the very last thing that the rest of the world would do. Everyone knows that this will be likely be a cakewalk but they don't want American influence to spread even more than it already has, so they are coming up with some reasons to preserve their own interests.
More of an issue is holding Iraq together after a new government has been set up, since the ethnic conflicts have been going on for some time there. Up to now any rebellions have been quickly beaten down by the military police, but some of the groups will likely see this as their chance to secede and form independent nations. Still, that's not so much of a problem because as long as the others are are fighting amongst themselves, they cannot unite against you.
I'm personally in the mind that this is going to go 
like DS did. Yea they'll be a few new tricks by Saddam...but we've got quite a few new tricks ourselves.
I read somewhere that in terms of raw numbers his forces are just under half of what he had back then.
Well just annouced, they've said if Saddam and his crew step down and willingly except Exile we won't be attacking.
I don't know who is making a more stupid decision here; the US for offering such a choice, or Hussein for not accepting it.
He can control the nation just as easily from outside it as he is now by simply buying out whoever the US puts in power, so unless the US has reason to believe that he will do otherwise and is only giving the option for diplomatic reasons, this is definitely a bad idea.
for the one last time: NATO ISN´'T America
I'm not even going to bother with him on any political issue...
I want to know when/if we find huge stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and when/if we find hard evedence of a link between Sadam and Al queda (or some other equivelent faction(s))
will you say you were wrong?
if we don't I will say I was.
I'm not sure we will find either one (first one has some possibility, but second one is very unlikely), but it doesn't really matter; there are other reasons to go with the war option.
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