French missles in Iraq?

[kev1-1]

[ QUOTE ]
DieselDave said:
As far as Iraqi firms doing the work...Which Iraqi firms? They don't have companies with the expertise or resources to take on the task.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please justify this statement. You either have access to information that I don't...or you are just giving your own opinion? (which I respect /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif, but feel that you should give it with less of a factual air!!)
I was under the impression that before being bombed, Iraq was a highly developed country with a large percentage of well educated (i.e University graduates) people among its populace. It seems to me that all these experienced engineers, oil workers, computer specialists, designers and the like are probably still around and willing to work. With just a fraction of the $87 billion, they could easily buy in the raw materials needed to rebuild hospitals, bridges, power supplies etc Equally, due to cheaper labor costs...plus the incentive of working on your own country...i bet the work could be done at a much cheaper cost than U.S companies could do the same job for.

 

[DieselDave]

Ikendu,
There is a security brief every single day of the year. I bet every single one mentions threats. To use 20/20 hindsight to argue the President ignored "that" briefing is IMO kinda silly. You could argue a vague warning was made and ignored in just about every bad event that occurs. How about this one, I bet President Bush was briefed that the Palestinians would target Israelis with another homicide bomb. It happened again a couple of days ago so did he ignore that briefing as well? Do you think Clinton was briefed terrorist would go after military targets like ships? The Cole bombing, which brief did he ignore? If you ever saw the amount of intel warnings that come in every single day you might have a different opinion. I use to see a small portion and the amount of trees we kill every day printing out intel is staggering.

kev1-1, Yes it is my opinion, not indisputable fact.

Iraq certainly has bright engineers and others that could do the work but this isn't a Habitant for Humanity house they are building. This project is huge, beyond huge and it takes organization and structure to get it done. Iraq does not have either of those at this time. They have countless individuals with useful expertise. Like I said before, I believe thousands of Iraqi's will be hired, including engineers to work on the rebuilding effort.

The idea of handing over billions of dollars to a well intentioned but disorganized group that wants to form a company makes about as much sense as giving everyone that's homeless $250,000 to get off the street, it wouldn't work.

It is only my opinion and I may me wrong but I've not heard of any existing company or companies in Iraq that have the ability to do the job? Please fill me in if you know otherwise. I feel confident the left would be singing their praises if they existed.

To get back on topic...
The French involvement with Iraq even if these missiles are pre-ban is abundantly clear. I fully understand why they wouldn't want to go after Iraq but in fact help their trading partner.

 

[ikendu]

DieselDave said: ...a security brief every single day

Well, Dave, you could be right.

It's possible that President Bush has conducted himself in the best possible manner that any president could.

Meanwhile...I'll just keep workin' on the freedom fuel thing. At least that is something I can do and be sure of.

 

[BentHeadTX]

I was in Korea on 9/11,
It was 4 PM Korea time (Sept 11th 1AM EST) the base I was on had a briefing. Basically, the force protection moved up a notch due to the strong possibility that a terrorist attack would happen overseas directed at American interests. Later that night the world changed forever.
I find it interesting that the news said we had no warning? Errrr, OK... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon6.gif

 

[Rotten Ron]

Vice president Cheny said on meet the press earlier this year that haliburton and a french based company were the only ones who could handle the job in iraq. Im sure no one thinks the french company should get the contract. There was a show(20/20 or 60mins dont remember)a month or so ago and a guy said his(American based) company was big enough to handle the job, but you could tell the story was another Bush bashing program.

 

[tsg68]

Judging from the correspondence of American troops who are involved in the efforts to get power, water and fuel resources back up and running ( and to certain regions for the first time ever!) after the war. Iraq has a severe shortage of skilled personnel in these fields, and those who possessed such knowledge and skills were usually firmly entrenched in the former regieme as Saddam utilized utilities as a means of population control, If a region or town had an uprising or got out of hand, they would cut the power or water or suspend fuel shipments until control was re-established. I have read letters detailing that many power plants and water and waste processing plants were severely obsolete with few skilled maintaince personnel and very little in the way of parts, or treatment chemicals etc.

TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[ikendu]

So...should we make the costs of building new facilities and rebuilding neglected facilities a loan or a gift from American taxpayers (est. at $15 billion)?

 

[DieselDave]

[ QUOTE ]
ikendu said:
So...should we make the costs of building new facilities and rebuilding neglected facilities a loan or a gift from American taxpayers (est. at $15 billion)?

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I think the $15 billion should be a thank you gift for the $150 billion worth of oil I want them to give us for repayment. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[ewick]

Dave,

Now, that's just not fair. Let's make it simple, and just lump it together with the other billions of aid dollars we'll never collect.

 

[James S]

It is indeed a shame that the various organizations that could have put 2 and 2 together weren't able to do so. I have no personal experience being president, but I imagine that he doesn't read every brief and piece of intel out there, but rather the executive summaries of such.

The $15 billion is why we're not making an empire. A flourishing Iraq with a secular democratic government will have a lot of benefits to everyone. And they will be our friends, we'll recoup the investment. It's still going to be 18 months or longer before any oil starts flowing out of there, but you can guess who'll get the first barrel at discount rates /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

As far as France, I'm not at all ungrateful for the help they gave during the revolution. But anybody who thinks they did it out of the goodness of their hearts or for any other reason but to help to hurt the British is being a bit over charitable. There is a really nice little article HERE that sums up some of that info as well as a long laundry list of other military and almost military problems we've had with France over the years. They are not and have never been a great friend of the US. We generally get along as long as our goals are similar, but that is not the case in this most current conflict.

 

[ikendu]

James S said: As far as France, I'm not at all ungrateful for the help they gave during the revolution. But anybody who thinks they did it out of the goodness of their hearts or for any other reason but to help to hurt the British is being a bit over charitable.

Do you know anyone that thinks they "did it out of the goodness of their hearts"?

Are you thinking the U.S. invaded and conquered Iraq "out of the goodness of our hearts"? ...if you are, there are plently more such places for us to invade. We might as well start checking them off a very long list.

 

[James S]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you know anyone that thinks they "did it out of the goodness of their hearts"?

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Sure, several folks posting around here and elsewhere seem to think it's a perfectly valid assumption.

[ QUOTE ]
Are you thinking the U.S. invaded and conquered Iraq "out of the goodness of our hearts"? ...if you are, there are plently more such places for us to invade. We might as well start checking them off a very long list.

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heh, no, I think it's self interest. Those that think they have a handle on why we're doing it might consider it enlightened self interest, but still. As far as the list, depending on how you present that list it's an argument for or against going to war. It's either obvious that it's all about oil or we wouldn't have picked Iraq from that long list, or it's all about empire building as we knock them off the list one by one. I think our goals are more complex than that, but I can't say it's a bad thing if some of the other folks on that list might be wondering if they might be next.

 

[pedalinbob]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10165

just a little info. interpret it any way you like.

no comment from me.

Bob