] Officials say it's hard to tell how many of these weapons
] are being distributed, but the intelligence reports
] indicate that "some chemical shells" have been provided
] to troops.

Okay, so now, before the shooting starts, can we get any of the U.N. inspectors still in Iraq to go and confirm this? If this news is confirmed, there's a good chance we can trace the weapons back to the hidden cache where they came from, and if we can find that, we may find a whole lot of other stuff as well, and get the abscesses cleaned out.

And, if it *is* confirmed, would it change the mind of any of the doves?

Fox News: Iraq Arming Troops with Chemical Weapons

A fairly detailed description of strategy that will be unleashed in about 3 days.

Okay Saddam, here's the plan...

] The only area where Saddam can rely with confidence on
] the loyalty of his security forces is in the Ba'ath
] party's heartland around Baghdad. In an attempt to
] reassert his authority Saddam last week issued a
] directive ordering Iraqi officials not to give up their
] positions and flee the country.
]
] To set an example, members of Saddam's security forces
] arrested a civil servant in the al-Hurriyya suburb of
] Baghdad on suspicion of preparing to leave the country.
] The unfortunate official was then tied to a pole in the
] street and passers-by were ordered to watch as his tongue
] was cut out and he was left to bleed to death.

Iraqis launch campaign of sabotage and defiance to undermine Saddam

Rattle wrote:
] Does Saddam move first?
]
] I'm going with yes, with a spread of 12 hours.. That is, at
] least 12 hours before whatever deadline is set gets reached..

My guess is no... In fact, I'm surprised that his troops haven't fired on us over the last few months. Over the last decade, there'd been a kind of constant low-grade conflict, as U.S. or British planes would take out targets in the No-Fly Zone, and Iraqis would shoot back, but over the last couple months, things have been surprisingly quiet from the Iraqi side. My guess is that Saddam knew that if his troops *did* fire first, that it would give us the (relatively) moral high ground to move in and say that we were just "advancing in self defense".

The thing that I'm most curious about, is whether there will be some other move by a higher-up in the Iraqi military. After all, if they're genuinely worried about an attack by the U.S., the entire invasion could probably be stopped by one single bullet -- fired at Saddam.

RE: Place your bets..

This is a list maintained by the CASI group: "Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq." It seems to be a well-hyperlinked list of all of the resolutions relating to Iraq up through 12/30/2002, along with links to PDFs of each resolution, and even includes text of rejected drafts of the resolutions. For example, you can see the Russian, French, British, and American drafts of 1441, which were submitted before the finalized text of 1441 was agreed upon in November 2002.

UN Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq

This is a link to the raw text of Resolution 1441.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441

] Intelligence experts attached to the army of occupation
] will find the missing people, places and records. They
] will identify, with dollar figures, just who sold
] contraband to Mr. Hussein and how shipment was
] arranged -- a prospect bound to worry some people
] in Europe and Asia.

France and Russia come immediately to mind...

(note: This is a NY Times link. Registration may be required)

The Man Who Would Be President

] The benchmarks listed below would be criteria for Iraq to
] follow within a week or 10 days if it wanted to avoid war,
] by showing it was fully complying with U.N. disarmament
] obligations.

Summarizing for brevity:

(1) Saddam would have to make a public, broadcasted statement, in Arabic, that Iraq has made a strategic decision not to produce or retain Weapons of Mass Destruction, and he should further publicly encourage all Iraqis to come forward if they have any such info, disregarding any orders that they might have received in the past to hide such information.

(2) At least 30 Iraqi scientists selected by UN Inspectors must be made available for private interviews, with their families, outside of Iraq.

(3) All remaining anthrax or anthrax production capability must be either surrendered, or credible evidence must be provided to account for the whereabouts or destruction of known past stockpiles.

(4) All remaining Al-Samoud missiles must be destroyed.

(5) Credible evidence on the purpose of the unmanned or remote-piloted vehicles must be provided, along with a full accounting of the organizations and technology involved.

(6) (wording still being worked on) Iraq must give up all mobile biological production labs for destruction.

I especially like #1. Clear, unambiguous, and attainable, and it's been one of the clear omissions in the current disarmament issue.

British Draft List of Iraqi Tasks

] Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic - a key leader of
] the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan
] Milosevic in October 2000 - was assassinated Wednesday by
] gunmen who ambushed him outside the government complex,
] police sources said.

Sadness. :(

Serbian Prime Minister Assassinated (washingtonpost.com)

] In any case, we shall continue our work at the
] waitingforthewebcaminiraq so that you could organize the
] projections at the walls and screens of your towns. Also,
] journalist Antonio Baquero is going to try to send us a
] usual everyday photo from a Baghdadi street that we would
] like to film.

Baghdad Webcam update. Evidently technical and licensing problems are preventing the installation of the webcams themselves so far, though there is a journalist who is sending out daily photos which are being posted on this site at http://www.webcaminiraq.org.

There also seems to be information and pics at the following domain:
http://www.waitingforthewebcaminiraq.org

And an explanation of some of the difficulties in obtaining a "webcam license" from the Baghdad authorities, who are evidently indicating some suspicion about the use of the webcam, here:
http://www.webcaminiraq.org/estado_english.htm

The WebCamInIraq site seems to be posted by Spanish journalists, with text in either Spanish or (moderately understandable) English. At least it's a daily pic update though!

Thanks to Mr. Kobeissi of Asharq Al-Awsat for the info and links!

Webcam in Iraq Project