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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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lchic - 11:52am Mar 22, 2003 EST (# 10323 of 10332)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Headline

http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/default.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=389113 http://www.independent.co.uk/

rshow55 - 12:02pm Mar 22, 2003 EST (# 10324 of 10332)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Night of Punishing Raids Reduced Many Buildings to Rubble By JOHN F. BURNS http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/22/international/worldspecial/22CND-BAGH.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 22 — Senior Iraqi officials struck a posture of defiance today in the face of advancing coalition troops and a night of punishing air attacks on Baghdad that reduced many of Saddam Hussein's most prized palaces and other key government buildings to hollowed-out, smoldering wrecks.

By any measure, the third day of the war appeared to find Mr. Hussein and his ruling elite in Baghdad in the tightest spot since the Iraqi leader took power in 1979. But far from acknowledging that Mr. Hussein's days as an absolute ruler might be numbered, the government went into a mode of flat-out denial.

. . .

". . Mr. Hussein, who is 65 years old, has made no public pronouncement since a brief, faltering television statement three hours after the war started with pre-dawn air attacks on Thursday.

"That appearance hardly bolstered public morale, at least among those Iraqis who look to Mr. Hussein to provide a strong hand as an enfeebled Iraq heads deeper into a conflict with the world's greatest military power. In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Hussein appeared shaken and suddenly aged, perhaps by an American air raid that Washington officials said had hit a house in southern Baghdad where Mr. Hussein had been meeting other top political and military officials. Iraqis were so struck by Mr. Hussein's seemingly disoriented state that they wondered if the man speaking had been a double.

"If both elements claimed by American officials were true — that Mr. Hussein was at the meeting and somehow survived a direct air attack — it would not have been the first time he has been the victim of an assassination attempt, nor by any means the first time he has survived, though the numerous previous attempts have mainly been by Iraqis and not by foreign powers. But what has added mystery to the story since Thursday is that Mr. Hussein, normally inclined to issue long, discursive, grandiose philippics at times of crisis, has simply disappeared. All he has left to Iraq's 24 million people at a time of crisis is Thursday's five-minute, disjointed, hand-lettered denunciation of the "criminal little Bush," and his vow to Iraqis that "these days will add to your glorious history."

"Today, attempts by reporters to gain some elucidation met with a blank wall. At a news conference, an American reporter asked when Mr. Hussein would be making another address on the war to the Iraqi people. "Next!" the information minister, Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf, said sharply, beckoning to another reporter for a new question. Moments later, another reporter tried again. Had the minister seen Mr. Hussein in person at any time in the last few days. "Next! Next!" Mr. Sahhaf replied, still more testily, then demanded: "Pleas ask something reasonable

That's a contrast with a recent article:

From Iraq, the Saddam Hussein show http://www.msnbc.com/news/884593.asp?0sl=-23 Iraqi leader controls prime time with cool, confidence

Picture:

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein speaks to his war cabinet in Baghdad in this image from television. Saddam has lately assumed a prominent role on the Iraqi television news, imparting a cool diligence to the nation of 23 million people.

Lchic's http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.aJhHanKI5xS.784062@.f28e622/11533 has wonderful links

lchic - 12:06pm Mar 22, 2003 EST (# 10325 of 10332)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

GU | Iraq Diaries

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/diary/0,12922,912681,00.html

__________

Liberators or vigilantes?

Labour MPs Clive Soley and Glenda Jackson exchange emails as their leader takes the country to war

Dear Glenda

Dear Clive

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,919605,00.html

(7 following messages)

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