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Originally posted by Spankster The palaces and all his flashy cars were in place waaaaaay before the sanctions were implimented in a period when health care was better than whats in ur crappy country......lol! I'm sorry that you were offended.....u come across as a pretty hard person and thought u could handle it......i make no excuses for being a prick.....thats just the way i am and i'm certainly not here to make friends with candy ravers!

Again you are wrong. His palace building and opulence continued until he was ousted. See source below and multiple sources on the web, including photographs showing construction of new palaces being built.

Not offended, I don't get offended too easily from people on the net, I just don't think it's necessary to talk trash on the net. If you label yourself a prick that is up to you, you can't change who you are. I'm not here to make friends either, just a friendly debate, but it doesn't mean you should try to insult people for no reason at all.

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Palaces and Oil Smuggling Summary Since the end of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein has directed and sustained a multi-billion dollar palace construction program while pleading that the UN sanctions keep him too poor to feed and provide health care for his people. While he keeps Iraq's hospital shelves bare and shows them to journalists, Saddam restricts access to the new and ornate palaces to himself and his chosen admirers of any given moment. Moreover, Saddam fits out these monuments with the finest foreign materials - from golden plumbing to the finest European marble and crystal chandeliers - smuggled in despite the embargo that Baghdad propaganda falsely claims blocks the import of food and medicine. Saddam Hussein pays for these palaces with that part of the Iraqi national wealth that he has managed to keep under his control and out of the UN's mandatory oil-for-food program. Through that program, the UN controls how Iraqi oil revenues are spent and compels the regime to invest Iraq's oil wealth for the benefit of its people. But every day that he remains in power, Saddam lets his favored supporters steal hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from the Iraqi people to enrich themselves, in direct violation of UN resolutions. Most Iraqis and the few foreign visitors to Iraq only get to see the outer walls of Saddam's monuments to his glory. This report provides satellite images that allow Iraqis and the rest of the world to see better how Saddam Hussein spends some of the money that he is able to steal from the national wealth of the Iraqi people. Palace Construction Photographic evidence confirms that Saddam Hussein and his regime have sustained a non-stop program of palace building since 1991. Saddam has been spending billions of dollars on the man-made lakes, waterfalls, marble, and other luxuries that make up his palaces and those of his supporters. At the same time, Saddam parades well- intentioned foreigners to gawk at the sick and hungry of Iraq, as he pleads that UN sanctions prevent him from buying or importing his people's most basic needs. Among the more notable features of these palaces are: extensive security facilities to protect the regime from its own people; elaborate gardens which require large amounts of water, often in drought-stricken areas; and sophisticated waterfalls and other waterworks using pumps and other infrastructure that the regime says sanctions prevent it from importing for the Iraqi people. Saddam ruthlessly protects the extent of his luxury. According to Iraqi opposition sources, Saddam recently ordered the execution of one of the Iraqi architects who worked on presidential palaces in Tikrit, Al-Hillah, Al-Azimiyah, and Al-Wafa. His crime was to describe to friends the sumptuousness and lavishness of Saddam's palaces, and the swimming pools, fish aquariums, and deer farms in the vicinity of some of them. A circular was then sent around to workers in the engineering department of the Presidential Office warning them that the harshest punishment will be inflicted on anyone who talks about the presidential sites, even to family members. Our knowledge of the inside of Saddam's palaces comes from first-hand information from international observers who have traveled to Iraq and visited the palaces. Located 150 miles north of Baghdad in Saddam's home region, this site was completed in November 1993. This site, built over 2.2 square kilometers and completed in 1994, contains Saddam Hussein's northernmost presidential site and includes several palaces and VIP residences, three lakes, and man-made waterfalls. Completed in 1995, al Azimiyah is one of five major palaces located in Baghdad. Al Salam palace is located on the site of the former Republican Guard Headquarters, which was destroyed in Desert Storm. Located 90 miles north of Baghdad and covering 4.0 square kilometers, this is the largest and most elaborate of the presidential sites. Construction at the Abu Ghurayb Presidential Palace is also ongoing. As the photos show, it features extensive and complex water works.

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Originally posted by Q5echo if its all the same, i'm not gonna let a book scare me into unilateral pre-emptive war with a country that is in a position that N.Korea is in right now. there are fifty years of cold war safegaurds that not only protect us from nuclear and conventional agression but Japan and the enire region also, that includes China as well. does your book include China's influence and perspective on the subject? multi-national negotiations between all parties in that region must be given a chance until any military option is considered and if that means for the next decade then so be it. i'm not saying that pre-emptive war isn't on the table because i know it is, what i'm saying is that there is something to be gained from all parties involved thru diplomatic means. that, to me, is a reality not a book, when you have intelligent rational leaders from all parties trying to fix the problem. we have ways to deal with rogue nuc warheads on the market. we have ways to deal with ballistic missle threats, land based and submarine based.i trust those safeguards. i have to, we have to.

I hope you're right.

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~ Under the spell of a 303 ~

All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.

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Originally posted by BadBadNeil Again you are wrong. His palace building and opulence continued until he was ousted. See source below and multiple sources on the web, including photographs showing construction of new palaces being built. Not offended, I don't get offended too easily from people on the net, I just don't think it's necessary to talk trash on the net. If you label yourself a prick that is up to you, you can't change who you are. I'm not here to make friends either, just a friendly debate, but it doesn't mean you should try to insult people for no reason at all.

Cutting and pasting articles without a link to use as a reference is pointless. Colin powell also had hard evidence and satellite imagery of saddam constructing factories for chem weapons and such!! LOL!!
And i noticed sources had come from iraqi opposition......WE KNOW HOW ACCURATE THEIR SOURCES ARE COS THAT IS WHAT THE US INTELLIGENCE and ADMINISTRATION BLAMES FOR THEIR POOR MISINFORMATION ON SITES FOR WMD"S AND THEIR PRODUCTION!!!

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Sig is 3.5 times, the limit, sort it out - torontotrance

Here you go, since if I showed an American web site you'd probably bitch and moan again, here is BBC website, in 2002 BEFORE the invasion talking about his palaces being constantly built and upgraded.

http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2288895.stm

Here is illustration showing his main palace compared to the buckingham palace and white house sites. Tell the Iraqi people that is fair, when that is just one palace of hundreds.

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Originally posted by Spankster Cutting and pasting articles without a link to use as a reference is pointless. Colin powell also had hard evidence and satellite imagery of saddam constructing factories for chem weapons and such!! LOL!! And i noticed sources had come from iraqi opposition......WE KNOW HOW ACCURATE THEIR SOURCES ARE COS THAT IS WHAT THE US INTELLIGENCE and ADMINISTRATION BLAMES FOR THEIR POOR MISINFORMATION ON SITES FOR WMD"S AND THEIR PRODUCTION!!!

French intelligence, Russian intelligence, British intelligence, all major intel agencies contributed to all of the WMD related UN resolutions from the beginning of the first Gulf War to the run-up of the second.

thats a fact, anyone who follows this closely knows that to be.

there comes a point in your arguement where you crossover into what is called denial of the reality that was the many multi-national conclusions not only held by this administration but the last as well.

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Originally posted by Q5echo awesome! you are now one step closer to realizing Iraq was a strategic stepping stone towards a world free of Islamic facism

No... he has already STEPPED on your ignorant head and owned you with that quote.

Live with it.

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"This place isn't big enough for me to blow it up."
-MARCO V

when has the President said 9/11 was Saddam's doing? find me a quote or a webpage, anything, anyone on the right. and be honest about it.

noone on the right has. you know why? because "Saddam flew planes into the WTC" is a product of the left. completely.

shouldnt you be busy trying to convince people that mankind should be exterminated for the good of the planet?

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=204147

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Originally posted by Q5echo when has the President said 9/11 was Saddam's doing? find me a quote or a webpage, anything, anyone on the right. and be honest about it. noone on the right has. you know why? because "Saddam flew planes into the WTC" is a product of the left. completely. shouldnt you be busy trying to convince people that mankind should be exterminated for the good of the planet? http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...threadid=204147

What else do you think he means when heproclaims that Al-Qaueda had ties with Saddam? What would be the first thing that comes to mind? The Kenya bombing???

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"This place isn't big enough for me to blow it up."
-MARCO V

no, but i would begin to entertain the possibility that Al Qeada might have ties to Saddam.

thisis what i thought of when you said "Kenya bombing".seriously

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/bombings/bombings.html

Last edited by Q5echo on Aug-30-2004 at 00:13

I always thought Saddam had WMDs at some point, he had them, we know that but what he did with them, who knows. I'm not for or against the war really because I think Saddam was a dictator that was causing havoc to some and based on some generous intelligence, they decided to invade. I just don't think that certain countries should invade like that.