In <199609220708.AAA20288@dfw-ix2.ix.netcom.com>, on 09/22/96 at 12:09 AM, Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> said:
If it could the US would have assasinated Saddam by now. It can't because it is too difficult to find out where exactly a person will be.
It's perfectly doable, it's just not politically expedient. One reason is that if they kill Saddam, they no longer have an excuse to keep threatening and attacking Iraq and making themselves look good. Another is that National Leaders have a tacit understanding between themselves never to assassinate other politicians [well, hardly ever....] If you break the taboo, you're implicitly inviting everyone else to go gunning for you, and it's too easy to do if there are enough people who really want you dead, especially well-organized people like a foreign army or spy service.
If the US _had_ really wanted to assassinate Saddam, they could have hired professionals to do the job (like Mossad.) Instead they killed 200,000 other Iraqis, including civilians, draftees, and a few tens of thousands of real soldiers.
You need to take into account the politics of the region. With Saddam gone you have created a power vaccume that Iran would be all to happy to fill. It was for this reason that durring the Gulf War the US & its allias (European & Arab) did not go to Bagdad. They mearly wanted to knock Saddam down a notch or two not take him out. I will agree with you about the taboo on political assassinations. Even the Mossad are not involved in assassination of government leaders (they keep such actions to rather nasty terrorist). The assassinations of government leaders that have taken place in the region have all been from citizens of their own country. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting WebExplorer & Java Enhanced!!! Merlin Beta Test Site - WarpServer SMP Test Site Author of PGPMR2 - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice Look for MR/2 Tips & Rexx Scripts Get Work Place Shell for Windows!! PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. Finger whgiii@amaranth.com for PGP Key and other info -----------------------------------------------------------