i had mistakenly assumed

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Margot,

watched the Powell presentation.

i had mistakenly assumed that Saddam HAD gotten rid
of the nasty stuff. so the issue turns on how sane/insane
Saddam is. one would think that he would recognize his
personal risk NOT to get rid of it 

Terri Gross asked an expert whether he was insane. the
expert replied that depends on how you define insane

the French say, triple the number of inspectors and
surveille the whole country with realtime airplane 
reconn offering their own fleet of Mirage-4's

they think that Saddam is not so insane that he
WONT submit to inspection and surrendering
the nasty stuff

in other words, France is AGAINST regime change 
preferring to wait for Saddam to die of old age
and hoping that he will surrender the nasty stuff to
preserve his rule

in the earlier UN inspectors period, much nasty
stuff WAS destroyed, so the French hope that this
might happen again.

this position is similar to the gent from the 
Carnegie Institute for Peace thinktank

so in a weird way, Saddam is manipulating the
process. he is SO good as a tyrant (technically
speaking of course) that one can only hold one's
breath for his next move

Mike