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>>>And I wouldn't be surprised if they were moving empty crates, just to fool the spies. I would have done that in their place.
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>>Yeah, I like to fool heavily armed police like that - pretend I've got a gun and I'm about to shoot them. Boy, just to see the looks on their faces right before they open up, and to have the satisfaction of how silly they are going to feel examining my body and find out it wasn't a gun at all <bg>
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>That's foolish. But are you really saying they were moving full crates in the same situation that you describe?
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>Fooling the satellite imagery is quite a different game. And that can be done. Was done a lot, actually.
I was being facetious of course, but I just meant if the purpose was to convince us they had arms they didn't have ( as some have explained Saddam's otherwise inexplicable behavior regarding the inspections ) that would have been crazy enough to be worthy of Saddam.
But of course you are right - moving boxes around to fool satellite imagery is not uncommon - and generally means you are doing something else you don't want the sats to know about. But HUMINT in Iraq was a serious problem. Saddam really did learn a lot from Stalin.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
