RedStorm

Just now reported. Major ground battle has started against Republican Guard near Karbala.

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Yeah, Stormy's probably on to something. - Rivercard

Sense MAKER!!!
Blasphemer!!!
Burn him!!!!

He speaks in tongues of logic and common sense, this troubles us and must be dealt with swiftly. - conraddobler

Young Gun

This is where the major casualties start adding-up. Folks, this is where it really gets ugly, my best wishes & hopes go out to all those soldiers.

Houdini

The part that worries me the most, is will Iraq start using chemical weapons now?

ajcardfan

Unfortunately, if they do, Iraqi civilians will probably get it the worst. As long as our gear functions properly, we should be okay. Besides, I think Husseins plan is to try and win the PR side of it and have major protests force us out. Once he uses chem. weapons, it removes his last hope of surviving.

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We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.

T.H. Huxley

Young Gun

Houdini brings out a strong point. With that being said about chemical weapons, no one knows how high the casualty count may escalate. What I fear the most is I don't know how carried Hussein may go with his chemical weaponry & countless of soldiers & civilians could be threatened.

Russ Smith

I personally think Saddam is already dead. I'm hoping without him in charge chemical weapons won't come into play.

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“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

Ed B

When you corner a wounded animal, it gets mean.

I think everyone is watching very tensely to see if chemical weapons come into play, but personally I don't believe they will. Everyone's making quite a logical leap to assume that they have chemical weapons at all.

For the safety of our troops and the civilians involved, I hope I'm correct.

ajcardfan

His sons are every bit as vicious as he is. Especially that loon who ran the Olympic team. He'd use a nuke if he could.

I'm not getting my hopes us about him being dead. Until they positively ID a corpse, or conclusively get evidence he was in a destroyed bunker, we have to assume he's alive.

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We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.

T.H. Huxley

Young Gun

yeah, it's kind of like when you corner a rat or a badger, they get all the meaner, with even more aggressive attacks trying to thwart any effort of it's attacker. It's very hard to tell what tricks Hussein may have up his sleeve, that is if he's even still alive.

pinnacle

prediction: Saddam will end up like Osama..never found dead or alive and rumors that he is dead..but we will probably never find out for sure. After the takeover of the entire country, new gov't, etc..saddam will probably never be found..if he is dead they will bury his ass 100 ft underground or something so that we will never find him....and he will eventually be killed one way or another - no way will he be taken alive...

cheesebeef

Even though I am dead against this administration's handling of the situation in Iraq - as well as their lambasting of anyon who disagrees with them - I pray for the lives of every American and every Iraqi civilian over there right now - as far as Chemical Weapons - I would be shocked to see them used against us and the reasoning is this: So far, this war, no matter what our propogandist government would like us to believe, has not been going to plan. Within two weeks we are seeing the kind of dissent within our own ranks, which took years to build up in Vietnam - we have underestimated our enemy and we are riling up extremists all over the world. In addition to this, we have spit in the faces of many of our important allies up to this point. Now having done all this and said this - everything would be over in a heartbeat for Saddam and the Iraqi regime were they to use Chemical Weapons - the world would turn against them in a heartbeat and a multilateral attack on Iraq would reduce it's regime to peanuts within days.

Saddam has it just the way he wants it right now (assuming he's alive). While no one is Pro-Saddam, the majority of the world seems to be anti-war - maybe he can hold out - maybe he can turn this into Vietnam where the outcry in the States would be so great that our leaders, eventually would have to pull out - personally I see our leaders sacrifiing other people's children rather than pull out because they would have egg all over their own faces - and that ain't gonna happen -but who knows. But I believe this, Iraq knows the second one drip of chemical weapons are sprayed - they are finished and it will be unmerciful and personally I think Saddam ego is too big to destroy himself like that - he will exhaust every means necessary - be it suicide bombings, human shields and whatever elese he has up his sleeve before basically pulling the plug on himself - just my opinion.

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john h

Every casualty counts but I think as of today we had about 24 combat casualties. During this same 11 days we have had approximately 1446 people killed on the highways. During the battle of the bulge we lost 60,000 men. Our guys and girls are kicking ass regardless of what the media says. If we get inside the city of Bagdad we will lose some people for sure but we will get rid of the SOB and all our guys and girls are volunteers. Probably the best trained and equipped armed force in the history of mankind. Not one plane shot down. Maybe one helicopter but I think most were mechanical failure or pilot error. We lost 6000 helicopters in Vietnam. My squadron lost everyone we had.

Cardinals.Ken

A very well intentioned and thoughtful post!

I disagree on one thing, Saddam WILL use chemical weapons, more than likely as an "11th hour" last ditch effort to preserve his regime. World opinion won't matter one little bit to Saddam once his end is imminent...in my opinion at least...

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AzCards21

And your extensive military training and expertise is what this is based upon? Or is it just what CNN has been telling you. You have no clue as to what equipment or personell we have in there right now. You REALLY have no clue as to what the initial plan was or what adjustments had to be made as things progressed. To think a war will not change direction as it plays out is assinine.

Red Air Force

If he does use them he will have only proved our case, at the expense of thousands of his own people, why he needs to be removed. However, I doubt he really cares, because he would just as soon have your mother raped as shake your hand.

If he doesn't use them, great, hopefully fewer of my friends will die defending the rights of cowards at colleges across the country. War is hell, and men will die, but they will do so trying to extend our love of freedom to an oppresed and brutalized people. And no matter how much our "valued" allies would like to see us fail, and for Iraqi people to remain opressed, we will win.

There is no alterior motive, there is no dark conspiricay...there is only us standing alone in the face of a monster.

But we have grown accustomed to this role, and are through asking permission to do the right thing.

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