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>saying anything these days, we truly live in an era of >unprecedented disinformation. Absolutely. About the palaces: first, they looked nice, but it's been reported that there were plastic chandeliers and such. Also, all the rulers have palaces, and I suspect they were used much as other government buildings are -- Bush has the White House and Camp David, which are both residences and official meeting places. Now the US troops have moved into palaces. Other Arab nations have palaces, and yet the people did not suffer as they did in Iraq, under the sanctions. I've heard rumors there are even a few palaces in England. <G> Even if Saddam had a few billion squirreled away, and with all the palaces, that still amounts to a small portion of what many of American hawks and politicians have, and is dwarfed by the value of the defense corporations, or the big media companies. If we look back at the voices on the ground in Iraq, including from internationals, there were real shortages and deaths. The water facilities, as one example, which were destroyed during the Gulf War I had not all been repaired, and supplies for maintenance were denied. When one works out the money available to the people, there wasn't much there to start with -- most wouldn't have survived without the black market. We need only review the CASI files to see that. (And I hope that the website and list will remain in some form even after the organization is disbanded: we need to preserve the history, at least -- and the problems in Iraq are far from over.) Disinformation and distortion is everywhere. Did Saddam suddenly become more monsterous after the sanctions were imposed, and ruin the prosperous caounty that had been there? ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk