in our lifetime we may or may not see who is next in line but you can be sure it will repeat itself over and over again, cuz us humans are idiots... (and we will never get it right) how much sense does it take to realize you don't kill to have peace you simply remove the sick problem not add to it and act just like it (I really don't get this at all, and the ppl all over are so two faced and caught up in this thing all of the sudden here comes the love and flags out again) but forgotten really fast when its all over until the next mess...
Doreen is disgusted today sorry

and one more thing since I'm shooting off my fingers!
have you noticed how we have ppl living on the streets all over w/o food and shelter and ppl that need drug rehab and their goes our wonderful prez "Sorry we have no money in our budget to help you or increase the pay for our teachers" but he pulls out 74 Billion? what was the amount of money he pulled out of his pocket for this war so far? I forgot??? one million a blast or something to that effect hmmmm?

Doreen, your idea sounds like my husband. He was in favor of taking down Saddam and he regime, but as you said through secret forces. I thought like Jafo, how? that does seem suicidal.

Xerraire obviously there are ppl willing to put their lives on the line to take this guy out right? well why not recrut a handful of them and stick them inside for a year or two getting close enough and then get the job done right? oh okay well ppl are dying anyways so what "is" the diff there?
sound too simple or stupid... to me this is stupid we need all these ppl involved to get rid of one guy that they keep saying is the problem???

I'm sure baker is a 'let 'em hang free' kinda guy...

Jafo, it creeps me out that you knew that...

Problem is that political assassination is illegal in the US since... I forget the exact date but I think it's in the 80's somewhere. At least, that what I heard.

paxx: the whole assassination thing was an executive order by President Ford back in the 70's. It doesn't carry the weight of law (i.e. no repercussions if you break it) and any subsequent President can override it with an order of their own.

Anyway, the whole definition of 'assassination' is murky in times of war. A general or any other high-ranking official can be technically 'assassinated', and in military regimes all the government officials are military targets. As Commander-In-Chief, he has the constitutional right to direct attacks on the enemy, and the enemy military Commander-In-Chief is Saddam Hussein.

I think any law restricting assassination would unconstitutional, since it would cripple the President's ability to carry out his constitutional responsibility as Commander-In-Chief. Any enemy could make himself un-targetable just by giving himself a civilian governmental title.

The real intent behind President Ford's executive order was to prevent the nuclear superpowers from assassinating each others' leaders and possibly triggering a nuclear war thereby. Because conventional counterrattack of one superpower against the other was totally unmanageable, that left only lobbing a nuke or doing absolutely nothing in response to an assassination. we had "off the record" agreement from the Soviets on this point, but never from the Red Chinese.

that's allowed under President Ford's executive order.