God forbid that the US is faced with a halfway even fight. This schoolyard bully attitude from the US is pathetic.
"The State Department said it had raised the issue with senior levels of the Russian government a number of times, particularly over the past two weeks because the equipment could pose a direct threat to coalition forces. "
ANother evidence of noncompliance with UN sanctions...pathetic Iraqis.
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*Originally posted by Chaltahai: *
ANother evidence of noncompliance with UN sanctions...pathetic Iraqis.
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Good for the Russians. Screw the US, they were secretly selling arms to the enemy (Iran) while pretending to be "close allies" with Saddam.
Today in a local newspaper a few details of the alleged sales were printed . It was told that the sales constituted of high-quality jammers which could help in jamming the GPS-guided US Precision Guided Bombs . While it is not clear if the sales indeed occured, but these allegations could possibly used later on to explain the "imprecise" targeting of "Smart" weapons .
Our funding of the mujahideen in Afghanistan back in the 80s kept Russia locked in a costly war that drained their funds and led to their collapse.. maybe they are up for payback??
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Chaltahai: *
ANother evidence of noncompliance with UN sanctions...pathetic Iraqis.
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Ya.. you just want them to sit emplty-handed when the enemy comes and smokes them out alive.
Iraq was co-operating, destroyed 65 of its Al-Samoud missiles which had a range beyond UN limit. When Iraq knew that was gonna happen, thats when they started importing these arms.
**US and Russia in weapons clash **
The divide between Moscow and Washington on the war in Iraq grew even wider yesterday when George Bush telephoned Vladimir Putin over US claims that Russian firms were illegally selling military equipment to Baghdad. But officials in Moscow fiercely rebutted the accusations. Mr Bush demanded that Moscow halt the supply of global positioning system jammers, night-vision goggles and anti-tank guided missiles - sales which would have contravened the sanctions on Iraq and which, the president told his Russian counterpart, could endanger US troops at war.
Delivering a protest to Russia at the weekend, Bush administration officials said they had “credible evidence” that Russian firms had delivered military equipment to Iraq. **
“It’s the kind of equipment that will put our young men and women in harm’s way,” the secretary of state, Colin Powell, told Fox News Channel yesterday. **
Mr Putin “assured President Bush that he would look into it”, Ari Fleischer, the White House press spokesman, said.
But Mr Ivanov, in remarks reported on Russian television, denied the charges.** “The US side has asked us several times about possible supplies of banned equipment to Iraq,” he said. “Our experts have checked these meticulously and the last answer was made on March 18. No facts proving US concerns have been found. If any proof is found of the breaking of sanctions in relation to Iraq then it will be looked at as a serious violation of the law,” Mr Ivanov added. **
The Washington Post said two Russian companies, Aviakonversiya and KBP Tula, were among a number of firms that had sent equipment to Iraq. KBP Tula is alleged to have supplied anti-tank guided missiles, with Aviakonversiya providing jamming devices that can confuse global positioning system guidance gear.
Washington had claimed that despite a year of discussions, Russian officials had done nothing to stop the sales. “This is a disregard for human life. It sickens my stomach,” one US official told the Post.
Russian defence contractors said that the US was looking for excuses to cover up its poor performances in the war.
“The Americans just need to find a scapegoat to explain their failures in Iraq. I want to say that their statement is unfounded,” Oleg Antonov, the director of Aviakonversiya, told the gazeta.ru website.
Washington claimed specialists from Aviakonversiya were in Iraq advising the military on how to use the equipment.
“Their agents can’t find any chemical weapons and suddenly they announce that they saw our specialists in Iraq. I don’t know who they found this time. Our representatives don’t work there,” Mr Antonov said.
“We have never delivered anything to Iraq,” said Alexei Butenko, of KBP Tula.
Good to see your compliance with UN Security council before embarking on the invasion of Iraq :french: 
Chaltahai, please continue with your anti-muslim rhetoric
methinks Russia is actively supporting the Iraqis.
War in Iraq doomed to fail — Russian FM
MOSCOW (AFP) — **Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned Wednesday that the US-led war in Iraq was doomed to fail ** as Moscow stepped up criticism of the week-old conflict while insisting that its ties with Washington were not in jeopardy.
Attempts by the United States and its coalition allies to overthrow the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were “illegal and doomed to failure,” Ivanov told the upper house of parliament.
“This is not about democratising Iraq, since it’s about the total destruction of the country,” he said.
Ivanov’s harsh criticism of the US-led war came amid mounting tension between the two countries, with Russia issuing repeated denials to US accusations that it had failed to crack down on Russian firms that allegedly sold arms and weapons systems to Iraq.
But the foreign minister insisted that Russia’s opposition to the war did not mark a shift in its close ties with the United States. “We are not against America — we are against America that launched the war in Iraq,” Ivanov said. At the same time he admitted that the Russian parliament had put off ratification of a key nuclear disarmament treaty with the United States because of differences over the war.
“We need to ratify the treaty, but right now is not the best moment,” Ivanov said. While the treaty is “in Russia’s interests,” parliament should put off debate on ratification as long as the United States continues its war in Iraq without UN approval, he said.
The treaty, which calls on both countries to reduce their nuclear warheads by two-thirds and was long sought by Russia in a bid to cut costs on maintaining its Soviet-era stockpile, was ratified by the US Senate earlier this month.
Russia was expected to soon follow, but Russian lawmakers decided to delay ratification until at least April to protest the US offensive.
A high-ranking US diplomat in Moscow, noting the treaty delay, said Washington was concerned that “substantial disagreement” over Iraq would spill over into other areas of cooperation. Observers here have warned of a return to cold war animosity, with increasing tension over a host of issues from the alleged arms sales to Iraq to Moscow’s protests over US spy flights over Georgia that nearly crossed into Russian territory.
The US diplomat said that the United States had noted Russia’s tough line and was seeking merely to “contain” what has become an increasingly heated disagreement and publicly fragile relationship.
Ivanov insisted Wednesday that Russia would seek to bring the Iraqi issue back to the UN Security Council, where efforts by Russia, France and Germany to avoid the US-led war failed earlier this month.
“During an upcoming UN Security Council meeting, Russia will submit the question of putting an end to military action and bringing the process back to a legal basis,” he said.
“Russia asked the United States several times to provide explanations for the legal basis of this operation, but received no reply,” Ivanov added. Russia has said it plans to ask the UN to rule on the legality of the war.
“The United States and Great Britain do not even know themselves what principles are at stake here. First they talked about disarming Iraq, then regime change and now they are talking about democratising the country,” he said.
“It has become more and more clear how far from reality their attempts are to present the military action against Iraq as a triumphant march to liberate the Iraqi people with minimal victims and damage,” Ivanov said.
With mounting casualties and several troops taken prisoner by Iraqi soldiers, the US-led coalition has encountered unexpected resistance in its push from southern Iraq towards Baghdad.
Ivanov warned the United States that the price of waging a “unilateral” war without UN approval was “very high.”
“Iraq presented no threat,” Ivanov said, adding that “the conflict in Iraq risks destabilising the situation in the Middle East and radicalising Islamist movements.”
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*Originally posted by Chaltahai: *
ANother evidence of noncompliance with UN sanctions...pathetic Iraqis.
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Pathetic Iraqis? WHY? are they the ones who crossed the ocean to come into people's lands to start trouble?
The Iraqis are anything BUT pathetic, they are standing by their government and people and fighting for their land, they should do anything it takes, even if it means strapping a bomb to their bodies.
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*Originally posted by Majestic: *
The Iraqis are anything BUT pathetic, they are standing by their government and people and fighting for their land, they should do anything it takes, even if it means strapping a bomb to their bodies.
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Standing by their government because they fear them. Is it brave to fight and hide in schools and in hospitals, is it brave to use women and children and shields? Truly pathetic.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Proudpaki007: *
Ya.. you just want them to sit emplty-handed when the enemy comes and smokes them out alive.
Iraq was co-operating, destroyed 65 of its Al-Samoud missiles which had a range beyond UN limit. When Iraq knew that was gonna happen, thats when they started importing these arms.
[/QUOTE]
Does mean they were illegally in defiance of the U.N.
As one would argue the U.S. conducting the war is illegal.
Both Iraq and U.S. and Co. are responsible for this war.
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*Originally posted by underthedome: *
Standing by their government because they fear them. Is it brave to fight and hide in schools and in hospitals, is it brave to use women and children and shields? Truly pathetic.
[/QUOTE]
You can do better then that, did you see the news report from one of the southern city where relief trucks were looted. May be you need video and pictures to get the message as what are these civilans saying....
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*Originally posted by AvgAmericanGirl: *
Does mean they were not abiding by the U.N. resolutions though.
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no they did abide by the UN resolution. its the bully USA who did not listen to anyone, NOT even UN. i believe that USA used UN and inspectors as a mean to destroy iraqi arms and arsonel. they were never interested in the process of disarmaments. they were just using inspectors to destroy the weapons before they invade iraq. this way they won't have to put up with much resistance as iraqis won't have many weapons left to fight or hit-back.
They were cooperating. But evidently they did have weapons that were sanctioned thus destroyed. And possibly have Russian weapons that were under sanction.
Not that I think the war is right EntityParadigm, but I think both parties are equally responisble.
Hey maybe its Russia’s fault…a good conspiracy theory may come of it. 
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by AvgAmericanGirl: *
They were cooperating. But evidently they did have weapons that were sanctioned thus destroyed.
Not that I think the war is right EntityParadigm, but I think both parties are equally responisble.
[/QUOTE]
yes both parties are responsible but NOT equally. USA is more responsible.
tell me one thing. after gulf war 1, sanctions were imposed on iraq to topple saddam's regime. to turn people against him. USA was the front-runner in imposing these sanctions. todate, around 1.5 million people have been killed by these sanctions. with this war, one thing is clear, they USA's plan didn't work and saddam's regime managed to crawl through these sanctions. now you tell me who is responsible for the death of these 1.5 million people? saddam / USA? USA went on with the plan to impose sanctions so it should be responsible for the death of these sanctions as its plan failed badly.
now its the same USA which is waging an illegal and unjutified war againt the same regime and same people. what exactly USA is trying to achieve now? we have panama and afghanistan in front of us. if you don't know much about Panama Crisis then i'll suggest you to go do a research and see what USA said there and did.
but again, i'll emphasis on one thing, USA is more responsible for this war than Saddam.
or may be israel. everyone knows how smart they are when it comes to such things. who can forget the attack on USA navy in the early 80s. which at first was attributed to palestinians but investigations turned out that israel’s moosad was behind these attacks just to divert USA’s attention back on the palestinians.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by EntityParadigm: *
or may be israel. everyone knows how smart they are when it comes to such things. who can forget the attack on USA navy in the early 80s. which at first was attributed to palestinians but investigations turned out that israel's moosad was behind these attacks just to divert USA's attention back on the palestinians.
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EntityParadigm,
You are way more knowledgable than I am in this matter, or in the matter of Panama.
No offense intended and I don't really know how to phrase this question the right way so apologize in advance.
Is there independent proof and has Israel and U.S. acknowledged this as fact? I was too busy birthing babies to pay attention :) to world issues in the 80's.
well Panama Crisis was a documentry that was shown on CBC [passionate eye?] here in canada. you can try CBC site and check under documentries.
that event of 80s. i'll try to find you a link for it. though i read about it on this same forum and then there were links and articles regarding that incident and over-up by israel. :-)
here is the link to that panama crisis documentry.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/CineastePanamaDeception.html