Iraqi Vice President Suggests a Duel

Iraqi Official Suggests a Duel

Thu Oct 3, 9:25 AM ET

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An Iraqi vice president offered a unique solution to the U.S.-Iraq standoff: a duel between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites).

Taha Yassin Ramadan said the duel could be held at a neutral site and with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ( news - web sites) as the referee.

Ramadan, wearing a green uniform and a black beret, made his remarks without giving any outward sign that he was joking although reporters who were present detected a note of irony in his voice.

"A president against a president and vice president against a vice president and a duel takes place, if they are serious, and in this way we are saving the American and the Iraqi people," Ramadan told the Associated Press Television Network.

Iraq has two vice presidents, and Ramadan did not say whether he or Taha Muhie-eldin Marouf would take on Dick Cheney ( news - web sites).

Ramadan also said that his government was not concerned by U.S. lawmakers' support of a congressional resolution that would authorize President Bush ( news - web sites) to use military force against Iraq.

"We pay no attention to this issue," he said, adding that approving such a resolution "makes no difference" to Iraq.

Ramadan criticized U.S. efforts to delay the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq until the Security Council adopts tougher measures that would give the inspectors broad new powers to hunt for weapons of mass destruction and provide them with military backing.

He said such efforts were aimed at "hampering the inspection process."

"They (the Americans) were surprised by the agreement reached by Iraq and the United Nations ( news - web sites). So their reaction was unbalanced," he said, referring to the deal in Vienna on Tuesday between Iraq and chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix.

Under the agreement, Iraq agreed to an unconditional return of the inspectors under the existing U.N. Security Council resolutions and a 1998 agreement that put the so-called presidential sites — including Saddam's palaces — off-limits to surprise visits.

At the United Nations, the United States was pursuing a tough resolution that would end the exemption for those sites, give Iraq 30 days to compile an "accurate, full and complete" inventory of all aspects of its weapons programs — and provide U.N. inspectors military backing to carry out their search.

But the three other veto-wielding members of the Security Council — Russia, China and France — have said they are not ready to authorize force before inspectors have time to test Iraq's willingness to comply.

this is great...best idea yet if you ask me

Jesse Ventura for president!!!!

another ingenius idea

kinda like the one they had durin the gulf war, where if they had captured american soldiers, they would have tied them up to all their major equipment in order to prevent us from firing at critical operation sites

but then again, we havent fought a hand to hand war in fifty years, so that didnt do em much good, kinda like this won't

great idea for them, obviously it wont happen

i think he meant to say, save iraqi lives

im for it.

steel cage match !!

everone in the world shoulg know that Bush is pressing this issue

out of pride and arrogance. This would be the best way to settle it.

but the winner has to 'jail sex' the looser to make it official.

that'll do fine by me.

that or have bush, blair, sharon, cheney and rumsfield

strap on parachutes, give 'em each a gun

and drop them over baghdad.

bush vs. hussein..tough call, i hear bush benches

240, plus he jogs. hussein on the other hand is ruthless,

bigger and uglier than fuck.

as for cheney.....he might as well forfeit his match.

sharon..he's pretty fat and old, but then again he's a

ruthless sonofabitch. blair, he's straight bitch, so he

can sit it out with cheney. i think the only person they have is

rumsfield...skullhead rumsfield..he'd just bust out

some mind boggling rummyspeak and make his opponents

head spin.

how about...

The Bush Twins VS. Saddam's Harem

... in a no-clothes, oil-wrestling, cat-fight !!

best idea ever, id vote to have it, some pay-per-view event forreal

let bush put his money where his mouth is..

perfect

maybe then he might rethink sending the u.s. into a war that is nothing but a personal vendetta anyway