France and Russia have been particularly strident in opposing military action against removing Saddam Hussein from power. Europeans insist America is simply after Iraq's oil. But the fact of the matter is that Persian Gulf, and Iraqi, oil is far more important to Europe than to the United States. Moreover, French and Russian oil companies have made deals to develop Iraqi oil fields once the UN embargo is lifted. If Saddam Hussein were removed from power, the new government would not likely respect contracts made by the hated Saddam government. You get the impression that the only ones who want Saddam removed from power are the U.S. and the Iraqi people.

One casualty of Secretary of State Powell's briefing is American electronic intelligence gathering. While the Iraqi's know that the U.S. can pick up a lot of their radio and telephone messages, they never know how much. Nor do the Iraqis know how well the U.S. is at defeating encryption used on some of the more advanced radio equipment. Hearing those messages presented at the UN will give the Iraqis a better idea of American capabilities and show the way towards defeating more of the American eavesdropping activity. As the U.S. learned in 1991, the Iraqis are quite adept at using what little electronic warfare equipment they have to fight back. The Iraqis have also used American electronic warfare weapons against U.S. troops by using clever deceptions. Since 1991, the American armed forces have learned not to underestimate Iraqi specialist troops (like electronic warfare, engineers and air defense.)