Well then Folkiedave, perhaps you should have a look into exactly what being a "Special Presidential Envoy" involves and means.

By the bye Folkiedave, from Donald Rumsfelds CV:

From 1977 to 1985 Rumsfeld served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Company, a worldwide pharmaceutical company based in Skokie, Illinois.

Now when was that 90 minute meeting with Saddam again, Folkiedave? Somewhere around 19/20th December 1983 - So he was neither in the US Government of the day or a member of Reagan's administration - That's why he was sent to deliver President Reagan's letter to Saddam, because it was completely unofficial, nothing said on either side could be taken as being binding, they were nothing more than intial exploratory talks that led almost a year later to normalisation of diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad.

Here is what Wikipedia had to say about it:

"When he visited on December 19–20 1983, he and Saddam Hussein had a 90-minute discussion that covered Syria's occupation of Lebanon, preventing Syrian and Iranian expansion, preventing arms sales to Iran by foreign countries, increasing Iraqi oil production via a possible new oil pipeline across Jordan. According to declassified U.S. State Department documents Rumsfeld also informed Tariq Aziz (Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister) that: "Our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us ... citing the use of chemical weapons." For the Iraq tour Rumsfeld didn't come empty handed and brought many gifts from the Reagan administration. These gifts included pistols, medieval spiked hammers even a pair of golden cowboy spurs. Until the 1991 Gulf war these were all displayed in Saddam's Victory Museum in Baghdad which held all the gifts bestowed on Saddam by world leaders.

During his brief bid for the 1988 Republican nomination, Rumsfeld stated that restoring full relations with Iraq was one of his best achievements. This was not a particularly controversial position at the time, when the Establishment U.S. policy regime considered ties with Iraq an effective bulwark against Iran."

With regard to your post of 02 Aug 07 - 04:43 AM Folkiedave. Your quoted passage to which you asked the question - "Now how would you describe that?" My answer would be that it is certainly not a description of an "army of contractors waging their own privatised war in Iraq".

As for your parting shot:

"Oh and by the way - Blackwater are being sued by American families of American soldiers they killed . They argue immunity. Not that they didn't do it, just that they can get away with it. Nice......"

Check your facts out Folkie, they are being sued by the relatives of American servicemen who died in a plane crash in Afghanistan - Now that is slightly different to the version that you are broadcasting and what you are attempting to imply - "Blackwater are being sued by American families of American soldiers they killed." Blackwater didn't kill any American soldiers, the truth is that some American servicemen died when an aircraft being operated by Blackwater crashed - Accident Folkiedave, nothing more, nothing less, if you remember there was another in Brazil a few days ago, and guess what Folkiedave? I bet the relatives down there in Brazil also sue the company operating that aircraft - How unusual, how sinister - Airlines killing passengers.