Rats -- blew away /etc -- how do I force up2date to rebuild it?

["Daniel B. Thurman" <dant cdkkt com>]

Folks,

As the subject line says - I somehow blew away
Aa-lL* in the /etc directory but recovered everything
I could from the backup tapes but unfortunately the
permissions and/or some files are corrupted or missing
from the latest installs AFTER by last backup -- I lost
the X11 and KDE but was able to recover X11 (somewhat)
and moving onto KDE -- but what I really want is to force
reinstall everything that is needed and is current.

I tried: up2date -f -u and that does not work -- says
everything is "up to date" and does not bother to check.

I tried: up2date -f -i -- same thing.

So -- how do I force up2date to reinstall or recheck
all of the files in /etc or at least reinstall everything
including the updates?

Thanks!
Dan