At this point, why WOULDN'T Saddam get while the getting is good?

Great Debates
1

I’m a little confounded by this; clearly after the result of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein cannot possibly think he will survive another war versus the United States.

Some say he is crazy; I disagree with this. Saddam is a sociopath, not a delusional psychotic.

Perhaps he envisions himself an Islamic martyr, ready to sit in Paradise with Allah? Maybe but Hussein has been more a secular than a fundamentalist leader. He also has a tremendous track record for self-preservation. I’d buy this from Bin-Laden, not Saddam.

The other two scenarios are a bit more firghtening: Saddam is hoping this attack will launch a World War versus the United States, with countries such as Russia and China will step in to save his ass, combined with terror attacks that he thinks will bring Bush to his knees.

Or . . . he has the Bomb, which all intelligence data seems to indicate he does not. And even if he used it, the retaliation would be even more devastating than if he stayed conventional anyway.

My best theory: he figures if he leaves Iraq, he will most likely be assassinated or arrested; if he is going to die, may as well be at home.

Yet, I’m shocked by this somewhat stubborn attitude.
Any other ideas?

2

There is also the possibility that he has a secret escape route. If we go in and he has disappeared then he will become as mysterious as OBL.

[ul]:wink: [sup]They can get together with Elvis and start a Vegas act.[/sup][/ul]

3

He can escape only if he has somewhere to escape to. I saw today that Bahrain has offered to give him asylum, but the problem (if you are Saddam) is that he cannot trust that any nation will actually protect him. Better to go down fighting in Iraq than trust your life to strangers, in other words.

4

Or… he realizes that the demands for his exit from Iraq are unjust, and is responding to them in the same way that Bush or Blair would respond to a similar ultimatum from any foreign government.

The ‘offer’ for Sadam (or Hussein, if you prefer) to leave Iraq or face invasion was extended with the express knowledge that it would be shunned. It was simply one more attempt for the US and UK to lend some degree of legitimacy to their war-mongering. Extending the ultimatum all but ensured Hussein’s continued presence in Iraq.

Yes, he is a sociopath, yes the massed ‘allied’ forces will destroy the Iraqi forces and people and infrastructure and the environment and allied soldiers and whatever make-shift stability there is in the area. But Saddam is doing what any leader would do (dictator or otherwise). He is standing by his cause in the face of insurmountable odds. And by doing so he only strengthens his position with sympathizers, and makes the US/UK et al. look more like bullies.

He may well flee once things fall apart around him, but by then the human toll in Iraq will be a far greater issue than him or his regime. And this too would only strenghthen the resolve of his sympathizers. “Driven from his own country as his people die.” Maybe not the best exit he could make, but still egg in the face of the western forces. Not that we need any more bad PR.

5

A recent Newsweek article postulates that Saddam is hoping not to defeat the US forces, but to delay them until pressure from the rest of the world forces the US to pull out. Make the war as costly as possible… including killing his own people and blaming the US for it.

6

You do realize, of course, that Canada is near the top of our hit list? :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

7

Republican Guard looking for a way out. This is good news, if true.

8

Saddam is going to go out shooting. And this should disprove one of the arguments that the anti-war folks have been tossing around - that Saddam can be trusted with weapons of mass destruction because he would never be so stupid as to actually use them against us.

The fact is, Saddam is an arrogant, foolish risk taker. He has risked his life and his regime many times in the past. And each time he survives, he gets bolder and more reckless. I’m sure he’s fooling himself right now, telling himself that somehow he’ll figure a way out of this.

My guess is that his strategy is to dig in, turn Baghdad into a bloodbath, and hope to turn the world and the American public in his favor. That’s a foolish pipedream, but he’s made mistakes of that magnitude before.

9

Well, From what I have heard, and this is strictly IMHO, is that unlike say, bin Laden, Saddam is a bedouin, and in that culture, you don’t run away, you stand and fight.

Although right about now I’d trust that reasoning about as far as Saddam.

10

My 2¢ is that he is stuck. He is hardly loved by his own people, even those close to him. He ruled by terror and intimidation. If he shows a moments weakness, he’s done, even by his own inner circle.

He has two options then: Try to make it as costly as possible and hope US and world opinion forces a stalemate, or try and escape once the war really comes full force. I think the first is probably his “plan A”.

11

Last night on NPR, an Israeli professor of Middle East history proposed an alternate theory: that he might change his apearance somehow and go underground. The guy thought there was no way in Hell he would leave Iraq willingly, but that he might stand and fight, just not in the manner the conventional wisdom has been predicting.

12

He is smart enough to know that he has 3 options.

  1. Kill himself or allow himself to be killed.

  2. Go into exile (probably Syria).

  3. Spend the rest of his life as a US prisoner.

I believe he will ultimatelly choose #2. He’s no martyr. He has a shit load of money in Swiss accounts. He can live a great, luxurious life in Syria.

13

But the argument, which the CIA agrees with, is that Saddam is unlikely to use whatever weapons he has unless he’s cornered.

And what exactly are the risks he’s taken? Saddam seems to enjoy being a dictator much more than he hates America. I think everyone in America wanted us to hunt down Osama bin Laden at all costs. Yet Americans and the world as a whole are much less enthusiastic about going after Saddam.

Think of it in terms of bullying. OBL is the one that snuck up from nowhere and punched us in the face. Saddam is the one saying, “Come on! Hit me! I dare you! I’ll kick your butt!” but at the same time keeping a distance because an actual fight is the last thing he wants.

14

I’m a computer programmer from Texas, and the mere idea of bending my head in submission to anyone is repulsive, so I can understand if Hussein, a dictator with power over millions of people, refuses to bow to pressure.

15

The risk he’s taken is to have his regime toppled through invasion, simply because he wouldn’t give up his weapons of mass destruction. And then even though the rest of the world knew that war was inevitable, he refused offers of exile.

But the big risk he took was to gamble that the U.S. wouldn’t attack him if he kept his WMD. That was incredibly foolish. If he had given up those weapons 12 years ago, the sanctions would have been dropped, and he would have had an extra 380 billion dollars to use to build up his military again.

16

In all likelihood, he’s counting on the war to slow down and get bogged up when the Allied armies approach Baghdad and the other major cities and actually have to start fighting the serious Iraqi military. A fight with legitimate Republican Guard units in an urban setting - and Baghdad is a very big city - is potentially a month-long bloodbath. And he figures he can get a negotiated settlement if things start to turn sour for the US, or he can find time to flee to Syria.

17

I’m an anti-war folk, and I don’t see how that follows.

Here’s my take on it. In Gulf War I, the stated objective of the coalition was to extricate Saddam from Kuwait. Never was it said that we wanted to kill him.

In that first Gulf war, Saddam made a bad decision (invading Kuwait), but not a fatal one. If, when his forces were being routed, Saddam had decided to launch everything he had – including chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons – the coalition would have made a MAJOR CHANGE in its stated mission. Had Saddam raised the bar to the level of using WMDs, the coalition would have wiped Iraq off the face of the earth – and we would have been justified in doing so.

But he didn’t, and we didn’t.

But why exactly didn’t Saddam take Gulf War I to that level? Because the stated goal of the coalition was “get Saddam out of Kuwait” and not “Kill Saddam”.

This time, however, we’ve stated up front that the goal of the U.S. and U.K. is to kill Saddam, and the first strikes at dawn Thursday in Baghdad from the cruise missles and the F-117s showed that we were serious about that goal.

To cut to the chase: In Gulf War I, Saddam had logical, political, military, and personal reasons to show some restraint in his military response. In this latest go 'round, when the objective is to kill Saddam, he has absolutely no reason to show restraint. He will fight like a cornered rat, which is what he is.

I don’t think the U.S., the U.K., and the world has fully grasped the seriousness of what a cornered Saddam might try. I don’t know if I have yet either, but I know that it makes me pretty damn nervous.

18

Janie - you bring up an interesting point. And a point the humanitarian populace at large is engaged with.
*What will Saddam - the cornered Rat - do now? *

He has already launched scuds, he has already gone underground. Yet some of his Republican guardsman are already in communication with the coalition forces trying to get out of fighting.

Saddam’s capabilities quickly diminish if the people willing to fight for him, suddenly change their minds. If I were to wager a guess, I’d say more conventional missiles will be flown, and the coalition forces will soon be overrun with surrendering iraqis.

I just don’t see a ‘Go’in down in the rage of glory’ situatoin with Iraq. I see him dying a meager death.

19

I hope for everyone’s sake, you are right, Phlosphr.

20

What has S.H. ever done to make you think that he would want to “go down with the ship”? He’s in this for himself, and only uses the “Iraqi people” to justify whatever he wants to do.

And what about his sons? Do you think they’re ready to give up the ghost? Sorry, I just don’t see it. He and his sons will get out while the gettin’ is still good. He can’t possibly think he can hide out in Iraq somewhere indefinitely. I’m sure he’s got his Syrian villa well stocked with French wine and plenty of “mistresses”. Just a matter of time before he flies the coop.