I’m surprised nobody has started a thread on this already…
Given that we haven’t found any WMDs in Iraq, American troops are getting killed in growing numbers, and the whole place is turning into a breeding ground for new terrorists, did the Bush Administration err in not following these venues for peace? Or did Bush press forward anyway, because he refused to diverge from the Cheney Plan’s need to secure Iraqi oil fields for the US? :smack:
I don’t see how this changes anything. The UN inspectors (which included US participants) were inspecting their little hearts away when Bush decided to go to war. The administrations case, whether you agree with it or not, was that SH was using the inspections as a ruse, and that he was too evil to trust anymore. Regime change was the word of the day, and this offer didn’t satisfy that.
Actually, all this does is give evidence (per your quote) that the US **isn’t]/b] in it just for the oil.
Not to belabor the obvious, but you have a single source here of unknown reliability telling us that Saddam was suddenly willing to comply with everything that was required of him after doing nothing but resisting for the months and years leading up to the invasion.
I think you’re going to need a bit more than that. I’m not saying it’s true or false, but as it stands it seems a bit self-serving.
I don’t have a cite, just something I remember reading last week in reference to your cite, but it said basically that the Bush administration basically didn’t trust the source…i.e. the business man Hage. Basically there weren’t looking for ‘backchannel’ communications, and that the US government in general frowns on such communications. Appearently this isn’t the case in the ME though, where they appearently love backchannel and secret communications. If I’m remembering correctly what I read, and interperating it correctly (re: the ME attitude on backchannel communications vs the US distrusting such things) then it seems there might have been a disconnect there between SH and the Bush administration.
I’m not saying it would or could have averted war, but its a possibility anyway. I think that if SH had of come forth openly and proposed to fold his hand and quietly go off to exile, that might have averted war. I doubt anything short of that would have by that time. Sorry I don’t have the cite…I’m not sure where I was reading that.
-XT
The UN Inspectors under Blix were already on the ground at that point. In the weeks prior to the attack, Saddam was doing everything asked of him. Bush was going to attack regardless, the whole regime change’ thing was a year old by then. Not clear how this adds anything at all . . . except to give this dude a media profile . . .
No need to qualify that statement with “I think”. That specific offer was made to SH before the war started, and he declined.
In fact, it’s at least as accurate to say “Saddam WANTED war with U.S.”, since he could easily have averted it by getting out of Dodge.
E-yeah. Right. Go from being Big Dick of the Middle East to being another Baby Doc’ed dictator in exile?
I find it far more likely that Saddam simply thought that the US would not risk invading again, particularly since Iraq was, at that point, not harming anyone except Iraqis. Only a crazy man would risk war with the US if they REALLY thought the Marines were coming… particularly considering the pathetic state of Iraq’s armory at the time.
Hell, the only war they HAD any chance of winning is the one they’re fighting right now: a guerrilla war.
If Saddam had known for a fact that we intended to either force him into exile or invade his country and have his ass on a plate, what would he have done? Well, we may never know. But we’d been bitching at him since the Gulf War. Why was he to think the situation was any different now than it had been previously?
Politicians don’t think like the rest of us do, folks. And, as usual, hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
From John Mace
Very true. 
I always feel I’m carrying a 200 lb stone out on thin ice on this board if I don’t have 10 cites to back up everything I say though. 
I do wish I remember the source for what I was reading on the contrast between many of the ME nations trusting and using backchannel communications or secret communications vs the US not trusting such things. It was very interesting and relevant to the OP…if I remember where I was at (I tend to just meander through the web hitting all kinds of sites) I’ll post it to see if it adds anything.
-XT
I think even Aldebaran could’ve gotten by without a cite on that issue!
Wang-ka: I don’t think it is reasonable to assume that Saddam thought the US wouldn’t invade. But that’s impossible to prove either way, so perhaps there’s no point in arguing over it.
Is there anyone here dumb enough to really believe that Fearless Misleader was not determined to go to war? Anybody?
Perhaps a little trip down memory hole lane….
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/dont_quote_me/multi-page/documents/02781709.htm
“…was in Time. Michael Elliott and James Carney reported that in March 2002, our only president stuck his head into a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and three US senators and proclaimed: " Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out. " Has there ever been surer evidence that Bush’s six-month dalliance with the UN was just for show?…”
Anyone remember any denials of this story? Or was Mr. Rove quite content to have this anecdote underline the hairy chested masculinity of Our Leader?
Anyone remember how he jutted out his widdle chin defiantly, and insisted that he was going to get a second vote at the UN, no matter what? Gonna “see everybody’s cards”? Kinda went “poof”, didn’t it, when Colin Powell did the head count.
Remember how GeeDubya kept claiming that he “hadn’t made up his mind” about war with Iraq? Anybody here dumb enough to buy that? ‘Cause I got this contact in Nigeria, needs some help with a minor financial problem…. Remember how the very day of the ultimatum, Saddam was publicly dismantling missiles that were in technical violation of the arms agreement? What’s that word? Oh, yes. “Compliance”
Now, perhaps I’m merely another fuzzy-thinking Libruhl, but I got this notion of “common decency”. It demands that if there is a possibility to avoid war, any and all steps must be taken. If this offer was bogus, it would only be a matter of a few hours to ascertain that. How, exactly, was this not feasible? Why, exactly, was this possibility not pursued?
As long as we’re on the subject of mendacity, as we seem to be pretty much constantly, there is this droll little nugget from the lips of Mr. Richard “Big Dick” Cheney
“In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established relationship with al Qaeda – and his regime is no more.” (italics added)
(from Talking Points Memo, blog of Mr. Josh Marshall)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Anyone got a clue as to how one “cultivates” WMD’s?
“Yessiree, Bob. Got me a good crop of VX nerve agents coming up in the south 40!”
In that regard you might be interested in this piece by Michael Heseltine, former conservative defence minister of the UK. He was briefed in November 2002 along with other members of the British establishment that the decision to invade had already been taken by the Bush administration and that it didnt matter what happened in the UN or what inspectors said. The UN farce was just propaganda to try and give the illusion that the US was after a peaceful solution.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/hutton/story/0,13822,1033162,00.html
i heard on tv some time back that every drop of oil that comes out of iraq for the next 15 or twenty years,is already spoken for,that is,it is owed(i guess to western banks) for debts run up by saddam before he became a despicable dictator and threat to the world,(ie,when he was buying from us,and/or at war with iran) would i be wrong to wonder that saddams non payment of said debts,and the effect on the world banking system,rather than any wmd, was the prime mover in dubyas decision?
also,we are now being fed the line that the principle aim of the war was to save the poor iraqi people from saddam,not wmd.
but as i recall,if saddam had agreed to let the inspectors carry out their duties,we (bush/blair)would have been happy to leave the poor iraqis to continue to suffer saddams rule.
saddam knows that oil is the reason the usa is in iraq,and although killing us/uk soldiers is good (for saddam) on tv,he knows that the real pain is caused by continuous sabotage of the 500 miles of oil pipeline which stops dubya getting his hands on the gold. i dont have any knowledge of the state of world banking etc,but could any of what i`ve written stand up in court if the evidence could be found?
Has anyone posted here yet to make you think they believe otherwise? I think you’re preaching to the choir hear, 'Luce-baby. Perhaps you realize that, and I read your post incorrectly…
Well, John-boy, the question may indeed be rhetorical. On the other hand, some extraordinary propositions have been floated on these boards. Of course, thats what he said on more than one occassion, that he was undecided, still mullling it over.
No, you’ve convinced me. He was full of it. I stand corrected.
Man, you make it difficult even when someone agrees with you. Sorry. I won’t let it happen again!
John Mace could well be right… but I’m considering the fact that in most international scuffles that the US has participated in since the Gulf War, we have not landed troops. We have, when we chose to become militarily involved, simply sat back and hammered the opponent with missiles and airpower.
I find it quite plausible that Saddam thought: “They won’t invade. Either they’re bluffing, or, at worst, they’ll launch missiles at me. I’ll hide in my bunker and scream bloody murder until the other Arab countries put the screws to the US and it all blows over.”
I mean, hell, we didn’t march into Baghdad the FIRST time we had him at our mercy. What was there to prove to him that we’d do it THIS time?
I could, of course, be wrong. But there does exist the idea that Americans will flee screaming if you hit them hard enough, and their own security isn’t involved. It worked in Somalia.
Might STILL work, depending on who gets elected and what he decides to do about the current quagmire…
I think the fact that we were massing 200k troops on his border probably would have led him to believe that we would invade.
An article in Time back before the war started proposed the hypothesis that Saddam was anticipating the war, was anticipating getting his ass handed to him, was anticipating troops, etc. However, the article suggested that Saddam’s strategy was to hope that the pressure from the UN or the rest of the world (most notably Europe) would be enough to cause the US to pull out. His strategy was to DELAY the inevitable.
Unfortunately, the only way that strategy coulda worked would have been if he could have stretched out the open war to months or even years, instead of the fifteen seconds or so it really took (I forget exactly how long… the whole war flashed by so quickly I never really got a good look at it!). Now, it CAN be argued that the current situation - mild guerrilla warfare against US troops - was what Saddam was REALLY hoping for, but that’s getting too Tom Clancy for my tastes.
Sorry, John. Please feel free to agree with me whensoever you please.
That was Hussein’s thinking in 1990/91 after he invaded Kuwait and had a half-million US and Coalition troops massed in Saudi Arabia and a deadline approaching. He hasn’t exactly been the sharpest tool in the shed politically or militarily speaking. He thought he could easily knock over the nascent Iranian government in 1980 as well.