Iraq says they have no WMds. It seems obvious to me for several reasons that they do have them. However, other posters have argued that they don’t or that they might not. So, this thread is a chance to debate this particular point.
Are there any posters who believe that Iraq has no WMDs?
Given Iraq’s response to the finding of those gas shell last week, it seems that Saddam’s claim that he has no WMD translates roughly as: “We have no WMD that are in any shape to use right now.”
Even that seems unlikely, but Saddam has been playing a very good game so far. He may have realized back in 99 that his regime would be better off without such nasty toys. It’d sure throw a wrench in Bush’s plans wouldn’t it ?
Squink raises a question that has been on my mind quite a bit lately. If Goddam Saddam is the cunning villain he is purported to be, and I think he is, why shouldn’t he comply? Why take any risk at all? If he ditches all his WMD’s, and gets a clean bill of health, he can always rebuild them later when everybody goes away. Having gone through this once, he has an excellent position to refuse to do it again, when he likely will really have such weapons.
The case is made that Saddam is an evil, evil, man and I have no argument with that. But it is precisely what an evil and clever man would do, isn’t it? Comply, be seen to comply, and he wins a huge propaganda victory over the Great Satan, his status as leader in the Moselm World wildly enhanced, he shove’s a pineapple up Bush’s Nixon, and all he give up is stuff he can rebuild at any time!
Why the hell not?
If you want to debate the point, why in the world didn’t you list those reasons?
Because those reasons are: A) George W. Bush says so, and B) George W. Bush is right about everything. Or perhaps that’s more appropriate for the Pit. 
Damn straight. Saddam is playing this better than 43’s team, I think - he’s the wounded but proud leader of his people now, humbled by the evil Westerners but still defiant. He’s certainly had practice.
If he had any WMD, why let the inspectors in? Why give the U.S. the slightest excuse? He’s cleaned up - for now. If he has to stay clean to cling to power, he will, but if he gets a chance, he’ll make more.
So. Given they find nothing and Bush’s elusive magical evidence doesn’t convince anybody, what does the U.S. do with a externally toothless but still in power Saddam? Overthrow or contain? Here’s 41’s take as of a few years ago:
http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Mar1999/a19990303bush.html
"Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we’re going to show our macho?" he asked. "We’re going into Baghdad. We’re going to be an occupying power – America in an Arab land – with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous."
How quickly the world changes. As far as I can tell, only the differences today are that Saddam’s military is weaker, there’s no invasion of Kuwait to expel, less of a coalition, and Iraq’s WMDs are dubious instead of confirmed… oh yeah, and everyone’s brains are on terrorism.
Terrorism, and the proliferation of WMD.
Actually, I have strong suspicions that Saddam does have WsMD. And my reasoning derives from a politician’s stance … but it does not depend on his telling the public the truth.
Our senior senator as of next month, John Edwards, is strongly supportive of the intervene-in-Iraq stance of the Bush administration. He is widely considered and reportedly planning to become a candidate for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination. Nothing could be more politically effective for him than to take a stance of support of the U.N. and restraint without unilateral action, in direct contravention to the Bush position.
But he does serve on the Senate committee charged with security, and is very much in favor of Bush’s stance.
Hence it’s my conclusion that there is evidence which for one reason or another cannot be made public but which has been shared with the Senate committee which would convince a reasonable man that Saddam does indeed pose a threat to our national security.
Because there’s no debate. So far, no poster has expressed a belief that Saddam has no WMDs. If there’s anyone to debate with, I will then give my side.
december: So far, no poster has expressed a belief that Saddam has no WMDs. If there’s anyone to debate with, I will then give my side.
Well, I’m happy to express my belief that I don’t know whether or not Iraq has WMDs. Good enough for you?
Do you want to hold down the side of the debate that he has none?
It’s perfectly possible that Saddam has relocated his WMD - goodness knows he’s been able to stall the re-entry of weapons inspectors for long enough - to somewhere outside of Iraq; thus enabling him to get a “clean” report card from the UN while retaining effective control of his arsenal.
december: Do you want to hold down the side of the debate that he has none?
december, you opened a whole new thread in order to remark, “Iraq says they have no WMds. It seems obvious to me for several reasons that they do have them.”
We say, “Okay, what are those reasons?”
You say, “I’m not going to state my reasons unless somebody flatly contradicts me.”
This, IMHO, is pretty close to trolling; it is definitely a violation of “don’t be a jerk”.
Well, now this is pretty silly. You know, many people actually state the reasons that support their hypotheses in the OP, before anyone even has the chance to even mention their belief the opposite view. Pretty wacky, huh?
How tiresome this debate-about-debating is. If your goal was to make people lose interest before you had to make the effort to support your opinion, then I guess you succeeded.
An interesting point. I can only think of two scenarios where it wouldn’t make sense for him to ditch him.
He’s completely nuts.
The WMD in question are irreplaceable. i.e he’s gotten his hands on a Soviet nuke or two.
If it’s something like #2, and we have intelligence about it, then I think Bush is doing exactly the right thing. If it’s not, than I’m not so sure.
Ok december. I believe he has no WMD. Your turn.
My reasons are boring. We all know them. Saddam has demonstrably had chemical and biological weapons in the past. He is known to have been seeking nuclear weapons. He didn’t cooperate with UN inspectors in the past, although non-cooperation had substantial costs. His denial is vitiated by all his past lies. Both US and British intelligence say he has WMDs.
The point it, if we all believe that Saddam has WMDs, then the UN inspections have only two possible outcomes:
– The inspectors will find Saddam’s WMD, or
– Saddam will succeed in hiding his WMDs from the inspectors
Either way, he has violated the UN resolution by falsely denying that he has WMDs, so an attack is appropriate. However, in the second case, the UN will have a more difficult job to justify the attack.
Let me relax the OP’s request a bit:
Suppose the UN inspectors do not find WMDs. Would anyone then actually believe that Saddam didn’t have any?
On preview, I see your post, sailor. My reasons are given in the first paragraph of this post. Over to you.
I’ll kind-of bite.
I believe that Saddam might have some light-weight chemical weapons, maybe some plans for some nukes. Maybe a bit of research going on with biological weapons.
But I don’t believe that Saddam has a working nuclear weapon, nor any chemicle or biological weapons in a state to do any actual mass destructions.
Saddam has nothing to gain by using WMD. He is interested primarily in maintaining his own power. Unlike a religious fundamentalist, Saddam has plenty to lose. Thus we can expect him not to act in ways that would lead to his immediate destructions.
The big scenerio being thrown around is “Saddam nukes New York”. Of course, he has no way of getting a nuke to New York, but we can ignore that for now. Saddam would gain nothing from nuking New York. He is in no position to maintain a military occupation of America. He is not in position to replace America’s government with one more friendly to his purposes. All he would acheive is his immediate destruction. I think we can rule this plot out.
Israel is somewhat of a target for him. Striking Israel would certainly buy him some respect in the Arab world. But short of obligatory anti-semitic rhetoric (which is a bad thing, but not unusual for the area), Saddam doesn’t really have all that much against Israel. Striking Israel would plunge his entire region into war, and with that war would come religious fundamentalism.
And Saddam is not a big fan of religious fundamentalism. He runs a pretty secular state, and an upsurge of religion in his country could only end with him out of power. He wants to avoid that.
So who is he gonna use this nuke on? All I can think of is Iran. But remember, if he uses it on an Islamic country, he will become a bad guy in the eyes of the countries that surround him- leading to the end of his power. Not a good thing for him.
If you have nothing to nuke, why build a nuke. He doesn’t even have a reasonable target to threaten if he wanted to use it as extortion. I don’t think he has one.
He certainly has some amount of chemicle weapons, but no real biological weapons. Mostly he’d want to use these in his own small-scale wars. He has nothing to gain by starting a wide-scale smallpox epidemic. Although henious, I don’t believe that chemical/biological weapons that are not a threat to more than a limited number of people (say, on a battlefield) count as WMD.
:eek:
What’s your point, Saen?