Okay, here’s a serious question for you who doubt that Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction:
WHY did Saddam Hussein give up 180 billion dollars due to sanctions?
WHY is he risking war now, by refusing to allow scientists to be interviewed outside of the country, by not giving complete disclosures, etc?
Is he just being ‘stubborn’? If he truly had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t he do what South Africa did, and completely open up all his books, invite anyone in the country to come forward and give interviews to inspectors outside of his controlled areas, and in essence just completely open up everything.
Why wouldn’t he have come forward earlier to show his drone program, and his missiles, and the other things that have been found so far?
Why would he submit a fraudulent report when asked for full disclosure?
This is the stuff the anti-war crowd has never answered. The equivalent is like a guy locked up in a house, and the police claiming that he’s armed. The only reason the police are there is because he’s armed. He won’t come out, and he keeps screaming, “But I’m not armed!”. If he’s truly not armed, he has nothing to lose by just letting the police scour his home. Then he can go on living in peace.
Saddam’s behaviour can only be explained by assuming he has the weapons of mass destruction the U.S and Britain say he has.
Sam, I’m not sure that I’m part of the anti-war crowd (I’m fairly ambivalent on it), but I’ll give you my opinion.
I don’t know if Saddam has any significant WoMD at present. But I believe that he definitely has the means to create WoMD on very short notice (chem and bio, not nukes). It is that capability that I believe that he is trying to protect.
I don’t believe that Saddam is a threat to the U.S. Add that to the lies and half truths that are being used to justify the war and I’m not so hot on it anymore.
If Bush came out tomorrow and said that we are doing this for the Iraqi people and showed convincing evidence that a majority of Iraqis were willing to accept some civilian deaths and many regular military deaths in order to get Saddam, then I would say “Go get him”.
And he’s willing to bankrupt his country, starve his people, and give up all the revenue he needs to build and maintain a conventional armed force, just so he can keep the ability to make chemical weapons on short notice? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
What doesn’t make sense to you may make perfect sense to a madman. You also are assuming that Saddam cares if his people starve. He clearly doesn’t considering the huge amounts of money that he pours into building palaces and mosques in his honor.
In any case, it seems to me that the capability is more important than having existing stockpiles. I suspect chem and bio weapons don’t have indefinite shelf lives – why not just produce a fresh supply shortly before executing the next “evil plan”? Even if he does have existing stockpiles, he hasn’t shown much inclination to use them in the last decade. And with the inspectors around he’s not likely to try anything funny.
The premise is that Iraq is a clear and present threat to the region and the world, not that he is a nasty dictator who opresses his own people.
If there was a UN resolution that stated Hussain must treat his population better, then this would be adequate reason to get him, but this opens a can of worms doesn’t it, for Hussain is not the only unpleasant leadership in the world today.
The current situation is that military action is threatened because of a lack of compliance, not yet proven, for the last 12 years, but why the sudden need to do it now ?
Other members of the security council quite reasonably hold the position that there is no imminent danger, that there is an ongoing process and that this process might, or might not work, but after 12 years of waiting, it seems to them that allowing the inspection team more time is a reasonable thing to do.
Perhaps those dissenting UN members feel that once the prospect of success from the inspection teams has been shown to be unlikely, then it is time to consider other options.
Maybe if there was absolute and convincing evidence, instead of vague assurances from GWB and Powell then the UN would be more forthcoming.
If Hussain is such an immediate danger to the region, then why do we not see the same level of concern about this from neighboring nations such as Kuwait, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia, as these nations would be in the immediate firing line, surely these are the nations that should be bringing resolutions to the UN citing their own national security as the concern.
Nope, it is all driven by a nation that is thousands of miles away, that is not in any obvious peril, and is unlikely to be in peril for the forseeable future, and the same nation that appears to have an overwhelming desire to control strategic resources.
—But we don’t know where it is, exactly. We can’t tell Mr. Blix where to look, because even though we have intelligence that proves for sure it exists, somehow the intelligence doesn’t specify where it is. Just that it is.—
But that doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems that we DO know where the weapons are.
I suppose the rationale is: if we tell, then Iraq knows that we know, rehide them, and in our war (which will happen regardless of how the inspections go) will have a harder time destroying them.
Sam, I can only assume that you think I am one of those who thinks Saddam doesn’t have WoMD. You’d be wrong. I suspect he does. I just don’t know it.
You see, the answer to your questions have already been addressed, even within this thread (mostly by elucidator).
For those of you who support the war, how do you know that Saddam has WoMD? Seems to me, that this is the crux of the issue. If we had demonstrable irrefutable proof, we wouldn’t be having problems with the UNSC.
It is clear to me that the Bush Administration was confident late last year that they could prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Saddam had WoMD. If they did not, why did the US agree to resolution 1441? Why did the US agree to allow the UNSC to solely determine a material breach, and authorize the use of force?
Isn’t that proof of the confidence the Bush Administration had?
And when much of the “proof” that the administration has offered has been refuted, where does that leave those that think proof is a reasonable criteria?
I agree with each of your observations, and agree that they are consistent with the idea that Saddam has WoMD (except for one, I’ll get to it in minute). But that is all circumstantial. Where’s the beef?
In your list, you included, “Why would he submit a fraudulent report when asked for full disclosure?” Does that really support the contention that Saddam does have WoMD? Seems to me, if he did, that was a huge gamble. If the UNSC found a single stockpile of bio or chemical weapons, the gig is up! If he does, he took a gamble that the UNSC inspectors couldn’t find anything. The US, in supporting 1441, took the gamble that they could.
And now it appears that the US wants to hedge their bets. They are no longer willing to accept the gamble.
Boy, I lost you there. Isn’t Saddam essentially allowing the “police scour his home”? So now he should be allowed to live in peace (which is exactly Saddam’s position)? Don’t worry, I’m sure I misunderstood you.
Oh, and for anyone reading this thread that was looking for december’s response to my call for a cite. Stop looking. When I saw december start another thread before responding to my post above, I reminded him of his need to respond here. His response there, was:
So, please note that december backed off his original assertion, and now accepts the possibility that Saddam might not possess banned weapons, even if unlikely. He refuses to support, as he asserted, that the original Blix report (found [here](http://ods-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N00/459/32/PDF/N0045932.pdf?Ope
nElement), btw, sorry, pdf) contained references to any known “huge store of chemical and biological weapons”, because he can’t be troubled with doing research.
I find his behavior exceptionally annoying, to the point of drafting a whole new pit thread for him. But then I decided that pitting december is so, so, … passé. So I just thought everyone here should be aware of the cowardice he has shown in this thread for failing to support his arguments, or at least acknowledge his error - something I thought we expected of all posters in GD.
Another plausible conjecture, if I might. (May I? Thank you)
Saddam, loveable old scoundrel that he is, has enemies. Hard to imagine, but there you have it. He may very well see an advantage in allowing people like the Iranian mullahs to have doubts as to his weapons. It gives them pause. No doubt, they have similar thought processes as ourselves. He says he ain’t got 'em, we can’t find them, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them.
Like others, I am especially troubled by the Bushistas declared and unequivocal certainty that Goddam Hussein has Nasties. This would appear to be faith-based, which, to this less than humble observer, fails the certainty test.
I am certain that a sculpture of George Washington can be found carved on a mountain in the Dakotas (I forget which). I have been there, I have seen it, yeppers, its there. Further, I can, if challenged (“Cite?!”) provide irrefutable evidence, and can direct you as to exactly where to go. (“Up north. In the middle, between Montana and the People’s Republic of Minnesota.”)
Hence, my knowledge qualifies as “certain”. The Bushistas knowledge and certainty about Goddam’s weapons fall far short of that. They don’t know how much. They don’t know what, and they don’t know where.
Well Sam it does make sense to me, the greatest contribution your goverment has done for world history is to confirm something that most dictators knew, the only way to be safe from Uncle Sam is to have a pretty big stick, in that way the only possible way of negotiation is a carrot. After all, the reason why Saddam is in this mess is not because he does have nuclear weapons but because he does not.
That policy is in my opinion as dumb as the preemptive strike doctrine and in my opinion (I am the eternal pessimist) it will be the doom of all of us.
Bush promised smoking gun and he didn’t show them. He says that inspections are not working and the world has seen that they do. After 9/11 he promised to form a coalition against terrorism and now he has only a small entente against a dictator that for the last 12 years has not reacted to all the provocations he has received, perhaps he is evil but he proved that he is no madman
Bush (and many hawk dopers) also claim that this war is also for the opressed Irakies, as a latin american allow me to laugh at this statement.
Saddam is coperating, he is not inmediate threat (unlike NK) and the world faces more pressing dangers. Irak is only in bush list of priorities and you wonder why the world does not support him.
And how many more palaces would Saddam have if he had cooperated back in 1991 and gotten sanctions lifted?
How much larger and better-equipped would be his army?
How much more money would he have stashed in Switzerland?
Face it - the sanctions have brutally hurt Saddam personally. he has permanently lost tens of billions he could have spent on himself or on his power base. The Iraqi people have suffered more, because they had less ability to withstand them, but Saddam is a considerably poorer and weaker “madman” than he would have been had had complied and gotten the sanctions lifted a decade ago.
Hell, if he had gotten the sanctions lifted, he’d probably now control Iraqi Kurdistan - more power, more control, more oil.
So what gain did he get from noncompliance that would offset the huge losses the sanctions have caused him? Perhaps that he got to keep his WoMD?
I don’t think that Saddam is hurting at all. Why do you assume that he cares if he has 1 billion when he could have 100 billion? I don’t have a cite, but I saw on the news a while back about some outrageously expensive mosque that he had built. I’m sure that Fidel Castro could be bought off with cash if that was what he cared about.
For these people money is not everything believe it or not.
And a question. Where is the evidence that Iraq has any plans to attack the US? The only thing I have heard is that Iraqi agents may attack us if we attack them. This is the way that we increase Homeland security?
rsa money is a means to power, and power is what “these people” care about. Saddam has willingly denied himself the ability to massively increase his power.
His air force is non-existent. His army is massively reduced and largely using obsolete equipment.
Why did he do that?
As for his plans to attack the US, I doubt any exist. So? WWII was the only war in US history where our opponent had plans to attack the US (ignoring the Civil War for obvious reasons).
Personally, my support for the war has nothing to do with whatever threat Iraq may pose the US.
OK, that’s cool. If your support for the war is not tied to a threat to the US, can you explain why you support the war? Since I’m ambivalent, perhaps you can persuade me.
There are other examples and reasons, but the most straightforward is that Hussein has committed genocide against the Iraqi Kurds and the (damn, I’m forgetting the proper name for the ethnicity), the “Swamp Arabs” of Southern Iraq. the European Parliament has, BTW, acknowledged both as genocides. Under my reading of the International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, all signatories to that Convention, including the US - and France - have a legal obligation to use all necessary means, including military force, to apprehend and punish the perpetrators of those genocides.
I’m all for that. If our policy is zero tolerance for genocide then we should state that as our objective. I would support that. We would be awfully busy, but I think it would be a noble goal. With the caveat that innocents would be killed. I still think that the population should support our “liberation”.
Any evidence the Iraqi population doesn’t support our ‘liberation’? Oh, that’s right, 100% of them voted for Saddam
Which population? The population on which genocide has been committed, or the population committing the genocide? The Kurds and the Swamp Arabs sure as hell support us.
Zero tolerance has to start somewhere. But, in any event, I think the fact that we failed to stop the genocide in Rwanda shouldn’t stop us from acting properly in the future.
I, too, wish it was a stated objective. But hell, I’ll be happy if the result is that we punished the perpetrators of genocide. I’ll take what I can get.
