If Bush Lied - A Thought Experiment

Great Debates
1

I was prompted by a thread on the SDMB -this one - to assume for the sake of argument that my position was wrong, and to try to think about some of the implications.

Many on the linked thread are insisting with great vehemence that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Many of those claim that Bush deliberately lied about WMD so as to trigger a war. Others say he was simply duped, or the victim of bad intelligence or something. Still others are being proactive in claiming that they will assume that any evidence of WMD that is discovered is faked by the US - a neat way to preemptively discredit what they do not want to discover.

But let’s assume for the moment that they are right. Bush lied, or was duped, or something, and, in common with practically every other politician in the US going back to the first Gulf War, he said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, when in fact there were not. So there are no WMD in Iraq.

My question then is as follows:

Why on earth would Saddam Hussein refuse to cooperate with the inspections? More specifically, when did he destroy his WMD, and why did he not simply throw his country open to the inspections, fulfill the cease-fire conditions, and get the sanctions lifted? What did he hope to gain by lying about it?

Did he really want so much to go to war with the United States and Great Britain? Why would he want a war that all informed opinion declared unanimously he would lose - and badly?

Next question - why did he think the rest of the world would know that he had destroyed the weapons? What in his background or actions would lead anyone to conclude (pre-Iraq invasion) that he was actually coming clean on his WMD? How did he expect the world to know that he was actually cooperating, when his whole history is one of prevarication, deceit, and mass murder?

And the $64,000 question - why would his destroying his WMD make any difference, if he never let anyone know about it? If the invasion of Iraq was justified as a way to destroy Saddam’s regime, and to prevent any further efforts to acquire WMD, and Saddam refused to give the world the assurances it required after Gulf War I that he was not trying to get the lid of the nuclear/biological/chemical cookie jar, how could an invasion be avoided?

It seems to me that if Saddam indeed destroyed his WMD, he did so in a way that would minimize the benefits to himself and maximize the harm. Why would he do this?

Did he want the inspectors to declare him in compliance? Then why did he not cooperate with them fully?

The whole scenario, of Saddam destroying his WMD but keeping it strictly hush-hush, makes no sense to me. Unless -

Well, there is a scenario and a motive that I can see for Saddam destroying his WMD, but still not cooperating with the UN inspectors, but I would like the thoughts of some other Dopers before I discuss it.

So whaddya think? Why would Saddam act as if he had something to hide, if in fact he did not? AFAICT, he had nothing to gain, and a dictatorship to lose.

Regards,
Shodan

2

One of the reasons was the fact that is was a disgrace for him to allow the UN to walk all over him. The original Gulf war was seen as a move for power and anti-colonialism & anti-Israeli sentiment. When Iraq was ravaged in 41 days that humiliated him. Going from ‘arab savior and anti colonial fighter’ to ‘easily beaten and dominated’ probably wasn’t too palatable.

not only that but the sanctions killed millions of muslims, which the arab world was more than willing to blame on the US, inflaming the hatred for us.

So not cooperating made Saddam look tough and willing to stand up to the UN & US (helping him regain what dignity he lost by losing the first Gulf war so resoundingly), plus the sanctions deaths encited hatred against the US.

3

I suspect he was bluffing.

Thing of it is, these biological and chemical weapons aren’t very good weapons. Tacticly, they are very limited, being subject to the vaugeries of wind, etc. The nerve agents are notoriously finicky about temperature, humidity, etc.

As strategic weapons they are worse than useless, as they infurtiate and outrage an enemy without significantly degrading his ability to kick your ass. If the USA, his presumed worst enemy, even suspected that Saddam was responsible for such an attack on America, Baghdad would have been a glowing crater in the Godforsaken Desert in less than one hour. I rather imagine Saddam knew this.

So why keep them? Why not destroy them, as has been repeatedly reported? They present only the hassle of possilbe discovery, and have no real military use.

Well, except for an enemy that does not rely on strategic superiority. An enemy likely to attack by way of plain old infantry and armor. An enemy perhaps in immediate proximity like, say, oh, Iran. With whom he fought one of the longest, most futile and bloody wars in ME history. And that’s saying something.

So: he destroys the WMD’s. Then he knows he can drag out the inspection game forever because, of all wierd things, he’s actually innocent. And the same time, he keeps one major set of his enemies off balance, because the Iranians will never believe he destroyed the WMDs, or at least, will never be sure.

His major miscalculaton: overestimating the restraint and civility of GeeDubya.

4

What better way for Saddam to keep power while covering his ass?

He could keep up the pissing contest with the west, assuming that they weren’t actually going to lie about this enter a war (wrong!) thus making him a hero to many Arabs by thumbing his nose at the west. All the while knowing that they weren’t actually going to find anything to incriminate him. With a bonus of keeping his neighbors cowering in fear.

According to his son-in-law Kamal, the head of the Iraqi NBC program, Iraq destroyed all bio, and chem weapons. Destroying them allows him to keep out of trouble. Giving the impression that he still has them allows him to still be a bad-ass in the neighborhood. In addition, if you keep seed stock of both of these, you can easily rebuild a program when the smoke clears.

I think what you’re forgetting is that the sanctions didn’t hurt him, or his family one bit.

5

Some possible motivations for Saddam:

1.) It’s theoretically possible (albeit unlikely) that Saddam disposed of all his weapons, but forgot to keep records. In this case, he would be screwed, though it would be his own damned fault that he got attacked.

2.) He may have honestly believed that he could best the US in a war, by causing so many casualties that we bowed out early. I actually find this likely, regardless of whether or not he had WMDs. This would allow him to claim victory, thus making him seem immeasurably more powerful in the eyes of both his people, and the rest of the Middle East. If he didn’t have WMDs, it would’ve been a tremendous gamble to engage the US in this manner, but dictators aren’t known for being the most rational folks.

3.) He may have not had WMDs, yet wanted the rest of the ME to believe he did, so as to increase his image, and pose a more formidable perceived threat. After it became obvious that we were going to invade (keep in mind this wouldn’t have been obvious from the beginning - Clinton would never have invaded, and Saddam likely pegged Bush in the same hole), he may not have wanted to lose face.

4.) Losing face may have played a huge role, in fact. He may have believed it more damaging to be seen as succumbing to US influence than to go to war (particularly if he believed he could win). Of course, if this was the case, then it would make no sense for him to destroy the weapons in the first place.
IF Saddam had no WMDs (and this is a big if, to me), then I would bet on some combination of 2 and 3 above. I’m curious to hear what your possible explanation may be, Shodan.
Jeff

6

Colour me dense, but wasn’t is supposed non compliance due to his reluctance to show us these alleged WMD’s? By forcing him to prove a negative was there anything Saddam could have done which would have resulted in him actually looking like he was co-operating?

Probably nothing. However, if everyone has already decided that you inevitably lie 100% of the time about everything then his protestations of innocence (which are sounding more and more convincing every day these WMD’s go undiscovered) would have fallen on deaf ears regardless. Since his background was so dubious that there would be no chance that anyone would believe him when he said there were no WMD’s he was fucked from the start.

Maybe he was trying to bluff us. If he thought he could trick people into thinking he had WMD’s he was sure to do it. Maybe he figured we’d never actually attack. The Dumbass.

7

The terms of the cease-fire agreement was that he had to destroy his WMD, and account for the destruction - in other words, “Yes, I destroyed them. Here are the remains” or “I am going to be destroying my anthrax stores at 0800 outside Baghdad. Stop by if you want to watch” or “Sure, the scientists who worked on my WMD program can make a trip to Paris with their families, and be interviewed in secret with no Iraqis present. They will vouch for it that I dismantled my bio-bombs”. That sort of thing, which Saddam refused to do.

I am also curious as to what the advantage was of destroying the WMD, if he was going to bluff the world and claim he still had them. If he wasn’t going to cooperate with the inspections, why go to the trouble of destroying the WMD? If he kept them, he would have the advantage of his bluff to prevent Iran from invading would not really be a bluff.

If that is your argument, elucidator and light strand. I don’t see how it is better to destroy them and not cooperate than not to destroy them and not cooperate. The second case is better, since if worse comes to worse, he can unleash the WMD in case of Iranian invasion.

I can only think of one scenario in which it makes sense to destroy the WMD. And it is one that (in my view) justifies the invasion of Iraq.

Of course, I am sure no one expected that from me. :slight_smile:

Regards,
Shodan

8

Let me guess: The scenario wherein Saddam Hussein is crazier than a shit-house rat?

9

And that would be…?

10

I think that if he didn’t have WMDs, it was a combination bluff and legitimizer.

He could shout to the rafters that he didn’t have them, knowing full well that we would come for him. Then, after the attack, he could say that he was telling the truth the whole time and make the US look bad and make himself look like the great leader that stood up to us for a second time.

I sincerely believe that he fully intended to survive this one and come out stronger, but he miscalculated, hopefully for the last time.

I also still believe that something is there right in front of us and we just haven’t tripped over it yet, but that’s not really relevant for this question.

It is an interesting question, though, and the possibility of your scenario exists, so it just can’t be ignored.

11

Shodan, you really have to start thinking like a dictator.

Let’s pretend I’m evil. I have WMD. Nothing much, just some anthrax, and some nerve gas. My chemical weapons comprise nothing I can’t find formulas to in the internet, and the Reagan administration generously provided me with anthrax. No I’m not really good at research, or large scale production, but I can produce enough small quantities to do in my political enemies like the Kurds.

Every so often, I use them against small populations. Only the chemicals though, mind you, I can’t afford to have my populace get sick. There’s not point in being a dictator if I have no to dictate to! I make sure I get the pictures of Kurds dying and make sure that my populace know what a heartless bastard I am. While we’re at I also torture, and execute on camera. with the occasional rape thrown in for good measure.

So I do this for a while, and the Regan Administration still backs me. Cool! Now I’m a bastard with backing. Then the Bush Sr. Administration comes in. So I say to April Glaspie, the US ambassador “suppose I decided that maybe, just maybe, part of Kuwait is historically mine”. She responds with “We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait.” So I think: “that rocks!” and invade. Well apparently it didn’t rock so much, and Bush decided to kick my ass out.

Well now I’m out of Kuwait, but I hear rumblings of a Shi’ite uprising. I’m a bit ticked off, and quite frankly not too comfortable with this turn of events, as I just got my ass handed to me on a platter. But I’ll do what I have to do. It turns out they get no backing! What a bunch of dopes! Once again I’m in the “This rocks!” frame of mind.

Well because I’ve been a bad boy, there are these sanctions, but they don’t bother me too much as they’ve so generously provided me with “food for oil” which allows me to skim about 10% off the top. So I build a new palace.

Anyway, now you get back to the WMD. Well you see I never really had much. After all I woulda used them against those filthy Jews if I had! But the west thinks I do! Cool!

If the west thinks I have them, then those asses in Saudi think I have them, the jackass Iranians think I have them, and those crazy bastards in Afghanistan think I have them, this includes to incompetent bozos in Russia, who can’t even invade a bunch of stupid terrorists in Afghanistan. Cool!

Well I don’t really have too many WMD, but the ones I do have, I should probably get rid of them because Allah knows if I’m caught with those unreliable pieces of garbage then I’m going to loose my cushy life-style.

So I call Kamal, my daughter’s husband. He’s in-charge of my bio, and chem weapons programs. He’s an idiot, but he’s family. What can I say? I tell him to get rid of the stockpiles, but keep some bio culture, and some formulas. Just in case. You can’t be too careful when everyone hates you! But the little putz defects and tells the UN everything! The gig is up! Ah, but apparently my reputation precedes me. They don’t believe him. What luck! Then the fools send Kamal back. So I kill him. That didn’t turn out too badly.

I mean after all I don’t really need the weapons. I might as well just use the idea. I’ll protect my position in the cheapest way possible, with threats and innuendo. After all I’m a dictator, that’s my SOP. You don’t think I really want to kill all the people, do you? No. Now my crazy freaking sons. that’s another story. They’re sick mothers. Anyway, killing people is somewhat counterproductive, what I want is the idea that I’m going to kill you, not so much the act itself. Now that’s not to say I won’t kill people, but I really don’t care one way or the other.

But the greatest thing is, I get to have the “inspectors” running around like chickens. “Inspectors” bah, they couldn’t find a pimple on my ass if I drew them a road map. So anyway it’s great fun, having them run around looking for something that doesn’t exist! But the best part is, every so often I tell them “I destroyed them”. HA! They then say “no you didn’t” It’s a riot. My people thing I’m SuperArab! Not only do they still believe I have the weapons, but they also get a bit of pride in my standing up to those filthy western Infidels.

So I get tired of the the “inspectors” nosing around, after all next they’re going to find the mass-graves. I decide not to cooperate any more. Guess what? They leave! My world rocks!

Well pretty much the next bunch of years are uneventful except for the occasional cruise missile, or rhetoric from the White House. Nothing major though.

So then this cowboy comes in. Apparently he has some sort of agenda, and he starts demanding that I destroy them. Well, I don’t have any. I can tell this guy means business, so I tell him right away I don’t have any. I allow the inspectors in, I’m helpful. I let them go where ever they want. But now they want documentation WTF, I’m a dictator not a secretary! So I call in the folks who know, and they say “nope, Mr. Saddam, we don’t have it, and there’s a good chance you killed whoever knows where it is, if it ever existed”. Well Damn! I knew all that killing would come to bite me in the ass!

Any way, the cowboy keeps saying I have them, the wimps in the UN are “Inspecting” me to death, and then there was this war.

Now I’m in hiding. This sucks!

See, you just need to start thinking like a dictator.

12

Perhaps it’s time to examine some basic assumptions.

Shodan, you state in the OP that Iraq “refused to cooperate” with the inspectors. This is at best incomplete assessment.

Hans Blix’s February 28th report to the U.N. (NOTE: pdf) shows a mixed situation – Iraq was cooperating, but grudgingly.

The biggest problems in Blix’s report seems to be a) lack of documentation, and b) unfettered interviews with Iraqi scientists.

On the other hand, Iraq:

  • Allowed inspectors access any to place the wished to go. The inspectors conducted 550 inspections, “performed without notice, and access was in virtually all cases provided promptly”.

  • “Iraq has further been helpful in getting UNMOVIC established…Help has been given by the Iraqi side when needed for excavation and other operations. Iraqi staff has been provided, sometimes in excessive numbers, as escorts for the inspection teams.”

  • Provided inspectors with access to a previously declared site where proscribed weapons had been destroyed.

  • Had begun destruction of all of thier Al Samoud 2 missiles before the U.S. invasion. Iraq had disputed that these were proscribed weapons, the inspectors disagreed, and Iraq complied.

This doesn’t sound like “not cooperating”. It sounds like slow progress and issues being worked out, and occassional roadblocks by the Iraqis. The final paragraphs in the report show that Blix as frustrated that progress is not being made quickly enough, not that no progress was being made.

“Refused to cooperate” in my book would equate to shooting the inspectors. Perhaps you’re unaware that this didn’t happen?

So, if you want to trot out a line like “Why did Saddam refuse to cooperate” as a thought game, perhaps you should back that up. It seems to me that the UN report states that progress had been slow, and the Bush administration immediately spun that as "Saddam is not disarming, which has now turned out to be jingoistic crap – they were disarming, they were cooperating, but at worst they were doing a shitty job at it.

Maybe in thier minds, they were “throwing open the country and fullfilling the cease fire obligations” but being surly about it as a matter of principal. Hell, I’d feel the same way.

13

light strand

That was great; Saddam´s blog. :smiley:
Funny but yet it shows several valid points on which I agree completely.

14

Why was Bush in such a rush to invade? That’s all I really want to know. It seemed that waiting would have only aided his position. Instead, he painted himself as hell bent for war at great political expense, knowing full well that he was relying on sketchy information. Also, I would assume he is wise enough to understand that hecouldn’t keep a lid on that side of the information. So why?

It seems that both Saddam and George had something ulterior going on, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out exactly what it was.

This is a serious question. It all just doesn’t add up for me, on both sides.

15

To Nurse Carmen - there was definitely miltary pressure to conduct a war in the early spring (despite some of the military’s general reluctance to use force early) . One purely military analysis I saw (in late Jan) ‘predicted’ the date of the war to the week, which could be coincidence, or maybe not. At any rate, since the build-up had already begun, Bush couldn’t afford to wait over summer for several months, and probably didn’t want the higher casualties and lower morale of a summer war.

As to why the buildup began so early, I’m not sure; my speculation is that he supposed that Iraq would be less compliant than it was.

As to Saddam’s reluctance to work with the UN inspectors (going back several years now, when he ‘kicked them out’) I was under the impression he was attempting unsuccessfully to obtain something worthwhile (like nuclear material) and bluffing until he could back it up. Probably saw the UN inspections as an annoyance.

16

Why did Saddam drag his feet if he didn’t have WMDs?

I’m putting my money on the “trying to put up a strong front to his enemies” theory. Iraq has not been chummy with its neighbors; they’ve tended to fear and/or loathe Saddam’s Iraq, and mane of them would have welcomed a chance to start a war with Iraq and pimp-smack Saddam if they felt they could have gotten away with it. Heck, some folks were even pointing to how Iraq’s neighbors were opposed to the war as an argument for the U.S. to not start one.

Surrounded by numerous hostile nations, it’s in Iraq’s advantage to make people think it’s got hundreds of tons of WMDs, just to make folks think twice about invading. Wouldn’t surprise me if there are some folks in Iran and Syria right now who are still kicking themselves for not invading Iraq sooner. “You mean he was faking it all this time? We could’ve stomped him if we had known!”

As for George W. Bush and the West, Saddam probably figured that if he provided some cooperation, the U.N. could block any attempts by the U.S. to start a war – their purpose, after all, is to avoid wars whenever possible. That plan failed because Saddam underestimated the depths of George W. Bush’s bloody-mindedness; at a minimum, Saddam probably figured moderates in Congress and/or the White House could have prevented George from going full-tilt with a war.

As for why George W. Bush was in a rush to invade, the cynic in me figures it’s all Presidential politics. If we had invaded last November as the Administration wanted, and if the Iraqi army had put up a fight (as the Pentagon believd they would), that’s about a year for the war to be waged and won, and another year to go on the re-election campaign trail. The Administration could not have wated any later than mid-April to start a war with Iraq; any later would have bumped U.S. forces against the summer heat in the region, and Bush’s re-election schedule.

And yeah, some folks noted that the Bush Administration kept shouting “too little too late” no matter what concessions Iraq gave – but we got shouted down by the jingoistic dittoheads in the audience…

17

To expand on the point made by squeegee:

Well, starting with your last question first: Hussein consistently claimed that he had destroyed Iraq’s “WMD” stockpiles. If this were the case (as now appears likely), then he was telling the truth, not lying.

I don’t know when he destroyed his “WMDs,” or even if he did so. But there are a lot of reasons why a cagey, paranoid dictator would seek to resist a full and open inspection of his country’s military operations/capabilities. Just in the same way that Bush might not be comfortable with letting members of a foreign inspections team tour a secret US military installation (or read Reagan’s memoirs, for that matter), Hussein did not want the rest of the world to be privy to his military secrets, whatever they might be. You may remember that Hussein’s refusal to cooperate in the early years of the inspections – a resistance which gradually increased over time – was coupled with Iraqi accusations of spying on the part of the inspection teams. I’ve seen an interview with a Swedish member of one of these teams who was also of the opinion that some inspectors were spying for their governments. He described situations in which an inspector would suddenly take out a small camera and begin photographing documents in a manner that was not sanctioned by the inspection protocol, while a strange silence suddenly pervaded the inspection group. More damningly, he claimed that many inspectors made routine, after-hour visits to their embassies, a practice strictly forbidden by the inspection agreement (according to him). He noted that 72 hours after the Annan withdrew the inspectors, Operation Desert Fox began with a series of very precise airstrikes that were almost certainly based on intelligence derived from inspectors.

You make it sound as if all the Iraqis had to do was cooperate and the sanctions would be lifted, relations normalized, and life would return to Iraq. I suspect that’s a bit of an oversimplification. On the contrary: I wonder what the Iraqi government could possibly have done to satisfy US demands. I doubt that even a full-cavity search of Saddam himself – aside from being a rather revolting image – would have satisfied the demands of hard-liners in the US government. squeegee points to several instances of cooperation by the Iraqi regime in the last phase of the inspections, for example – a fairly impressive level of cooperation, I would say – that had not the slightest affect whatsoever on the administration’s decision to go to war. And while it might be convenient to shift the focus onto Iraqi motivations, I would like to ask this question of you in return: what might the US stand to gain by a failure in the inspection process?

You surely know by now that Wolfowitz and his heavy-weight cronies at PNAC were pressing for military action against Iraq, i.e., a US invasion, already in the early 1990s. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld advocated attacking Iraq directly after 9/11 (as Bob Woodsworth chronicles in his Bush at War), but were abrogated by Powell, who argued wisely that the US would never manage to get international backing for such a venture. Condoleeza Rice says that after Afghanistan, Bush turned his attention to Iraq, and “it was like a lightbulb went off in his head.” I think the decision to deal with Iraq militarily was made at least a year before the hostilities started, and that the last round of inspections, coupled with Bush’s unreasonable demands on the Iraqi leadership, was just a show for the galleries.

I don’t really have an answer to your questions here, except that I doubt Hussein perceives himself in the same manner that we do in the West. Or rather, probably, he felt that he only did what all great leaders do. After all, when you look at it in a longer perspective, even US history is one of “prevarication, deceit, and mass murder.” Certainly, IMHO, the last round of inspections and the whole scene at the UN involved prevarication and deceit from all sides.

But Shodan, he did let the world know about it. He stated time and time again that Iraq had destroyed all its “WMDs” in accordance with the cease-fire agreement.

The United States is not “the world,” you know. A more accurate question would read that Hussein “refused to give the US government the assurances it needed.” It’s worth remembering that most of the world community was against the invasion.

But as other posters have noted, Hussein gained quite a lot of prestige among Arabs for his defiance of the US. So that might have been one motivation. There may have been others; he was a psychopath and stone-cold gambler, so he was always playing for something larger, IMHO.

18

P.S:

I want to second Ale: great post, lightstrand. Very funny.

And add, regarding this by rjung:

Although I agree with most of what you’ve posted, I can’t figure this particular statement out. As already noted, Hussein said time and again that he had destroyed his “WMDs.” To my knowledge the only nations vociferously proclaiming that he had not, and that he was sitting on a stockpile of “hundreds of tons of WMDs,” were the US and Britain.

19

Like a drowning man grasping for straws, we are now begged to believe that all this terrible shit was “hidden”. Given enough time, we’ll find them.

Were they hidden without anyone currently alive knowing where they are? Even one tiny component of the “vast stockpiles”? Nobody is in a position to reveal the whereabouts? Not even one?

As I’ve laboriously pointed out, we have a standing bribe for better than a month. A quarter of a million dollars, simply walk in and say “The warehouse at the corner of Saddam Blvd. and Hussien Avenue” and walk off with the booty.

And no takers. None. Now why is that? Iraqis dont like money? Their loyalty to Saddam extends even to this day?

Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot! The reward has not been collected because no one can reveal information that does not exist.

There is no other plausible explanation. I have been pointing this out with tiresome regularity and have yet to hear even a feeble rationale in contradiction.

20

In the case of the Kurds, I think you mean “dead” instead of “infuriated”.

“Outrage” is closer to the mark, though not quite in the way you intended.

If you’re a sleazy, self-aggrandizing dictator responsible for the deaths and deportations of millions of your countrymen, and worrying that they’re going to seek revenge at the first opportunity, having really scary-sounding weapons may be viewed as mandatory in order to retain power.

Mussolini wound up hanging from a lamppost. Dictators don’t like to think about that sort of thing.