# Iraq Debacle could have been avoided for $1 billion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 27, 2007, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651 "2007-09-27T06:49:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/21 "2007-09-28T01:22:03Z")
[QUOTE=Malodorous] Look at the article. Saddam didn’t want us to pay 1billion, he wanted to be allowed to _take_ one billion of his own (or arguably, Iraq’s) money out of the country with him into exile. This wouldn’t be a bribe or tribute, at least anymore then letting him leave the country alive and with part of his wealth intact is a bribe. No idea if the deal dealt with who would be in charge after Saddam vacated. I suspect that had wiser heads been in charge, we might have come up with a deal that would be neither a US puppet or Uday and Quesy getting to follow in their father’s footsteps. But who knows. Out of curiousity, is there an English translation of the transcripts that are the source of the article floating around? [/QUOTE] Semantics. I’m sure all dictators have a personal fortune to take with them. By definition, they control everything. Whether we pay or they take their fortunes, my argument holds.. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/22 "2007-09-28T06:08:23Z")
[QUOTE=Malodorous] Look at the article. Saddam didn’t want us to pay 1billion, he wanted to be allowed to _take_ one billion of his own (or arguably, Iraq’s) money out of the country with him into exile. [/QUOTE] In that case, perhaps his mistake was not offering Bush and Blair a few hundred million. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/23 "2007-09-28T06:43:43Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] If he wasn’t willing to step down, why did he make the offer? It was made in secret, not for PR, and presumably he would not have been paid until he was out of the country. [/QUOTE] We don’t _know_ any such offer was made. And you know, everything in a book doesn’t have to be the truth. Yes, the plan seems to match nearly exactly with what actually happened: however, that is what one would expect if the book was written after all that happened. " _Publisher: Dutton Adult (June 6, 2006)"_ Oh don’t worry, I expect there were \*all sorts \*of shenanigans re GWB and Iraq II, but that doesn’t mean this book has it right either. It also could be argued that Uday and/or Kusay would be worse than Saddam. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/24 "2007-09-28T09:20:11Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] We don’t _know_ any such offer was made. [/QUOTE] The offer was reported during the build-up and was further reported on a couple of years ago by CNN. And Bush was making exile offers. That he was doing this in public while apparently rejecting Saddam’s offer fits well with the general mendacity of his whole approach. [CSM Jan 2003](http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0108/p01s03-woiq.html) > [@](#): > > Saudi Arabia is spearheading an Arab initiative to persuade Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq voluntarily to avert a potentially devastating Middle East war. > > A senior Saudi official visited Baghdad in secret last month to assess whether Mr. Hussein would be willing to step down and live in exile, according to Arab diplomatic sources. [Saddam Offer](http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/02/saddam.exile/) > [@](#): > > DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Days before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein agreed in principle to accept an offer of exile from the United Arab Emirates, but the deal fell through, a UAE government senior official told CNN. > > The reported offer came before an emergency Arab League meeting in Egypt in discussions between UAE officials and a Hussein aide, said the senior official, who was then a member of the UAE delegation to the Arab League. > > The Iraqi president issued conditions, and the proposal went nowhere, the UAE official said. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/25 "2007-09-28T09:56:08Z")
[QUOTE=jtgain] [QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Bad precedent? It might have made other dictators eager to sell out and retire. Wouldn’t that be a **good** precedent? QUOTE] Absolutely not! Sure, you get rid of SH, but what happens when Uday and Kusay step up. Give them each a billion? Then we have revolutions, revolts, and counter-revolutions until the end of time, all with the leaders looking for their billion dollar pay days. Maybe we could make the payoff contigent upon the number of their own people they have massacred, to give them extra “foreign aid” to get them out of office? Pol-Pot, Stalin, or Hitler, could have gotten maybe two billion, but lightweights like SH only get a billion. Castro could get about 100 million, Khadifi would get offered 5 million (since he turned around), and Stephen Harper would get two dollars with change given back 😉 [/QUOTE] There are many despots who have been allowed to retire in order for a nation to move on: Amin, the Shah of Iran, Marcos, Robert Mugabe, Aristide, and others. The precedent alreadys exists. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/26 "2007-09-28T10:03:51Z")
[QUOTE=madmonk28] [QUOTE=jtgain] There are many despots who have been allowed to retire in order for a nation to move on: Amin, the Shah of Iran, Marcos, Robert Mugabe, Aristide, and others. The precedent alreadys exists. [/QUOTE] Nitpick - Mugabe is very much still in his foetid saddle - but your point stands. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/27 "2007-09-28T10:47:58Z")
Sorry, I meant Charles Taylor, who was later charged, but initially given a pass. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/28 "2007-09-28T11:45:49Z")
This just kicks one more prop out of the last of the remaining \*putative \*reasons for Bush’s invasion. The **WMD** excuse has been dead since Barton Gellman’s reporting in May 2003 exposed its falsity. The **humanitarian** angle is proven wrong by the fact that we invaded before we had anything remotely resembling an agreed-on plan for how Iraq would be run after Saddam was deposed, and while turf battles were still being fought amongst different Administration constituencies about what the aftermath would look like. It’s long been apparent that the Bush Administration’s interest in **democracy promotion** never went any farther than window-dressing. And now **regime change** bites the dust. Can’t say I’m surprised. But if Saddam really would have left if allowed to take a billion bucks with him, it accentuates the extent to which this war has been one huge war crime. Fuck impeachment. Ship Bush and Cheney to The Hague. Bet there’s a couple of empty cells at Spandau. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/29 "2007-09-28T12:15:21Z")
Why would SH have to be “allowed” to take any money at all with him. Didn’t he already have it squirreled away somewhere-- Swiss bank accounts or something? Surely it wasn’t all in his mattress. Right? Additionally, didn’t Bush publicly say that he wouldn’t guarantee SH’s safety if he fled the country? My memory is a bit fuzzy on the details… does anyone remember that? ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/30 "2007-09-28T15:54:46Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Insofar as Iraq was dangerous, it was because of Hussein’s personality and personal agendas. I believe he wanted, ultimately, to be the Sheik of Araby – **all** of Araby. (His aim in invading Iran was to extend his rule over the Arabs of Khuzestan.) I doubt any of his lieutenants shared his megalomania; it’s a rare thing. [/QUOTE] Unfortunately, I believe it’s also rare for someone with the sort of paranoid power structure that Hussein had set up to be able to train capable lieutenants. For example, I believe that one of the (many) reasons for the recent mess in the Balkans was that Marshall Tito was actively suppressing the growth of lieutenants with a powerbase through Yugoslavia. It took a few years after his death for the wheels to come off, but without his drive and focus on the larger nation, it seems, in retrospect that the most powerful individual nation submerged into Yugoslavia would have emerged to try to reforge the imposed nation of Yugoslavia into a new, larger Serbia. (I grant this is a still a huge oversimplification of the Balkans - you can’t do a short anything about the Balkans in less than 100,000 words can you?) The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think that without Hussein at the helm the Ba’ath party would have remained the monolithic control for Iraq (Which is another nation created by treaty by outsiders, like post WWII Yugoslavia.) for more than a few years. Like **John Mace** , I’m not trying to defend the current situation - just offer another view why the idea of buying out Hussein might not have been such a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/31 "2007-09-28T17:34:30Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think that without Hussein at the helm the Ba’ath party would have remained the monolithic control for Iraq (Which is another nation created by treaty by outsiders, like post WWII Yugoslavia.) for more than a few years. Like **John Mace** , I’m not trying to defend the current situation - just offer another view why the idea of buying out Hussein might not have been such a good idea. [/QUOTE] I agree that Saddam’s successor wouldn’t have been able to maintain control of Iraq entire for a long time. But at least _someone else would have had to wrest a piece away from that successor_, and that person would have been the law in the piece he wrested away. And yeah, from there smaller bits would have broken off, and there would have been mini-wars to determine where the borders of the assorted bits were. But most of Iraq would still have been in someone’s control, just different tinhirn dictators controlling different pieces. But that’s still better than the near-total chaos that reigns in much of Iraq right now, where nobody but the U.S. is all that strong, and this is a situation where our strength is mostly negated. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/32 "2007-09-28T17:42:28Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] I agree that Saddam’s successor wouldn’t have been able to maintain control of Iraq entire for a long time. But at least _someone else would have had to wrest a piece away from that successor_, and that person would have been the law in the piece he wrested away. And yeah, from there smaller bits would have broken off, and there would have been mini-wars to determine where the borders of the assorted bits were. But most of Iraq would still have been in someone’s control, just different tinhirn dictators controlling different pieces. But that’s still better than the near-total chaos that reigns in much of Iraq right now, where nobody but the U.S. is all that strong, and this is a situation where our strength is mostly negated. [/QUOTE] I don’t see how you get that that situation would be better, or how “mini-wars” differ form the armed conflicts going on now. Can you elaborate? ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/33 "2007-09-28T17:44:33Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] But that’s still better than the near-total chaos that reigns in much of Iraq right now, where nobody but the U.S. is all that strong, and this is a situation where our strength is mostly negated. [/QUOTE] True. But I’m not sure, back in 2003, when the example everyone would be using would be Afghanistan, which devolved into chaos without the orderly progression you’re listing, I don’t think that people would have been able, even honest non-Bushites, to accept that more gradual scenario you list would be better than an American lead occupation. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/34 "2007-09-28T18:08:29Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think that without Hussein at the helm the Ba’ath party would have remained the monolithic control for Iraq (Which is another nation created by treaty by outsiders, like post WWII Yugoslavia.) for more than a few years [/QUOTE] That would still be better than the current situation, because (1) Iraq would have at least escaped the destruction caused by a foreign invasion and (2) **American troops would not be involved** – it would be Iraqis settling their own differences. Better for them, better for us. If we got involved at all it would be as we did in Yugoslavia – in a very limited way, for short periods, to put a damper on the fighting. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2007, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/35 "2007-09-28T18:15:12Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] That would still be better than the current situation, because (1) Iraq would have at least escaped the destruction caused by a foreign invasion and (2) **American troops would not be involved** – it would be Iraqis settling their own differences. Better for them, better for us. If we got involved at all it would be as we did in Yugoslavia – in a very limited way, for short periods, to put a damper on the fighting. [/QUOTE] **BrainGlutton** , I don’t disagree that it would be better for us. I’m not sure about it being better for the Iraqis, since I think that there are too many other nations in the area that would enjoy seeing their own borders expand into current Iraqi territory. That doesn’t mean, however, that I think you’re wrong, just that I’m not convinced you’re right - I simply have questions. ---
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651/36 "2007-10-03T07:49:45Z")
They gave Napoleon Elba. That worked out real well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-debacle-could-have-been-avoided-for-1-billion/420651.md?page=1)