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…
In that case, perhaps his mistake was not offering Bush and Blair a few hundred million.
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.
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.
[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=madmonk28]
Nitpick - Mugabe is very much still in his foetid saddle - but your point stands.
Sorry, I meant Charles Taylor, who was later charged, but initially given a pass.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
They gave Napoleon Elba. That worked out real well.