Iraq's weapons--hidden in the same bunker as Saddam himself?

Great Debates
1

Many people are terribly,terribly upset that we havent found any chemical weapons yet, and therefore claim that the entire war was illegitimate.

But we havent found Saddam Hussein, either–and I dont see anybody complaining about it.

Has it ever occured to the Bush-haters that maybe the weapons are located in the SAME underground bunker where Saddam is hiding? Or in an identical bunker located nearby?

There is good reason to believe that Saddam is still alive. Obviously he is well hidden --but that doesnt seem to bother the left-wingers who believe that Bush is the only criminal worth chasing.

There seems to be a logical fallacy here-if it’s okay for Saddam to be well hidden, why isn’t it okay for his weapons to be equally well hidden?

People love to say “with all its high-tech, the CIA can’t find the weapons, therefore they don’t exist. Nobody says " with all its high tech, the CIA can’t find Saddam, therefore he doesn’t exist”

We will find the weapons when we find Saddam. Perhaps the weapons will be physically located nearby, or one of his staff will spill the beans and tell us where to look

The total size of the weapons caches could be the equivalent of a few railroad cars, or a small building buried underground. Why do so many people assume that just because we havent found them, Bush misled us all from the start?

2

Cheney tried the “we can’t find Saddam” dodge a couple of weeks ago. No one but the Shrub-suckers bought it. The “absence of evidence = evidence of presence” argument won’t work either in light of the admins’ claims that they had proof the weapons existed. Even if they can’t find the weapons, they must show their proof, or stand accused of misleading the American people, wasting the taxpayers money, and needlessly getting a bunch of our boys killed.

3

What makes you think Saddam is still in Iraq? I tend to believe he has fled to another country, if for no other reason than in his message released last week, he claimed to be still in Iraq; he could certainly be trying to mislead his pursuers.

We have dozens of his staff in custody, yet none have “spilled the beans” yet. Even with a $25 million bounty on his head, nobody is talking. I think he slipped through Bush’s fingers, just like Osama bin Laden.

4

If the UK and US intelligence services are to be believed, that would have to be one mighty big bunker. And it strikes me that Saddam would have too high a self-preservation instinct to get himself that close to all the nasties, if they exist. Bearing in mind there’s a huge reward for information leading to the discovery of WMD too, but not one of the liberated Iraqis has come forward to claim the prize. Thus, I deem the OP bunker bunkum.

5

What makes you think that Saddam’s closest people will believe anything the US says they will give? If I was in their position, I would hold my cards as close to my chest as I could.

6

Because they have nothing to lose. Once a highly placed Ba’athist is caught by U.S. forces, you can bet you will never see them again. They have a choice: remain loyal to Saddam and never see the light of day again, or cooperate and perhaps wind up a millionaire on the beach in Monaco. A slim chance, granted; but preferrable to what certainly awaits them if they stonewall U.S. interrogators. I’m betting the people that know where Saddam is hiding is an exceedingly small group.

7

HEY! This thread is nothing more than a blatant attempt at keeping the issue going!

Jolly good. Carry on.

8

See, the problem is they didn’t just say “Saddam has WMDs”, they said that these weapons were ready to fire at 45 minutes notice. That does not square with them all being located in one place right near Saddam. Nor does one central location = any kind of military logic. And what about the support team needed to maintain the weapons, etc.

9

Saddam can hide in a broom closet.

500,000 tons of anthrax (or whatever the Administration was claiming Saddam had) can’t.

10

“the weapons caches could be the equivalent of a few railroad cars, or a small building buried underground” = one overweight man?; geez, that´s a bit of a difference in size, how many orders of magnitude are we talking about?

Chappachula, go back, read what you wrote and then think about it.
Besides many “bush-haters” have pointed the failure in getting Saddam, you know, regarding for example the “mission acomplished” banner and all that.

11

Then you haven’t looked very hard.

I won’t bother with the rest of the muddle, but the above should be addressed
Presumptions:
(a) Sadaam is hiding in some super-secret bunker, just like all good comic book super villians.
(b) His super mean Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Weapon super secret stores are in similar super secret bunkers
© (a) and (b) have escaped detection.

All well and nice in a comic book world, however insofar as we live in a real world, this little fantasy is illogical on a number of grounds.

First, the NBCs which were claimed and alluded to as being a threat require production facilities, networks etc. for industrial level production, maintenance and storage. To date none of this has panned out. Of course there are numerous ‘dual use’ chemicals, including many which go into perfectly ordinary products, however no stores of proper precursors etc. have been located (speaking to materials outside what was known and controlled under the much maligned by the reactionary ignoramuses Inspection Regime). That implies that there’s not much to find.

Second, again the quantities implied by the Admin, fast backpeddling as they may be, are such that storage areas should be fairly large - and insofar as neither the biological nor the chemical keep forever -as a general rule-, there should be colocation with production/finishing facilities.

Third, it rather appears from all the efforts of the Admin to date, that their intelligence has it that Sadaam is following the traditionally intelligent move of the real life guerilla leader, not the comic book super villian, and leading a life of movement and clandestinity. It appears unlikely the super villian bunker you evidently imagine is in the cards.

12

I heard an interview on NPR right after war broke out with a M.E. Studies professor (whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment) who predicted something very similar: that S.H. would disguise himself and walk out into the Iraqi masses, and go underground, and nobody would ever find him. Whatever else he is, he ain’t stupid, or he would have been dead a long, long time ago. I wish I could remember that professor’s name.

13

Well, I’m becoming increasingly skeptical of the existence of large amounts of chemical weapons, but the failure of the extremely large reward to elicit information on SH’s whereabouts does diminish the strength of Elucidator’s often stated argument that the failure of the much smaller reward for evidence of WMDs indicates that they never existed.
As a sort of hijack from the OP, news coverage during the war indicated that Baghdad was lousy with bunkers and tunnels. Have there been any reports of explorations of those bunkers and tunnels? Seems like it would make for interesting reading, if not a “Lifestyles of the Ruthless and Tyrannical” TV special.

14

Maybe there’s something sensible in there that I’m missing. But it sounds like:

“We looked extremely hard, and found fucking nothing at all. So I think that elucidator was lying when he said that he looked very hard and found fucking nothing at all.”

Care to try again?

15

Well, it’s not a hard concept, Desmostylus, but I’ll break it down into smaller bits for you.

a. In multiple threads, people, notably Elucidator, have argued that there is a reward of $250,000 for information leading to the discovery of WMD.

b. In a desperately poor country, so the argument goes, this should be enough to elicit much information.

c. As far as we know, no information has been forthcoming, therefore this must mean that there is nothing to tell.

d. Obligatory cite: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=3519484&highlight=reward#post3519484
Now it’s possible to disagree with this argument – people with specific knowledge could be dead, or scared, not have gotten the memo, or even still be loyal to the regime or their country – but it carries some weight.

However, the reward for information regarding SH is $25,000,000 and has elicited the same results, i.e. none.

This seems to diminish the strength of the argument outlined above, as rewards seem, in general, to not be terribly effective.

16

What a fascinating display of serpentine logic, Finagle!

It doesn’t matter how big a reward I offer to you if you can capture an invisible pink unicorn or, more to the point, a warehouse crammed to the rafters with Bad Mojo and Nuclear Anthrax, if those objects of intense desire simply don’t exist.

Now, in one sense, the first reward…$250,000 for ratting out where these “massive stockpiles” are hidden…speaks well for the sincerity of the Bushistas, it does at least imply that they believed that such existed, and that a reward would flush out an informant. As well it should. At least, it offers evidence that the problem was delusion rather than mendacity. Scant comfort, to be sure, but some.

You are, of course, entirely at liberty to clutch for this straw. If I were in your position, I might very well do the same. Happily, I am not, my position being based on verifiable facts.

As to Saddam bin Laden’s continued existence or lack thereof, again, I am happily blessed. I couldn’t care less whether he still walks amongst the living or is roasting in the Pits of Sheol. To my gimlet eye, it looks as though the Bushistas would like to believe that he still lives, still delicately plucking the strings of his spiders web, still commanding troops of loyalists to his bidding.

Because the ugly alternative is that the Untidiness originates with a native, nationalist, Anti-American movement in Iraq that is unrelated to Saddam. This could hinder the acceptance of the charming image of Iraqis strewing roses in the paths of the American liberators, that the Iraqis are prey to the sin of Not Loving America.

Oh, dear. That would be troublesome, would it not?

17

I wonder if Elvis is the gatekeeper at Saddam’s Fortress of Solitude.

:stuck_out_tongue:

18

You know, you keep using the word “fact”. You should be made aware that it is not, in fact, synonymous with “strongly held opinion”.

Unless, of course, you have sources of information more reliable than the same fragmentary and contradictory news reports that the rest of us get?

19

And I must disagree with this single point: the ‘sincerity of the Bushistas.’

How would you define ‘sincerity’ here? Certainly there was sincerity in locating the stockpiles, especially since such location would provide international acceptance of the theory that started a war Bush would win. This kind of sincerity was ass-saving sincerity.

But I would offer the proposition that although there was a sincere desire to ferret out the stockpiles–and money enough to tempt a ratting ferret, to mix metaphors–this type of sincerity was not necessarily the sincerity of absolute belief based on substantial proof. Many of us are by far too skeptical of how our administrative branch operates to believe that it sincerely believed that these stockpiles would be found absolutely. And I personally believe that the administrative branch believed that by winning the battle and ousting the leader, Americans would wave their flags bravely and vote Bush back in in 2004, a Bush who had vindicated his father’s limping efforts.

20

Interesting, Aristarchus. True enough, it does clearly impinge on the questioin of sincerity. Regretably, as you note, it does not truly clarify the issue. If they knew that no WMD’s existed, the reward was not at risk.

I am willing to believe, absent further info, that the Bushistas did, in fact, believe that WMDs would be found. They allowed themselves to come to that conclusion on evidence that was, at best, vague. The reward offer is, hence, both sincere and CYA.

Thank you for your generous effort toward my education. I trust you will not be disheartened to hear it comes a bit late.

No doubt you have marshalled a veritable juggernaut of facts with which to crush my feeble opinions. I cringe in dread.