alessan
According to this link:
So, only 2 people were actually killed from the SCUD attacks.
As I said, not nice, but nothing to frighten the horses. The Palestinians kill more than that in an average week.
The reason the Scuds didn’t kill that many people was that Saddam didn’t use WMD which he knew would invite massive retaliation and possibly his own destruction.
If he has nothing to lose (because of a US invasion) he has no incentive to exercise any restraint. He has a few dozen Scuds at least IIRC. Among his options:
1)Hit Israel with chemical weapons or maybe even smallpox or some other other disease even more difficult to control
2)Supply terrorists with the same WMD which they can use against the US homeland or Israel.
3)Use WMD against US soldiers.
Note that so long as his existence isn’t being threatened Saddam has good reasons not to do the above things.
In addition to this there is the possibility that if his regime is destroyed there will be chaos and that various groups including terrorist ones will use the anarchy to steal the remaining stocks of WMD lying around in Iraq.
The bottom line is that invasion may lead to the very thing it is meant to prevent: the use of WMD and their spread to terrorist groups. This could ulitimately lead to hundreds of thousands of dead civilians. That is the best argument against invasion as opposed to the morality of pre-emptive invasion (not that there isn’t a certain point to that as well)
If the war hawks have thought this through and have some possible solutions or good reasons to discount the above possibilities I certainly haven’t seen them.
It is true that scuds can carry chemical or biological weapons but scuds are very unreliable weapons. They can’t rotate about their axis like a bullet, when they fall they obey the normal laws of gravity and wobble about their heaviest point.
So they’re a very inaccurate weapon.
As regards smallpox, Saddam would have to be REALLY insane to drop a load of this on Israel. The problem with biological warfare is that it’s not containable. If Saddam dropped a batch of smallpox on Israel then it would have infected the whole middle east within a week.
Millions of muslims would die, thousands of Iraqis would die. There is no way Saddam could guarantee that he wouldn’t get it himself!
So I don’t think biological warfare is that big of a concern.
That just leaves us with chemical warfare. Chemical warfare is, of course, nasty but at least it is localised. Precautions can be taken to avoid it. Gas masks etc. And it only happens over a local area, it doesn’t spread like a virus, so it can be contained.
Also Saddam doesn’t have many scuds left and they’re all old and out of date. A lot of them won’t work properly. And they only have a limited radius so he’d have to be in the western Iraqi desert to fire them (if they’re gonna hit Israel).
Again, I can’t see it. Saddam ain’t gonna give al qaeda nothing. He hates them almost as much as you do. Saddam don’t give a fuck about Israel, all he cares about is his own survival.
This means that the terrorists would have to steal the requisite materiel. This may be harder than you think - the Iraqis have all the good stuff well hidden - that’s why the weapons inspectors couldn’t find it.
Yes. There is no doubt that chemical and biological weapons are within his arsenal. So the question is do we attack him anyway?
He probably won’t use biological weapons because it’s too clumsy and chemical weapons can be defended against.
I too doubt that Saddam has any real pan-Iraqi ideas. I really doubt that he’s gonna invade any more countries even if he does get some cool new weapons.
But the longer this goes on, the stronger he will become. This situation isn’t going to just quietly go away.
I think you are missing the point. Saddam doesn’t have any incentive to do those things now because as you note he wants to survive and he is also scared of the terrorists himself.
But during a full-scale invasion, which will likely kill him, he has nothing to lose and there is no reason why he won’t go in a blaze of vengeance killing as many as he can.
“This means that the terrorists would have to steal the requisite materiel. This may be harder than you think - the Iraqis have all the good stuff well hidden”
All you need are elements within the Iraqi regime to steal the WMD after the war and sell it to the terrorists for reasons of both profit and revenge. Precisely because they are well-hidden it will be extremely difficult for the US to control the WMD in a post-Saddam scenario.
Most everyone would like Saddam gone but the unfortunate reality is that a full-scale invasion is likely to result in the either the use of WMD or the total loss of control of the WMD in an anarchic Iraq. That is a cure probably worse than the disease.
(I’ve realised that I didn’t properly close the Python tag in my previous post which means that every post since has been patently absurd! :D)
</Python>
Having said that…
All the discussion about the rights and wrongs of ways of dealing with Maddas (nice one Jojo) are fair enough. However, it doesn’t matter what the Romans, Greeks - heck even the Phoenicians - did when it comes to press releases from the American government regarding future actions of the military.
The thing which I, and maybe jjimm - OK just I, was worried about was how the terminology allows a certain ‘liquidity’ when it comes to international relationships. And if it is legitmised I don’t think it’ll be long until it is abused. To entirely co-opt Sua’s original point:
“Centurion, if the German tribes finish that fort, they will be able to prevent us from shipping goods along the Rhine. Take your legion and destroy it.”
“What fort sir?”
“The fort they could build on their territory which abuts the Rhine.”
“But they’re not building a fort, sir”
“No Centurion, but they could.”
“Erm, about quarter past six sir.”
(Damn that Python tag!)
I disagree, I’m afraid. I’m almost certain that, however they feel about him now, hard-line Arabs and Islamists will interpret any such action as ‘Western Imperialism’: “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”.
But since Israel, as Allesan has pointed out, has already taken unilateral pre-emptive defense against the country, I’d imagine it would. Why did he ‘waste’ those Scuds in the first place - surely the consequences would have been worse had more of those missiles hit their target? And why else is he (allegedly) giving $10K a pop to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers? I really think that he does care about Israel, and not in the right way.
micilin, count me in re. ‘liquidity’. The big boy on the block creating a precedent about behaviour, regardless of the rules of warfare, is likely to have a knock-on effect with the smaller kids (cf. Arial Sharon and Wars Against Terror).
Forgive me if this is off-point, but this whole pre-emptive defense doctrine that’s emerging has me wondering: is the de-facto policy that comes out of the action in Iraq going to be that no nations that don’t already have weapons of mass-destruction will ever be allowed to have them?
That the West (or, perhaps, the U.S. alone) will pre-emptively act before such development occurs?
Yeah, we can stomp out a brush-fire here and there now. But the flames are widening. There’s a whole lot of dry, dead grass. And the wind’s picking up. (OK, I’ll stop with the metaphors now.)
I could understand the motivation behind such a policy. If the suicide bombings in Israel and September 11 have shown us anything, it’s the imperative of not allowing such glaze-eyed fanatics to develop capabilities to murder even more civilians in one shot.
What kept us all alive during the Cold War was Mutually Assured Destruction - the idea that the other side would never attack with its nukes, because it would be wiping out its own people.
Were someone of the ilk of Osama Bin Laden or Mohammed Atta in charge of a nation with nuke or biological capability, how sure could we be that such a fear would pre-empt them?
jjimm said:
The hard-line ones will interpret an invasion of Iraq this way, there’s no doubt. But, fortunately, the hard-liners aren’t in government (apart from maybe in Syria) so it doesn’t matter too much what they think.
In order to draw Israel into the conflict and divide the arab coalition against him. It would be very hard for the US to attack Iraq if all the arab countries are unwilling to co-operate to some degree.
The consequences could have been disastrous if he’d succeeded in getting Israel drawn in. But he didn’t succeed so there’s no point in worrying about it. It’s just another “what if…”
It’s in his interest to keep the Palestinian thing going.
- it keeps America and Israel busy so they don’t focus their attention on him
- it unites ordinary arabs against a common enemy (Israel) so they don’t pay so much attention to their own government
Milossarian said:
Yes and no.
Yes because it has always been the policy to limit the spread of WMD (that’s why they have non-proliferation treaties etc)
And no because this policy really applies more to the loony-tunes (like Saddam) than to stable regimes (eg India and Pakistan have WMD). And it applies even more to loony-tunes with oil.
>> If the suicide bombings in Israel and September 11 have shown us anything, it’s the imperative of not allowing such glaze-eyed fanatics to develop capabilities to murder even more civilians in one shot.
Yeah, I agree. What did they use? Boxcutters? Let’s level any boxcutters and knife factories in any country we don’t trust!
The idea of a pre-emptive war with Irak at this point is ridiculous and lacks any justification. The point is not whether he has weapons or not. The point is to make it clear to him that he will pay dearly for any action he takes, whether it is with WOMD or with box cutters. “Speak softly and carry a big stick”
During the Cuban crisis America was much more threatened that it is now. Some hawkish generals were advising president Kennedy to attack first and get the upper hand. Kennedy said something to the effect of “I will not be the President who will lead America to do what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor”. Kennedy was right and did the right thing.
There is all the justification to maintain sanctions but there is no justification to attack.
Sailor, you miss the key distinction between the Cuban Missile Crisis and Iraq - the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved only when the threat was removed. Had Castro and Kruschev failed to remove the missiles, damn straight Kennedy would have attacked.
And that is the analogous situation we face today. Hussein has not only refused to give up his WMD, he actively obstructed attempts by the world community to remove them.
Sua
I’m not so sure about that. We had some pretty good precision bombing capabilities in the Gulf War ten years ago, and I don’t doubt they’ve improved since. No matter what though, I am sure that if the US invades, some Iraqi civilians will be killed, and this fact will be used for propaganda purposes by Saddam.
Sua, the Cuban threat was much closer, much greater, much more immediate, and Kennedy refused to start a war. If the other side attacked he would let them have it all knowing America had all the right to defend itself but he refused to attack first and decreed the blockade.
America is already overflying Irak and can increase the blockade while the situation is resolved. It can make clear that any attack on American interests, American citizens or American allies will have an overwhelming response. But a pre-emptive attack is, IMHO, not justified and will cost America much in international support. There is no clear and present danger.
Not to mention that occupying Irak and trying to build a government friendly to the US is pretty much impossible. The people there may hate Sadam Hussein but they will unite against any foreign intervention.
I do not think it is justified yet and I do not think it is a good idea.
sailor said:
This is where our opinions diverge sailor.
Sanctions have directly killed at least half a million Iraqi children since they were imposed in 1990. This is according to UNICEF
Denis Halliday, after resigning as first UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, said in an article in The Independent, 15 October 1998:
These sanctions are going to have to go, we can’t just keep on with them indefinately. But the sanctions won’t be lifted until Saddam goes.
ps why do you spell it Irak rather than Iraq?
Because the threat ended. That’s the difference. Diplomatic and military (short of invading) techniques resolved the danger.
Again, if those diplomatic and military techniques had not induced Kruschev to withdraw the missiles, Kennedy would have invaded. What Kennedy (admirably) did was refuse to invade before trying those diplomatic and military methods of ending the threat.
That’s where the analogy breaks down. In the case of Iraq, diplomatic and military (short of invading) techniques have been tried over the past 11 years and have not resolved the danger. We’ve already followed in Kennedy’s footsteps and attempted means short of war to end the threat. They have failed, and war is the last remaining option.
Sua
I think that the difference is also that Iraq is not an immediate threat in the same way that Cuba was. Cuba had weapons pointed at the US. Iraq might like weapons, but the CIA and the weapons inspectors both agree that there is no evidence that Iraq has any WMD.
The proposal to invade Iraq now is similar to proposing to invade Cuba when Castro took over, just because he might be thinking of inviting the Russians in. That’s the point of the OP.
I suspect that this proposed invasion has little to do with a real external threat, and everything to do with US internal politics.
What are you smoking, cjb, and can I have a toke? Neither the CIA nor the weapons inspectors agree there is no evidence that Iraq has any WMD. Indeed, both believe that he does.
Here’s the CIA’s opinion.
For UNSCOM’s opinion, I direct you to my links in this thread, to UNSCOM’s 1999 report to the Security Council.
Sua
sailor
**
Your glib comment notwithstanding, a lesson I glean from September 11 is that people who have an adversarial position against the USA, and have demonstrated a willingness to use any weapon they have at their disposal to attack their enemies, should be stopped before they develop nukes and other WMD, if we can do it.
And your correlation with the Cuban Missile Crisis has a teensy flaw: Saddam Hussein doesn’t yet have the capability to wipe Americans out by the tens of thousands. The Soviets did.
Hussein’s only working toward it. You might want to ask Israel or Kuwait whether he is willing to attack another country unprovoked. You might want to ask the Kurds if there are any weapons he’s not willing to use.
Thanks for the cite, SuaSponte. They seem to support my assertion that there is belief, but no evidence.
The CIA report talks about their concerns, based on past knowledge, and agrees that it does not know what WMD capability may remain. The UNSCO report points out its major concern, that dual-use equipment which may be used for BW is difficult or impossible to police entirely. Unaccounted for items are generally of low numbers - much is made, for instance of 550 shells filled with Mustard Gas. A nasty weapon, true, but hardly a threat to the world. Iraq is assessed as having no nuclear weapons.
In contrast, the CIA report stresses the greater capabilities of Iran and North Korea(assessed as having nuclear weapons). Both these countries (with India and Pakistan) are also involve in supporting WMD proliferation, unlike Iraq.
These reports do not indicate that Iraq uses WMD to threaten either the US or World stability. If left on its own it would threaten regional stability, but Syria, for instance, is assessed as having similar capabilities. They do not indicate that Iraq comprises any kind of immediate special threat which might justify a pre-emptive attack.
>> They do not indicate that Iraq comprises any kind of immediate special threat which might justify a pre-emptive attack.
Which is pretty much what the entire world is saying. Only the US sees a threat which would justify a pre-emptive attack and only the UK says that they’ll go along. Saudi Arabia and other countries in the area said they will not be part of the attack which means the US is going to have a much harder time doing it. Unless things chage a lot I cannot see it happening any time soon.
So the US is invading Libya when?
Connections with terrorism :- Yes
Actions against US :- Yes (Lockerbie - Pan Am 103 )
Hatred of the US :- Yep