So who thinks the U.S. will bomb the crap out of Iraq in the relatively near future?

Great Debates
41

Oh about the Daily Telegraph story: it is relevant that the newspaper in addition to being a highly partisan pro-Tory paper is owned by Conrad Black who is an outspoken partisan of Israel (he also owns the conservative Jerusalem Post in Israel)

As such I think I will wait for a story in a more reliable newspaper like the NYT or WaPo. How come no one else has picked up this story anyway? About the suspected Al-quaeda terrorists in Iraq most reports suggest they are in Northern Iraq which Saddam doesn’t control and I haven’t read elsewhere of the supposed “links” between Saddam’s intelligence officials and them. Again I will wait for a more reliable source.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101020902-344044,00.html
Meanwhile this is a good article in Time outlining the general case against such links.

42

James Baker, in a NY Times article, has said the US should seek international support before thinking of going ahead. Lawrence Eagleburger has said there is not enough evidence against Iraq. Popular support is decreasing. There is just not enough support for this right now inside or outside the US and President Bush is toning down the rhetoric a notch probably because he is realising the conditions are just not there yet.

43

I think Tony Blair’s official position has rather more to do with being seen to be an ally (which helps Bush and the UK) rather than it being a measure of his, or his Cabinet’s, position. Blair’s primary position remains that he wants the Inspectors back in. Indeed, it 's probable there would be at least one, maybe two, Cabinet resignations should Blair lose all reason and support military action without evidence and without a fresh UN mandate. It won’t happen.

Regarding drawing the political battle lines:

Sam Stone - I’m not clear what it is you believe these people are supporting. For example, in a month the official position has shifted in tone from:

“committed to regime change”, to official leaks regarding the planning of an invasion to “I’m a patient man” – do they each support each of those positions and how did each qualify their position on that particular option ?

Secondly, each mentioned has their own domestic position to protect. The motivation for their respective positions on Iraq could be taken at face value but, for me, it rather fly’s in the face of reason,

Also, take a look at what the Guardian thinks (below) of Baker speaking out (given his links with 41) and an alternative interpretation of Kissinger’s position.

The Guardian has it. Extracts:

“Mr Baker’s declaration followed hard on similar statements by Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser in the first Bush administration, Lawrence Eagleburger, who succeeded Mr Baker as secretary of state, and more delphic utterances in favour of international cooperation from Henry Kissinger, who held the job under presidents Nixon and Ford.
Like Mr Scowcroft, Mr Baker is a normally discreet ally of the Bush family; he performed his last significant service for the dynasty in November 2000 when he took charge of the legal campaign in Florida that stopped Al Gore overturning the result of the presidential election. *The emergence of both men as opponents of a unilateral attack implies a strong link to the thinking of the senior Mr Bush himself, *who has tried to avoid interfering in his son’s administration.”

44

Am I the only one here who feels that we might not exactly have the capacity to wage an all-out war against an army of 250K+ soldiers while mantaining the campaign in Afghanistan and then help stabilize both regiions? Well, I came to this impression from an article in (ahem) Penthouse which was talking about the advice from the nation’s wargame community (inside the pentagon) who advised against it for those reasons. Not that Penthouse is the greatest news source, but similarly does this not sound very outlandish, either.

Anyway… I don’t think we should unless severely pressured into it. And I can’t imagine what would pressure us into it.

45

President Bush is meeting with the Saudi ambassador for some arm-twisting. Let’s see how that goes as it may be an indication of future events

46

There is no doubt that the extreme right supports, and the extreme left opposes, the war. In the vast middle it is a judgment call. I know I’m wavering from day to day.

I’m afraid of what Saddam may do now that he knows he is a marked man. One, he may do nothing in hopes of being ignored. Two, he may strike out with everything he has to seriously hurt the United States. I’m concerned about what he has. We know he has anthrax because we (the U.S.) freaking gave it to him. We know he has chemical weapons including ricin. He may be close to nukes, or not. Nobody is really sure except Saddam and his close associates, and they are not telling.

No, I feel the same way. War is managed chaos. You never know until you know. Mistakes are usually very costly, and not just strategically or geopolitically. Moreover, I worry about who GWB is listening to. I seriously doubt Colin Powell is gung ho, especially since Schwartzkopf is not.

47

Lest you guys think I’m a hawk about this, I too have my doubts. My biggest worry is that Saddam will try to engage the U.S. in s
siege warfare. He has been fortifying his cities, especially Baghdad. Reports are that he has built a huge number of tunnels and cutouts between buildings to allow soldiers to move around from building to building without taking to the streets. He has reinforced buildings, installed machine-gun nests, and divided his cities into a number of autonomous districts with their own food supplies and redundant channels of communication.

If he pulls 50,000 loyal troops into Baghdad, and they start fighting from rooftops and windows, it’s going to get real ugly. Urban warfare is every war planner’s nightmare. Look at how much destruction and world condemnation Israel has suffered just trying to get a handful of terrorists in the occupied territories. Now imagine a huge city full of them, with the resources of a wealthy state behind them. They’ll have anti-tank rockets, mines, booby traps, chemical and biological weapons, etc. And, Saddam is ruthless enough to make sure that situations arise that result in the deaths of many, many civilians. A rocket will fly out of a window at a U.S. tank, the U.S. will destroy the building - and it will turn out to be full of children, with the soldiers long gone through a cutout. How many scenes of dead women and children will the U.S public tolerate before support collapses?

Saddam can’t ‘win’ in a military sense, but he can ‘win’ if he can turn the tide of opinion against the U.S. and force them to back down. Arafat has stayed in power for decades against a much bigger and stronger opponent; Saddam may have learned something from that.

But the big question remains: does Saddam have nukes or really scary biological weapons, and does he intend to use them against us when the opportunity presents itself? If so, then that risk is unacceptable, and war is necessary.

Unfortunately, the most critical information about that possibility is probably classified. So at some point you have to trust the government.

I will say this, though - if the Bush administration goes to war without the approval of Congress (which I think is a bad idea), then it had better be prepared to release reams of intelligence information justifying this at the soonest possible moment that it is safe to do so.

48

I have heard Ken Adelman explain why winning this war will be far easier than it was in 1991. He had four reasons

– Our armaments are much better
– Saddam’s arms are much worsed
– Bad morale and lack of training among Saudi soldiers
– (Cannot remember the fourth)

I think the war will be over unbelievably quickly. There is no reason for Saudi soliders to fight to the death, and every reason for them to surrender quickly, particuloarly once the daisy cutters start falling. They will know that regime change is coming, so Saddam cannot punish them. YMMV.

49

True, but supplies are low, and our military is smaller. False. He has fewer armaments, the quality is about the same. Some of his stuff is new. Iraqi, maybe, see below.

Problems with the analysis:

  1. During the Gulf War our only objective was to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Fighting a war in Iraq is as different as could be. The same troops who quit after a month of bombing and five minutes of actual ground combat will be fighting for their homeland, not just a maniacal dictator making a land grab. See, the Finland Campaign (1939) versus Soviet victory in WWII (1942-45).
  2. City fighting as Sam noted above.
  3. Conquering more territory (acerage wise) is simply more difficult and requires more troops.
  4. OK, we win. Now what the hell do we do? Liberating Kuwait was simple. Win the war, turn it back over to the ungrateful royalty. We could have to deal with a resistance movement, or increased domestic terrrorism both in severity and frequency. How do we set up a government? Yadda, yadda.
  5. What about a rationale? How does the President justify fighting a war of conquest without some new UN resolutions, or an imminent threat? We need more evidence and debate. Of course if, while we debate, Saddam blows up a container ship with a nuke in New York Harbor, or starts a huge smallpox epidemic, I was wrong.
  6. Allies, we don’t presently have any. During the Gulf War we had dozens. We based out of Saudi Arabia. Maybe the King of Jordan, but he denies it vehemently in public. Maybe the UK, but they are mostly against it.
  7. Air power is great, but we’ve seen the weaknesses in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. A determined adversary can partially blunt the military advantage. Civilians suffer in all kinds of war, but the media latches on to bombing mistakes. This is a political dimension that cannot be ignored (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Kosovo). Combine this with possible block to block city fighting and you have one huge recipe for disaster. The smart thing militarily would be to bomb and shell the particular urban area flat. Does anyone have any problems with that?
50

Actually the conventional portion of a war may well go quite easily. However the US cannot assume the best-case scenario and has to plan for all contigencies.

In any case the coventional war is the least of the problems of an invasion. The biggest problems are:
1)A cornered,desperate Saddam using WMD against US troops and Israel (and possible massive retaliation by Israel).
2)A cornered,desperate Saddam passing on WMD to terrorists

(Note that as long as Saddam is not desperate he has very strong incentives to forego both of the above options)

  1. A chaotic, post-Saddam Iraq with WMD lying all over the place which eventually into the hands of terrorists.

As I have said several times you could easily have a situation where an invasion is successful and Saddam is gone but where Al-quaeda has a much improved bio/chemical capacity. This would be a catastrophe for the US because terrorists are much harder to deter than Saddam.

Unfortunately the hawks more or less ignore all the three above dangers and seem to just wish them away. That is why their case is hopelessly weak. They pick and choose which arguments to answer and just ignore all the best arguments against invasion.

51

This thread seems to have morphed into the topicPROs and CONs of attacking Iraq. I’ll continue in that vein.

Cyber-Pundit, I was doing fine with your post until you got to the last paragraph. I will assume that all sides are debating with honesty and good will.

There are a great many risks to attacking and a great many risks to not attacking. It’s hard to compare them, because they vary greatly in magnitude and probability. For the sake of clarity, I would avoid the term “WMD.” Sometimes it’s used to mean chemical, bological and nuclear weapons, but other times it’s used as a euphemism for just nuclear weapons. An example of the latter usage is when people express worry that Saddam may “develop WMDs,” although he already possesses and has used chemical weapons and probably biological weapons as well…

CP’s three concerns are certainly things to worry about. However, for us hawks, the key point is that he does not have any nukes yet (we think.) But, he might have them in 2 years or 5 years, according to two estimates I’ve heard. Of course, these are just guesses. He might never acquire nukes or he might get a nuclear arsenal before year end. We might be contemplating war a couple of years from now, but CP’s three concerns might then be about nuclear weapons.

Beagle raised some good arguments, too. His first three suggest that a war might be hard to win. Not having military expertise, I do not know how to decide between Beagle’s scenario and Ken Adelman’s scenario. However, I nobody at all thinks we win the war. The question is more like, will it takea month or a year? How many American and enemy casualties will there be? What will it cost?

Beagle’s point #4 is worth considering. We ought to plan for the things mentioned there. Hoiwver, I am confident that we could deal with the problems s/he raises. Looking at wars we have won, e.g. against Germany, Japan, Italy, and Grenada, we have always found ways to deal with the post war situation, even though we didn’t necessarily have a plan when the war first began.

The question or rationale will have to be dealt with, both domestically and internationally. Ultimately some people will be satisfied with the rationale and some won’t be.

I’d rather have allies than not. I think when war is committed, many countries now on the fence will become our allies, because we will pressure them to do so. Still, as long as we have bases to lauch planes from, we don’t need many allies. In particular, we don’t need Europe at all – at least not militarily.

I quite disagree with this statement: Air power is great, but we’ve seen the weaknesses in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. On the contrary, air power failed in Vietnam, but succeeded beyond most people’s expectations in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Bill Clinton was widely criticized for using air power alone in Kosovo, but his critics turned out to be wrong. It worked. Afghnaistan was supposed to become a “quagmire.” Instead, the Taliban government was overthrown in a couple of months.

Why was air power so effective in Afghanistan and Kosovo, when it failed in Vietnam? [ul][]Technological improvements: smart boms, daisy cutters, computer-operated drones[]The terrain. In Vietnam, enemy soldiers could take cover from plane in the jungle.[/ul]When we look at the risk of NOT attacking Iraq

52

I apologize for accidentally sending an incomplete post (and long one, too.) I know it had gotten lost somewhere! Here’s the full version. If a moderator happens by, could you please delete the incomplete version? Thanks.

This thread seems to have morphed into the topic:
PROs and CONs of attacking Iraq. I’ll continue in that vein.

Cyber-Pundit, I was doing fine with your post until you got to the last paragraph. I will assume that all sides are debating with honesty and good will.

There are a great many risks to attacking and a great many risks to not attacking. It’s hard to compare them, because they vary greatly in magnitude and probability. For the sake of clarity, I would avoid the term “WMD.” Sometimes it’s used to mean chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, but other times it’s used as a euphemism for just nuclear weapons. An example of the latter usage is when people express worry that Saddam may “develop WMDs,” although he already possesses and has used chemical weapons and probably biological weapons as well…

CP’s three concerns are certainly things to worry about. However, for us hawks, the key point is that he does not have any nukes yet (we think.) But, he might have them in 2 years or 5 years, according to two estimates I’ve heard. Of course, these are just guesses. He might never acquire nukes or he might get a nuclear arsenal before year end. We might be contemplating war a couple of years from now, but CP’s three concerns might then be about nuclear weapons.

Beagle raised some good arguments, too. His first three suggest that a war might be hard to win. Not having military expertise, I do not know how to decide between Beagle’s scenario and Ken Adelman’s scenario. However, nobody at all doubts that we will win the war. The questions are: Will it take a month or a year? How many American and enemy casualties will there be? What will it cost? However, our victory is virtually certain.

Beagle’s point #4 is worth considering. We ought to plan for post-war Iraq. However, I am confident that we could deal with the situation. Look at wars we have won, e.g. against Germany, Japan, Italy, and Grenada. We have always found ways to deal with the post war situation, even though we didn’t necessarily have a plan when the war first began.

The question or rationale will have to be dealt with, both domestically and internationally. Ultimately some people will be satisfied with the rationale and some won’t be.

I’d rather have allies than not. I think when Bush definitely commits to the war, many countries will jump off the fence and become our allies – because we will pressure them to do so. Still, as long as we have bases to launch planes from, we don’t need many allies. In particular, we don’t need Europe at all – at least not militarily.

I quite disagree with this statement: Air power is great, but we’ve seen the weaknesses in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. On the contrary, air power failed in Vietnam, but succeeded beyond most people’s expectations in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Bill Clinton was widely criticized for using air power alone in Kosovo, but his critics turned out to be wrong. It worked. Afghanistan was supposed to become a “quagmire.” Instead, the Taliban government was overthrown in a couple of months.

Why was air power so effective in Afghanistan and Kosovo, when it failed in Vietnam? [ul][li]Technological improvements: smart bombs, daisy cutters, computer-operated dronesThe terrain. In Vietnam, enemy soldiers could take cover from plane in the jungle.[/ul]Now, let’s consider the risk of NOT attacking Iraq. Attacking in the future will be more risky than attacking now, because Saddam will have had more time to get nukes. The concerns expressed by CP & Beagle will be even stronger. If we don’t attack now, we certainly won’t attack when the risks are greater. In short, if we’re ever going to attack Iraq, the sooner, the better.[/li]
But, what if we never attack Iraq? Krauthammer projects a future where Saddam uses the threat of nuclear weapons to conquer other middle eastern countries. Threatened with nuclear attack, would we defend Kuwait again?

I think the risk of not attacking is worse than the risk of attacking, although either course is a risky enterprise.

53

December,
The problem with the hawks ,both in the administration and the media, is not so much a lack of “goodwill” as an intellectual inability to confront the best arguments against war. For instance do you know any pro-war commentator who has addressed in detail the points in my previous post.? I haven’t.
The main argument seems to be that Saddam is so incredibly scary that invasion must be carried out regardless of the costs and dangers. Frankly that’s not enough.

A few points about Saddam acquiring nuclear weapons which I discussed in some detail in an earlier thread:
1)There is no reason why intrusive inspections wouldn’t be able to destroy Saddam’s nuclear facilities as they very successfully managed in the 90’s. At worst they will stop his nuclear capabilities from growing so that he is never able augment them to actual nuclear status.
2) A nuclear Saddam would be troublesome but not catastrophic. There have been brutal expansionist dictators who have controlled nukes and the nukes didn’t mean that they could run over their region unopposed like some hawks fear with a nuclear Saddam. The US would still have many huge advantages in deterring Saddam including the fact that Saddam doesn’t have the means to nuke the US itself.
3) If just acquiring nukes would make Saddam so invincible wouldn’t he have waited to acquire them before attacking Kuwait ? He was very close to acquiring them at that time. So his own decisions suggest that he doesn’t consider nuclear weapons to be the end-all of his strategic capacities.

The bottom line is that :
a)a nuclear Saddam, while scary, is much less scary than hawks seem to think
b)Anyways inspectors will be able to prevent Saddam from acquiring nukes based on past experience.

So I don’t think the nuclear issue comes close to overriding the enormous risks which I outlined in my previous post.

54

My next sentence regarding air power was this: “A determined adversary can partially blunt the military advantage.” To wit, columns of Serbian vehicles streaming out of Kosovo. I agree that we accomplished our political goals in Kosovo. We did not, however, stop the humanitarian crisis on the ground or destroy the bulk of the Serbian military.

As for Vietnam it was the huge tunnel complexes, not so much the jungle, that blunted the effectiveness of air power. In Iraq the cities will provide the tunnel effect.

Regarding Iraq, the Kosovo and Vietnam examples mean to me simply that we cannot over rely on air power to get the job done. I would like to reiterate the ethical prohibition on, and possible military necessity of, bombing cities if we attack Iraq. I think Sam [sub]who is probably tearing me a new one over on the SUV pit thread. Must…stop…looking at that damn thing.[/sub] made some excellent points on city fighting.

Basically, I agree with everyone on this thread. Saddam may be an enormous threat, or not. We may be able to contain him, or not. Inspectors might get the necessary job done, or not. We might have a walkover in Iraq, or not. Sorry, I wish I was more help.

The risks inherent in not attacking are almost the same as the risks inherent in attacking. It could be a question of who takes on the risk, Israel, the U.S., civilians, or soldiers. If we go soon the risks are on the U.S. military. If we wait the risks may get shifted to Israel or our own civilian population. Or, if we wait Saddam may do nothing and eventually have a heart attack and die. I read that Saddam exercises and eats right. Damn.

55

CP, you wrote, *“There is no reason why intrusive inspections wouldn’t be able to destroy Saddam’s nuclear facilities as they very successfully managed in the 90’s. At worst they will stop his nuclear capabilities from growing so that he is never able augment them to actual nuclear status.” *

Can you expand on this. In particular,[ul][li]Why do you think inspections will work. At no point after the last war did Saddam ever permit intrusive inspections. Then he kicked the inspectors out. Now, despite the imminant risk of an all-out US attack, he still is keeping the UN inspectors out. Why do think things would be different from this disappointing record?[]I seem to have forgotten about us successfully destroying Saddam’s nuclear facilities in the 90’s. Can youyu provide some details or cites?[]How certain are you that we could prevent nuclear research and development. I went to the U. of Chicago. The original US nuclear research was done in an undeground lab under a small portion of the football field. It didn’t cover much area. Iraq is a big country. How could we be sure of finding every conceivable nuclear lab?[/ul]I do risk assessment for a living. We always look at the worst case and the best case. Let’s compare attacking vs. not attackingon this basis. [/li]
The worst case if we attack is a long, drawn-our war, causing the death and wounding of thousands of US troops, as well as many, many Iraqis and Israelis. The worst case if we do not attack is the Tel Aviv or London or the New York metropolitian area is blown up and millions are killed, followed by an all-our attack on Iraq, killing millions of Iraqis.

Now let’s look at the best case. If we don’t attack, the best case is that Saddam never does get nukes, and the status quo continues. If we do attack, the best case is that Iraq gets democracy, we end the risk of WMDs in Iraq, and other middle east countries follow a more pro-America policy, because they no longer fear Saddam and they have greater respect and fear for America.

56

Actually, I’d argue that the worst case if we do attack is that the entire region becomes destabilized. This could lead to any number of situations, none of them ending in a peaceful democratic middle east. Since we have no allies whatsoever, we could easily find ourselves on the wrong side of world war three.

The best case scenerio is that Saddamn is replaced, perhaps even by a pro-american democracy (although I doubt any democracy would stay pro-american for long- people tend not to like countries that invade their countries and overthrow their leaders). It’s more likey that fundamentalism will take hold there (the current regime isn’t too into fundamentalism- it’s no fun to be a dictator if people care more about religion than you) Terrorism won’t stop, and it’s likely that we’ll see more of it as we earn our “great satan” nickname. The Middle East isn’t going to suddenly decide they like us because we invaded their neighbor. I can think of no way that attacking Iraq will gain us any points in the region. Even Israel isn’t going to appreciate all the flak that they catch (expect even more terrorism there, because it’s easier to reach Israel than the US). Countries that are already nuclear, like China and Pakistan, will have more hostilities towards us, and if they jump into the fray it’ll get real ugly real fast.

Seems a lot to risk for someone who might get nukes, has no way of getting near us with them, and has everything to gain by acting like a bad-ass but nothing to gain by actually attacking the US.

57

December,
I am advocating a major diplomatic push for intrusive inspections backed by a threat of military force. I suspect Saddam would back down faced with such a threat but if he doesn’t, I would probably support a military attack.

I couldn’t find the source which listed the precise amount of bio/chem weapons,missiles and nuclear facilities that were destroyed by inspectors but it was very substantial amount. Just consider the fact that after the Gulf War in 1991 it was discovered that Iraq was very close to building nuclear weapons. Now 11 years later Iraq is still several years, at the least, from building nukes. Clearly in the intervening period its nuclear facilities were largely destroyed.

Remember that it’s not just inspectors alone but inspectors combined with potential defectors, satellite surveillance and other intelligence. Also remember that inspectors don’t have to destroy all the weapons overnight but only destroy more than Saddam can obtain so as to reduce his total stock over time till it’s eliminated.

Finally, like I mentioned earlier there is no guarantee that an invasion would succeed either in destroying all WMD or preventing a future government from seeking them. Neither option guarantees success but inspections are a much less costly and risky option.

58

Say what ? In UNSCOM’s best estimate, they got to 90-95% of his chemical, biological and nuclear capability. Just as an example:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/iraq/iraq.maps/palaces/

Again: Say what ?

For someone so vocal on the subject and, also, for someone given so many opportunities in this forum to understand better, you are surprisingly ill informed.

Lets be clear then:

One - Saddam did not expel weapons inspectors (lets call 'em UNSCOM, just for giggles), they left immediately before Clinton resumed missile strikes and at the behest of the US.

Two - Saddam has also adopted a negotiating position for their return. The US refuses to negotiate. Is that non-negotiating position reasonable ? Given the history and IMHO, no it isn’t.

Why isn’t the US position reasonable ?

It’s accepted (now) by head of mission Richard Butler that UNSCOM was – despite being a UN Special Commission – a US/Israeli spying mission. UNSCOM did its job well but it also exceeded its mandate by spying. Indeed, at least four of the Inspectors were Israeli spys.

That’s one reason why UNSCOM was impeded – Saddam knew they were both Inspectors and spy’s.

Second reason UNSCOM was impeded – Clinton and Allbright. Scott Ritter:
"ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And why weren’t you allowed to accomplish it?

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, again, we have a problem with this-with the United States. On April 6th, the President of the United States submitted a report to Congress in which he clearly states that a diplomatic solution had been tried. We have a memorandum of understanding, and the marker’s on the table now. Iraq must be held accountable for the agreement that they have signed with the Secretary-General and which was endorsed by the Security Council in its Resolution 1154. If Iraq didn’t, there would be the severest consequences. You had this statement on the one hand, but on the other hand, this administration’s saying, wait a minute, we can’t go forward with aggressive inspections because they will lead to a confrontation with Iraq, but let’s understand the confrontation is because Iraq will not comply with the law passed by the Security Council. So we weren’t allowed to do our job out of fear of a confrontation in which the United States would not be able to muster the required support of the Security Council to respond effectively or to respond in a manner which they had said they would respond in Resolution 1154. "
So, the US said “don’t inspect” because it’s confrontational, yet it was confrontational because of the US led spying agenda. Now Saddam adopts a negotiating position for their return and the US says “we won’t negotiate” – As Aretha Franklin said: Who’s zooming who ?

BTW, Ritter resigned from UNSCOM because of US interference in the mission. Go figure, Mr Neu Joysee.

Read above. The “disapointing record” seems to belong to the US and the UN and maybe, but maybe, Saddam. Fact is, he was (later) vindicated in his belief UNSCOM was a US spying vehicle by Richard Butler head of the UNSCOM mission who appologised to Ritter publically for letting the US spys intefere.

BTW, having read many UNSCOM related documents, I don’t think anyone believes a Weapons Inspectorate can ever guarantee locating 100% of the potentiality - you just keep going and going.

59

What I don’t understand is that the US keeps using the Churchillian stance towards hostile states and it’s allies, but it’s allies have a point, they know that weapons inspections are better than bringing futher turmoil in the Middle East.

America needs a new oil supply, because Saudi Arabia internally is becoming a wreck, and will possibly become the new Iran in no time soon. So naturally, they look to Iraq, where Islamic extremism as an undercurrent is lower than Saudi Arabia.

The US keeps comparing Iraq to Nazi germany! Lets see the comparisons-

Nazi Germany had a large industrial base and a large airforce.

Saddam airforce comprises of MiGs. Compared to the US, this is hardly a threat.

Nazi Germany had rearmed itself and became a world power. Saddam is barely is a regional power.

The only comparison I can make is that they both made demands for territory.

Don’t take this as a pro Saddam stance, I’m just stating the fact that Saddam would be better off being assasinated rather than being subjected to a full scale invasion by allied troops. Plus, Saddam is rumored to have cancer, so natural death might take care of him after all.

60

Plus It would stop him using his most deadly weapons in desperation, if an allied invasion was planned.