That’s not totally unreasonable, but given that Al Qaeda is still carrying out terrorist attacks, can anybody really consider this to be the case at present?
Which is a weasly way of saying “We will use whatever justification is most convenient.” I have no doubts that, if G.I. Joe suddenly found a stockpile of anthrax in Iraq next week, the Administration would be crowing about how “the war was all about disarming Iraq” within the hour.
Glad you like it.
I agree. So, how sure are we that he can no longer do any harm? Certainly we must think he can, otherwise we wouldn’t be carrying out the sort of extensive operation manhattan is describing against his organization. I agree that, given a bit of breathing space, Osama and Al-Qaeda would soon constitute a real threat once again. The Bush administration apparently isn’t giving them the opportunity for such a respite, and for once, I’m fully behind them.
Without a country to rule, Saddam doesn’t represent a threat to the larger world. Whether or not he can stir up trouble in Iraq remains to be seen, but with each passing day, I think his ability to do so weakens. (Assuming he’s alive to begin with.) It would be good to capture him, or find his body, just to put the bogeyman to rest: the Iraqi people must still fear the possibility of his return. But other than that, it’s not at all important that the U.S. find him, and not finding him alive saves us the trouble of trying him, as others have already said. So not finding Saddam isn’t a meaningful failure or setback for the Bush administration and its war aims, whatever they may have been.
According to US intelligence, Al Qaeda is as much or more of a threat than it was prior to September 11. The war made their operations more difficult to disrupt, in a sense: they’re less centralized than they were and more spread out.
From Marley23:
“According to US intelligence, Al Qaeda is as much or more of a threat than it was prior to September 11. The war made their operations more difficult to disrupt, in a sense: they’re less centralized than they were and more spread out.”
There is a difference in the level of the threat though (IMO anyway). Something like 9/11 takes a lot of money, training and organization (not to mention luck). I doubt that ObL and his merry men are up for it these days. I think the real danger with AQ is our tendency in this country to forget. Take the pressure off these guys, and reguardless of if ObL is still alive and in charge or not, they will be back to doing everything they can to make our lives here miserable.
As to the OP, I don’t think that SH is much of a threat alive or dead. He just doesn’t have the following, now that he’s out of power. The only future threat I could see from him is if the whole WMD thing was real, and he managed to get some of it out of country…and into the hands of guys like ObL and AQ.
I wonder if Aziz’s insistence even after his capture that Iraq never had any WMDs means that he was telling the truth, or if it has something to do with his belief/insistence that Saddam is still alive…
I can definitely see where you’re coming from with that, but tell it to the people in Bali, you know? Unfortunately only time will tell how dangerous they are and in what way.
Right. There was, and is, concern that the war with Iraq - and impending trouble with Syria, Iran, North Korea - could take pressure off of Al Qaeda, which I think we’d all agree would be trouble.
Some lessons for the commentators here:
(a) al-Qaeda and related organizations have survived savage bouts of repression before, in their home region. There is an established history of going to ground and rebuilding capacity. Cell structures make the organizations hard to crack, as the French learned in Algeria and the Algerians have learned fighting the GIA.
(b) There appears to be a pattern in al-Qaeda of several year lead times to planning big operations. It is far too early to tell if claims that they have been significantly disrupted are true or not.
© Osama bin Laden’s continued survival has real importance as a symbolic motivator for that branch of radicals in the population motived by Islamism and almost Mahdist theology. Actual top down organizational control may be unnecessary if regional organizations are able to continue to recruit - which in part depends on the environment.
On Sadaam. I do not see his survival as a failure, but it could be a risk insofar as if Sadaam went underground with an explicit plan for a guerrilla resurgance once US guard is down, and if the situation continues to be insecure, then Sadaam might be an important lever - symbol for secularist nationalist opposition.
Yes, Osama is a threat, whether he is alive or can be presumed alive. As long as Osama is perceived as evading capture or death by the US he gains credibility. Big problem.
But I don’t put Saddam in the same category, assuming he’s alive. He can’t lead a guerilla movement, his power depends on control of Iraq. Since he has no control over Iraq, he has no power. Sure, he may have a few hundred million dollars stashed away somewhere. But would he use that to fund a resistance movement in Iraq? I sincerely doubt it. No matter what resources Saddam has put away, they pale in comparison to US resources. And without Iraq’s oil wealth under his control, his assets are not renewable.
Saddam isn’t interested in symbolic victories, he’s interested in Saddam Hussein. There is no way a Saddam-lead faction can retake power in Iraq. So his only option is exile. If Saddam is alive, he is headed for some country that has agreed to shelter him in return for a cut of his looted billions. And both he and his host must keep this secret, since it would give the US a causis belli against the host country if they refuse to hand him over.
Oh, and I don’t agree that capturing and punishing Saddam would be an embarressment to the US. The simplest and most elegant solution would be to hold him for a year to two until the new Iraqi justice system is in place, then turn him over to the Iraqis. There would be no need to prosecute him for such vague crimes as possessing WMD or waging war or invading other countries or flouting UN resolutions. Under any legal system, murder is going to be illegal. And it shouldn’t be difficult to pin any number of murder charges on Saddam, as many as you want. A few thousand counts of murder for his actions as dictator of Iraq should get him the death penalty pretty easily.