The rationale behind attacking Iraq?

I am having trouble understanding what the precise purpose of a war on Iraq is.

There appears to be widesrpead agreement that the main danger isn’t Saddam directly using WMD, which would invite massive retaliation but of him passing WMD to terrorist groups.

However I fail to see how exactly a war reduces the chance of that happening.

  1. As of now there are two constraints on Saddam passing on WMD to Islamic terrorists: his fear that they will use them on his own regime and his fear of what America would do if it found out. These constraints don’t exist if Saddam is sure he will go. The moment the US decides to fight a war to eliminate Saddam he has no incentive to restrain himself and will probably do his maximum to spread his WMD as far as possible as a final act of revenge.

  2. If there is a war and the regime falls there will inevitably be period of anarchy before order is restored. Wouldn’t this be a golden opportunity for Al Quaeda to steal WMD from Iraq? It’s not clear to me how chaos in post-war Iraq helps keep the WMD safe.

The bottom line is that a war on Iraq may lead to a situation where Saddam is gone (an excellent thing for sure) but where terrorist groups receive a big boost to their WMD stockpiles. Is that a good bargain?

What evidence do you have that Saddam feers terrorists using weapons of mass distruction against his regime?

The idea is that we don’t wait for Saddam to develop nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass distruction and hope he doesn’t use them. Saddam appears to have no constraints on using such weapons, even against his own people. His lighting of the Kuwait oil fields also demonstrated his willingness to strike out at his enemies out of spite, even in defeat. While the US can tolerate Saddam in power, we cannot tolerate a nuclear armed Saddam in power.

It is highly likely that a top priority of an operation against Iraq would be to secure or destroy any such weapons. Also, while Saddam has chemical weapons, it is not believed that he has nuclear weapons yet.

And how would the terrorists gain access to these weapons? The Saddam Going Out of Bussiness Sale?

I’m not sure we will attack him. If we can force him to open up and ease the tensions on his end we get everything we want.

“What evidence do you have that Saddam feers terrorists using weapons of mass distruction against his regime?”
Well it’s no secret that Saddam and the Islamic fundamentalists don’t like each other and also that Saddam is completely paranoid about any force which potentially threatens his grip on power so it’s no stretch to believe that he wouldn’t want WMD to fall into their hands.

"Saddam appears to have no constraints on using such weapons, even against his own people. "
The difference is “his own people” couldn’t retaliate with WMD whereas the US can. During the Gulf war threats of retaliation deterred Saddam from using WMD.

The issue isn’t whether the world would be a better place without Saddam, no one disputes that it would.
The issue is that fighting a war with the intention of eliminating Saddam might mean that terrorist groups are more, not less, likely to obtain WMD from Iraq either through deliberate actions on Saddam’s part(as his parting shot) or through general anarchy.

Like I said I don’t see the advantage of a scenario where Saddam is gone but Al Quaeeda has better WMD at its disposal.

And proponents of military action against Iraq don’t seem to even acknowledge the problem much less give cogent arguments why the threat isn’t significant.

I

Missed a couple of points:
“It is highly likely that a top priority of an operation against Iraq would be to secure or destroy any such weapons”
War is chaos. Iraq is a big country ,chem/bio stockpiles don’t take up that much space and it is doubtful whether the US has that much intelligence on the locations of every single WMD stock. I am not sure how successful such an operation would be.
“And how would the terrorists gain access to these weapons? The Saddam Going Out of Bussiness Sale?”
When Saddam realizes the game is up for him you don’t think that either his agents or Quaeda agents coudn’t smuggle WMD stockpiles out of Iraq? The Iraqi borders are pretty porous you know.

“Because it’s there…”

They can do this now.
That’s the whole point. if we do nothing as you suggest, Saddam can continue developing WMD and smuggle them to whomever he chooses. By removing him from power, we can disrupt his development and take control of the situation.

What would you propose?

At the end of WWII, we tried, convicted and hanged war criminals. This we defined as making “aggressive war”. We recognized, of course, the right of any nation to respond to military belligerance in kind. But we further declared that defensive war is the only legitimate war. To emphasize our sincerity in this regard, we hanged a few people.

If we then indulge ourselves in a “premptive war” we will be committing a war crime, as we ourselves have defined it. Our Leader apparently intends to justify this on the presumption that Goddam Hussein intends to do us dirt. This is foreign policy by way of precognition. Is Miss Cleo going to be offered a cabinet position, or will she be attached to the Defense Department?

That’s the legal aspect. The moral dimensions are horrifying to civilized people, and fall under the titanic euphemism of “collateral damage.” Does anyone imagine for a moment that military defeat of Iraq will be accomplished without the deaths of thousand and thousands of Iraqi civilians, who are no more culpable than our own. Fix it clearly in your mind: “colateral damage” is slaughter. It is the massacre of innocents, nothing less, and we should be bitterly ashamed to even contemplate such.

In the words of Mr. Jefferson, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” Amen, brother. Amen.

“They can do this now.”
The whole point is that Saddam’s incentives now are different from when the US attacks. I have already explained the two reasons why supplying terrorists would be a bad idea from his own pov now.
“What would you propose?”
Better intelligence and deterrence(which has proved to work in the past with Saddam). I wouldn’t rule out war but use it more as a threat to get UN inspectors back .

You still haven’t explained why a war wouldn’t make things worse from the pov. of terrorists obtaining WMD. The fact is that any war is a huge gamble because it destablizes the very regime that is keeping the WMD secure at the moment.

The initial post seems to assume Iraq already has Weapons of Mass Destruction. Iraq has chemical weapons, but does not yet have nuclear weapons or long range missiles.

Once Iraq gets nuclear weapons or long range missles, as the OP says, attacking will be too-late. By all estimates, this will happen in 3 to 10 years if Saddam is left unchecked.

The ideal way to prevent Iraq from attaining nuclear capabilities is through diplomacy, but that has failed. The next best way is with a threat that never comes to fruition. That’s exactly what we’re doing now. We’re threatening to destroy the Iraqi military if they don’t comply with out demands. Hopefully, Saddam’s generals will be more saine than he is, and will turn his military against him, and oust him, rather than fight against us.

For this threat to be credible, it must be real.

Lastly, if all other options fail, we must be preemptive. Elicidator seems to think that preemptive war is never justified.

By reductio ad absurdom, imagine a ship with a nuclear weapon heading towards New York Harbor. The owners of the ship have declared their intentions to explode the nuclear device when they reach New York. By Elicidator’s argument, we could not attack the ship until it had actually reached New York and exploded its device. Simply amassing weapons and declaring an intent to use them would not justify preemptive strike.

This is, of course, absurd. Yet, this is exactly what is happening in Iraq. Saddam is developing nuclear weapons, and has declared his intention of using them against US interests. Once he has a weapon and a missle, to follow the analagy, the ship has arrived at New York. We have a moral obligation to stop that ship from arriving, and to minimize “collatoral damage” in the process.

Unfortunately, without the help of Saddam, it will be impossible for us to eliminate “collatoral damage”.

Actually Iraq probably posseses extensive biological weapons perhaps including smallpox.

OTOH there is considerable dispute about its nuclear program and many people would dispute the idea that Iraq is 3-10 years away from the bomb.

Even if it were I am not sure that Osama with bio-weapons (obtained from a chaotic post-war Iraq) is less scary.

The bottom line is that there are risks in leaving Saddam in power and risks in fighting a war to eliminate him. The problem is that people who advocate the latter don’t seem to have the faintest grip on how risky the latter option is which doesn’t leave one with much confidence that they have thought things through.

Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot!

By your remark about “never coming to fruition”, you would seem to be implying a bluff. Seeking to unnerve a heavily armed paranoid seems to me a course of action fraught with evil possibilities. Mostly, dead folks. Lots of them. Bad mojo. Elucidator no like.

You analogy of the ship does indeed reduce my argument to an absurdity, but the absurdity lies in the premise. You state as a given, the ship is a nuke and we know it. No such certainty applies here, despite Our Leader’s much vaunted capacity to scan another world leader’s soul. (Frankly, I’m impressed he even detected Vlad Putin’s soul, much less plumbed its depths.)

I did not state that “pre-emptive war” (i.e., Pearl Harbor) is never justified. Only that America has publicly committed our nation to the principle that aggressive war is a crime against humanity, and is punishable as such.

Finally, perhaps most importantly, I dare you to show me where Goddam Hussein baldly states “I’m developing nuclear weapons to use on the USA”. Please supply your cite at your earliest convenience.

The other issue that a war with Iraq now is far less likely to garner regional support than the Gulf War did. Most Middle Eastern countries are desperate to trade with Iraq and have signed various agreements. They want Iraq back as a friendly neighbour, not an enemy.

So not only would they probably not support a war on Iraq, by contrast they would actively oppose it. At the very least, there would be high-level political mutterings against America taking military action, even if they sat on the fence and didn’t directly protest.

However on the ground-level it could be absolutely explosive. Given that one of Al Qaeda’s main bones of contention is America’s military presence in the region - specifically Saudi - increased presence would only flame current and potential Al Qaeda supporters. It would probably also inflame the ordinary people-in-the-street protestors.

Unofficial Saudi boycotts of US products at the moment (in protest at Washington’s perceived pro-Israeli bias) have already seen US exports to Saudi Arabia plunge 33 per cent to 2.8 billion dollars in the six month period from September 2001 to March this year. In the first quarter of 2001, US exports to Saudi fell 43 per cent to 986 million from 1.74 billion a year earlier. By contrast, Japanese and European exports have seen significant growth.

God only knows what would happen if America now launched a new war on Iraq.

Funny, I thought the Nueremburg trials were about committing genocide and attrocities against civilians, not invading France and Poland.

Pearl Harbor is justified but pre-emptively attacking an enemy who is building nuclear weapons is not?

Why would he say this and give the US an excuse to attack him?

Then since he has not, MHand, you agree that there is no excuse to attack?

I doubt the USA can get any foreign support if it goes against Iraq. On the contrary, it would probably make Europe more sympathetic to Iraq. I doubt the US would go to war with Iraq under those circumstances.

Are you denying here that Iraq is trying to create nuclear weapons?! The evidence is overwhelming. As one example, Iraq ordered 6 lithotripters (medical equipment for kidney stone removal) and 120 spare switches. That’s about 100 more spare switches than he could ever possibly need for his 6 machines. The high-precision switches are also necessary for timing the implosive charges in a nuclear fission devise. A google search found this article describing his purchase, but this appeared in every major newspaper:

http://www.iraqwatch.org/wmd/lithotripter.html

Do you advocate that we let him build nuclear weapons and see what he does with them, before resorting to military action! By then the ship will have arrive at New York, to continue my earlier analogy.

If not now, when do you think military action WOULD be justified? How long do we have to wait?

There is some doubt as to Iraq’s WMD program.

From this Guardian article:

The article you posted has what it calls “a vocal minority” of experts saying that Iraq doesn’t currently have WMD. It says that it is not in doubt that he “aggresively pursuing” WMD, and admits that the majority of the experts (as opposed to the “vocal minority”) think he has chemical or biological WMD.

It does not directly mention his nuclear program, and certainly doesn’t contradict my assertion that experts disagree mostly over WHEN, and not IF Iraq will have nuclear devices.

Look, we all agree that Saddam is not to be trusted.

In 1991, Saddam took the decision to begin hiding his weapons. They were dismantled and the components were spread all over Iraq. Then they began to actively obstruct the work of the weapons inspectors:

In an interview with Frontline Scott Ritter said:

By 1995, the weapons inspectors were almost ready to give up because they weren’t finding anything. But then came the defection of Hussein Kamel.

This added new impetus to the weapons inspections but the problem was that the US government was not supportive enough, not pro-active enough. In the first link above, Scott Ritter says:

So what is required is a more effective version of UNSCOM (an UNSCOM with teeth) not necessarily an all out war in which thousands of innocent civilians will be killed.

One last quote from Scott Ritter: