One nuke is exactly as useful as a massive arsenal of nukes - providing your enemy has dubious intelligence at best as to your cababilities (a reasonable assumption for Saddam to make, given the quality of the info being disseminated by his foes and shared with the inspectors). Set that nuke off in an underground test (or aboveground, if you like living dangerously and unambiguously) and announce that Iraq’s words are backed with nuclear weapons and things will change. (If your enemy responds with Consequences, Shmonsequeences then you are in somewhat deeper shit)
Having a hundred nukes would not solve the deterrent problem without a credible delivery system, which Iraq did not have. They could conceivably have either a tactical delivery system (short range missiles) or use them as nuclear land mines.
Overall though, I found accusations about chemical and biological weapons far more credible then mushroom cloud speculations that were pumped pre-war.
Nukes are a subset of WMD. It was an example. There was no intention to say that Saddam had, or was trying to aquire, said WMDs (although, I’m sure if he could have gotten them he would have).
I see your point.
If the intelligence community said that they are sure that X didn’t have nukes, why would someone then believe them when they are also saying that X couldn’t find a way to deliver them? A container ship comes to mind as an easy way to deliver them.
Certailnly. But, chemical and biological weapons aren’t very effective as weapons. And what effectiveness they might have would only work against an equivalent opponent. I would think against the US they would be a one shot deal. Afterwards the B-52’s would be flying overhead to commence the carpetbombing.
Those incidents were thought, at least at the time, to be defections by the pilots.
The WMD’s-to-Syria theory, once again, has no grounding in fact. The idea’s continued existence is just another illustration of the sheer fantasizing that caused this war in the first place.
I don’t know about any of this post war wrangling. All that I know prior to the war, intelligence said he had WMD’s, his own generals thought he had WMD’s. Other nations thought he had WMD’s. Past Presidents of the USA thought he had WMD’s. Political opponents thought he had WMD’s.
I am all for finding out how everyone got such disinformation as for it not to happen again. But based on what was known at the time, this hindsight bullshit is just that. It’s a convenient political platform that people use to further the goals of the party. Nothing more.
Would have we invaded if a Democrat was the President? I don’t know, and more importantly you do not know.
Can we work together to make sure this does not happen again? I would love to think so, but so many people think in donkey, elephant terms that I seriously doubt it.
Wondering if this will become another internet cottage industry, like JFK assassination conspiracy buffs/nuts? As we have witnessed to our horror and dismay, there are those who will not be swayed.
If you are asking why Saddam didn’t use them on us during GWII the answer is easy…Chem/Bio weapons are of limited use against prepared military targets. They are useful against unprepared civilian targets…such as Saudi and (presumably) the civilian population of Israel. Against a modern military (such as the US) invading your country though they are worse than useless…they will probably cause significantly more damage to your own people (and at a guess damage to your own military…I have no definite idea how prepared the IRAQI military was for Chem/Bio weapons, but at a guess I’d say…poorly, like everything else).
Yes, that’s a possible answer. (I don’t really see how Wesley Clark’s question related to mine, but that’s a different thing.) None of it’s persuasive in the end - this thread has a series of reasons everyone’s eyes, ears and common sense could in theory be wrong, but no support for any of it - but that is indeed a possible answer.
Hm. Well, you seemed to be asking a different question than the OP…namely why WMD weren’t used against the US (assuming Iraq had them) during the second GW. Same answer as why they weren’t used during the first GW really…because they wouldn’t be very effective against the US military, and they would actually be detrimental to both the Iraqi civilian population and probably to their own military. Also it would be rather bad form (to understate things) and would probably provoke a rather more heated response than what actually happened (if you can imagine something worse than being booted from power would be to Saddam).
As to the OP’s question I have yet to see any credible evidence that WMD were moved to Syria. Speculation is all well and good, and I can think of several probable reasons FOR moving them, but in the end its mere speculation. And deep down I don’t believe that this is what happened myself. My own razor seems to parse the situation thus: Saddam actually DID get rid of his WMD after GWI…as well as the majority of his manufacturing capability. He may or may not have planned to rebuild eventually (I think he probably did but was rather vague on when exactly…he had a lot of palaces to build and women to rape after all).
He then basically ran what amounted to a rather large rhetorical bluff to convince his neighbors that though it appeared he no longer had the things it would be a mistake to fuck with him and Iraq since they were still there. Seeing that the US was basically in ‘we don’t give a shit’ mode by and large (with a few tossing of tomahawks occationally), things were basically moving on. Saddam could occationally act tough, rant a bit, maybe even toss some missiles at the planes enforcing the No Fly Zones, and then get back to building his next palace…all the while keeping up the illusion that Iraq in fact still had WMD hidden away, ready to squash whoever annoyed Saddam (or, realistically, whoever tried to invade Iraq in its weakend state).
Then 9/11 happened. Everything Changed™…but Saddam didn’t get the memo. He kept trying to play the same old game by the same old rules…but it backfired on him and Iraq. Even seeing the Taliban go down the way they did Saddam didn’t realize that the rules had changed and that the US had a window of opportunity in which we could remove what we thought was a thorn in our side in the region realitively painlessly (this didn’t work out as planned of course), secure a vital national/international resource, project force in a region that impacts not only our own country but the world…and also spread Democracy™ to the ME starting a chain reaction that would cause it to spread to the happy multitudes throughout the world…all of who would joyfully sing the praises of one GW Bush. This didn’t work out that way for us as well…but it was a mistake on Saddams part to not see the Mac Truck coming towards him either. A mistake that cost him basically everything.
Anyway, thats my own take FWIW. I just don’t think he had the things to send to Syria. What, if anything, actually WAS sent to Syria I have no idea. Were I to take a WAG it would be some kind of plunder type stuff…paintings, gold, other goodies of value, etc. Stuff that could be used either to finance a government in exile or to help Saddam and his inner circle lead the cushy life they had come to expect. Just my WAG…
He certainly moved SOMETHING to Syria. There’s been hard intel (cites already posted here on these boards) that many truckloads of shit was moved secretly to Syria. Of course, we don’t know what was in them. My guess is that it was mostly loot, and the rest mostly evidence of a new WMD program start up. Not nessesarily a bunch of actual WMD.
Do we have cites that he did it? I’ve seen that mentioned once or twice on this board, but there was just as much speculation that his top men were trying to save their own loot.
[quote]
So we’re supposing that Saddam, who was cagey enough to rise to power in Iraq and stay there for almost 25 years, was stupid enough to send his best weapons out of the country before the war with no ability to recall them in case the invasion really happened? It’s not that I think the man was a military genius, but to put it mildly, I have a great deal of trouble believing he would be that dumb.[/quote[
You mean like sending AirCraft to the enemy you DID use WMD’s on?