# What if Saddam flees Iraq?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-saddam-flees-iraq/160988>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 13, 2003, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-saddam-flees-iraq/160988 "2003-03-13T01:12:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-saddam-flees-iraq/160988/1 "2003-03-13T01:12:43Z")

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Okay, the troops go in with all guns blazing. The Iraqi military take a pounding in only a few days. Hussein reads the reports, looks at the numbers, and, being the courageous principled man that he is, hops on a jet and runs like a scared rabbit to safety in another country. (And while I have no idea which country that might be, let’s not kid ourselves that no one will take him. He might also go underground, but I have a hunch he wouldn’t.)

What then?

Do we give whatever nation has given him sanctuary a deadline, and then send in the special forces when the deadline expires?

Do we let him alone, content to have driven him from power in Iraq?

This seems to me a plausible, even likely, scenario. So what plans, if any, do we have if Saddam flees Iraq and successfully finds sanctuary somewhere else?