What if Saddam used a nuke?

Purely hypothetical here, but one of our stated goals in this whole Iraqi conflict thing is to “liberate” the Iraqi people, and to that end we are supposedly being very careful to limit civilian casualties as much as possible.

So what do you think would happen if Saddam actually had nuclear weapons and, say, dropped a bomb on Kuwait or Israel (I’m assuming there’s no way in hell he would ever be able to actually drop one on the U.S.)? Would the U.S. respond in kind and reduce Bagdad to a radioactive crater, thereby killing tens or hundreds of thousands of noncombatants the way we did the last two times we used nuclear weapons?

Just wondering what people think…

Barry

Yes, and what if he goes Die Hard (the Die Hard badguy, that is,) and blows up Bagdad?

Look at the positives for him:

  1. Lots of people will think he’s dead (I assume he would be elswhere during the explosion.)
  2. Lots of invading aggressors get killed, if he times it right
  3. No puppet government gets set up, at least for a while
  4. Maybe the Americans get blamed & all Muslims go nuts on us

What part of our nuclear weapons policy makes you think we would even consider doing anything even remotely like that? Do you have any idea how hard we’ve worked to limit civilian casualties in this war? If we didn’t give a rip about civilian lives, Baghdad would be a parking lot by now, and that’s just with conventional weapons (FAE bombs aren’t banned, are they?). We already KNOW that Saddam’s a dangerously violent fruitcake; that’s why Bush says we’re trying to disarm him. It’s an old line but a good one: “If we resort to his tactics, we’re no better than he is.”

Well, I will admit that I’m not privy to the specifics of our “nuclear weapons policy.” My understanding has always been, however, that nuclear weapons have long been thought to be a deterrence, and that we would only use them if somebody used them against us (or our interests) first. In order for a deterrence to remain effective, however, we would actually have to use them if somebody used them against us, otherwise our threat will be seen as being empty.

In another thread that I don’t have handy right now there was a discussion about North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons, and a number of people expressed the opinion that if North korea were to actually use nukes on, say, South Korea, the U.S. would retaliate in kind. And I’m assuming this would be the same thing if Iraq used nuclear weapons against one of our allies, except for the fact that we have stated during the current conflict how important it is to us to preserve civilian lives in Iraq.

So… what would happen if Saddam nuked Kuwait? If we used nukes in response, we would be abandoning our pretext of “liberating” the Iraqi people. If we didn’t use nukes in response, however, we’d be sending a message that it’s OK to nuke our allies, since we won’t respond in kind.

Remember – we did use nulcear weapons on two cities in the past, which resulted in massive civilian casualties. I’m not going to debate whether that was a “necessary evil” or a “monstrous act,” but the fact is that the U.S. has been willing to inflict massive civilian casualties in the past. The only thing that has changed, as far as I can tell, is that we now like to think of ourselves as the kinder, gentler, U.S. that would never in a million years even dream of doing something like that today.

Obviously, we “give a rip about civilian lives,” but I’m not sure how much of that is because we are “the good guys” and how much is because we want to world to THINK we are the good guys. And if push came to shove, and Saddam started using nukes, I’m just wondering how we would react.

Barry

The general issue of how the US would respond to a nuclear attack has been discussed a number of times and on a number of forums. In a discussion specifically focused on North Korea, I stated that I didn’t think a nuclear “tit for tat” by the US was at all a likely response to an attack by North Korea. The same would hold for Iraq, only more so.

The only reason for the US to respond in nuclear kind to an attack would be a scenario with two components:

  1. We couldn’t crush the attacker by conventional means
  2. The attacker represented a continuing threat, and would likely strike again if not “punished”

Example A: North Korea nukes Los Angeles, US invades North Korea. Likely bloody, but winnable. B: China nukes Los Angeles, but immediately mounts coup ousting the responsible party, US laments the tragedy and presses for assurances that it will never happen again. C: China nukes Los Angeles, and warns that more will be coming if we don’t stop meddling in their affairs – US nukes all Chinese nuclear sites, hunts down their SSBN, and probably blasts a couple other military bases for good measure.

Even in scenario C, I don’t see simply trading Bejing for LA as a likely outcome. The sensitivity of western democracies to civilian casualties is just too high, and it’s ultimately pretty pointless anyway. It represents nothing more than revenge, and likely only compounds the problem that caused the initial attack, rather than solving it.

I might concede the possibility that, once the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, so to speak, the likelihood of a US tactical nuclear response would increase significantly. In the North Korea scenario, I wouldn’t rule out one or more low yield nuclear strikes at remote bases, command centers, or the like, in the context of an overall invasion. Sensitivity to civilian casualties would remain the order of the day, though.

Also, note the above link with regard to damage done in the case of a hypothetical Iraqi attack. Any homebuilt atomic weapon would likely cause tens of thousands of deaths. A stolen or purchased ex-Soviet nuke could be significantly larger, but would probably still be no more than 200-300Kt yield. More deaths, but neither would obliterate all of Baghdad (a pretty darn big city) or otherwise significantly inhibit establishment of a successor government.

Any attack on a neighbor would first require Saddam’s missile to not be hit by a Patriot or Arrow SAM, and also to actually strike its target (something Iraqi missiles have a pretty poor history of accomplishing). Other than a missile, the only delivery method available to Saddam would be smuggling, which is pretty risky in its own right. Assuming success, Kuwait City is tiny enough to likely be flattened, but little would be accomplished for Saddam but complicating US logistics somewhat.

A successful strike on Israel, on the other hand, might elicit a nuclear counterstrike. Israel is less concerned about world opinion, since it has little goodwill to lose, and has a history of engaging in reprisal strikes to demonstrate its resolve to fight for its survival. Whether it did so in this case would likely be a function of how close Baghdad was to falling. Even Israel would probably see no use in retaliating against a corpse.

And, re Nangleator’s “positive #1”: I already think he’s either dead or seriously injured. In either case, the likelihood of anyone else in Iraq making such a futile attack or carrying out an order to make one is, I think, fairly low. The current Iraqi regime’s survival plan is also focused on directing public opinion, and I doubt that they’ll see using “Weapons of Mass Destruction” as serving that end.

I don’t know what the US would do.

However, wouldn’t it be more like him to drop a nuke on Bagdad where alot of US military is, than to drop one on Kuwait? (Just how would he do that?)

Well, I was assuming that even Saddam isn’t insane enough to nuke his own people. Plus, they’ve already been lobbing SCUDs into Kuwait since the beginning if the conflict, so I didn’t think my hypothetical would be that much of a stretch…

Barry

I’ve been turning this one over in my mind for the last week or so. It’s my greatest fear about the war. I keep thinking that when the coalition forces finally get into Baghdad (and it won’t be long now), Saddam will do something like this. Either nukes we don’t know about are stategically placed all over the city, or he’s got chemical/biological weapons at the ready.

As for Hussein’s sanity, I would NEVER underestimate someone like him.

For nuclear weapons to function as a deterrent, the threat has to be carried out. If ANYBODY uses one against us and we do not respond with overwhelming force, then our deterrent threat of Mutually Assured Destruction no longer functions, since Destruction is no longer Assured.

If we are hit with a nuclear attack, we have no choice but to respond with destruction.

The only question that can possibly come up is that his goal would be to provoke us into killing more civilians. But the need for Assurance of Destruction outweighs the desire to limit civilian casualties. Because civilians will die ANY time a nuclear weapon is used, so if civilian casualties deter retaliation, then anybody in the world can consider themselves safe to launch a nuclear attack at the United States.

In other words, the only thing keeping any little two-bit nuclear power from attacking us at will is the fact that they will be utterly destroyed by our retaliation. If that threat is removed or is not carried out the first time, then we will forever be in danger of attack.

Actually, I don’t think that the US will respond with nukes in kind. We don’t know exactly where he is, and nuking Iraq would serve no military purpose. We’d have a harder time keeping Israel in check, I think.

What would happen, is that the US would hit every potential missile site with as many conventional weapons as it could bring to bear. We might use some of nuclear bunker buster bombs on Saddam’s hiding places, but I doubt it. World opinion would be too strongly on our side for us to feel the need to use such weapons. I think that we’d stop worrying so much about civilian casualties after broadcasting warnings for all civilians to get the hell out of major cities in Iraq.

I also think that world opinion wouldn’t give us carte blanche to use nukes. I imagine that the general world comment would be, “The US is certainly within it’s rights to use nukes, but we hope that the US refrains from doing so.”

IAC, let’s all hope that we never have to find out.