Would his not having any count as a possible reason?
“to think offensively at the same time with enough vision to get something horrible past all the eyes that are glaring at him would take a great deal of skill and control.”
I think you are overestimating the scale of the task. Slipping a small number of people in the middle of the night across a border is not that difficult especially because there is no co-operation AFAIK between the US and Iran/Syria in patrolling their border. Like I mentioned even heavy Pakisan/US co-operation didn’t stop OBL from escaping. Probably something like this is a routine task for any semi-competent intelligence agency.
David Simmons,
In that case what exactly is the rationale for the war? In any case I believe the intelligence assessments that Saddam does indeed possess some biological and chemical weapons.
I’m with David Simmons on this one: the evidence that Saddam has significant WMD that would be useful in a terrorist attack (as opposed to being useful in a military-style attack) certainly hasn’t filtered down to the public media. And judging by Robin Cook’s resignation speech, it’s not made it to our allies either.
If Hussein ahd WMD useful for terrorist attacks, and if there were terrorists who could make it into and out of Iraq unnoticed with the weapons, I’d guess he’d give them some supplies. But I don’t think he can do that.
I expect that the invading army is going to find a lot of aluminum tubing and empty missile shells and Tupperware containers that you could use to store WMD in, and Bush will claim vindication for his war.
Daniel
Beats me. I can’t come up with one.
Well, I guess maybe we’ll find out.
I have never seen any evidence that Saddam is working with, or even likes Terrorists.
It’s not his style, to work with such people. He’s a Bathist they are fundy-muslims, I do not believe they are working together.
Saddam may hate Americans, but he’s not going to give us justification to war…even though it is waaay to late now.
ehh… he doesn’t have them?
Yes, that’s the easy part. The hard part is actually transporting those weapons to the US (past whatever security exists in the connecting path between there and here) coupled with the actual delivery of the weapons to their intended target.
The (admittedly imprecise) analogy is comparing the relative ease at which US troops get to the border of Iraq, and the far greater risk they face when they’ll enter the country. For an Iraqi agent smuggling bioweapons, the risk he has just trying to get transportation to the target country is fairly significant.
Again, I’m not completely discounting the possibility of a “successful” (from Saddam’s POV) operation, only indicating that I think that the threat of Iraqi agents with a history of relative incompetency is fairly less than that of terrorist groups who have learned how to coordinate and utilize deep cover operatives in the US and whose very existence depends on their lack of visibility.
Cyber, there is nothing to worry about. As you have been saying for months, there are no WoMD in Iraq. :rolleyes:
Sua
Exactly! And these reports are obviously propaganda lies:
Sua Sponte,
“As you have been saying for months, there are no WoMD in Iraq.”
That is a lie, pure and simple.
Mr Blue,
“The hard part is actually transporting those weapons to the US (past whatever security exists in the connecting path between there and here) coupled with the actual delivery of the weapons to their intended target.”
But the Iraqi agents don’t have to do this themselves. They just have to hand the weapons to terrorists and leave it to them to figure out how to actually use them. As you say those terrorists are likely to be more competent at attacking the US itself. The point is that they were unlikely to hand weapons to terrorists before, but now that they are certain to be attacked by the US they will be much less constrained.
As I said at the outset, I don’t think he would ever place that much trust in people who are not under his control. His world is seen through Stalin’s paranoid eye–this is not a man who finds faith in people.
You’re right, such a scenario is possible. So is a peaceful, democratic Iraq after the war. But I see neither as particularly likely.
“I don’t think he would ever place that much trust in people who are not under his control.”
But when his regime is about to come under massive attack by the US it seems likely that he will consider the Islamic terrorists as the lesser evil. And “trust” is probably a minor concern when his regime is likely to be destroyed soon.
I agree that without invasion Saddam would have been unlikely to trust terrorists with WMD. But that is precisely the point: by putting him in a position where he has nothing to lose it makes it much likelier that he will take much bigger risks like supplying WMD to terrorists. That is the perversity of this war.In the abstract it might seem like less of a concern, but let’s think about it.
Admittedly, we’re playing a psychological guessing game. In the vagaries of Saddam’s mind, who he can trust is absolutely paramount. Surely you’d recognize his regime is based around loyalty and the fear of a threat to his power.
Case 1: He’s planning his defenses while Bush prepares. Who does he put in charge, his own agents or terrorist groups?
Case 2: He’s surrounded in a bunker by M1’s and Apaches. Who can he rely on to carry out his final payback?
Case 3: He’s on the run. Who does he know will not double-cross him?
Yes, as the situation deteriorates around him, he’s more likely to use people outside his own circle. The operative question is: at what point will he believe in the capabilities of outsiders more than he will his insiders? You can try to make the case that he’ll try both. You can try to make the case that after the war, he’ll view his insiders as useless–perhaps there will be so few left they won’t be able to accomplish anything without outside help…
The situation is impossible to predict with any surety. But I still think it’s possible but not likely that Saddam will be able to use his biological/chemical weapons. It is more likely that some amount will go unaccounted for, and somebody else will try to use them.
Quite frankly, neither prospect is comforting.
[hijack]
People need to realize something about chemical and biological weapons. They really aren’t WMD, they are weapons of terror. Sure they’re terrifying, but they’re also ludicrously ineffective. That makes them not the threat the media portrays them to be.
Remember the sarin gas attack in the Japanese subway 10 years ago? It killed about 6 people. Remember the recent attack in the South Korean subway with a flaming milk carton of gasoline? It killed over 100 people!
And what was the WMD that the 9/11 terrorists used? Kerosene (i.e. jet fuel). Several thousand gallons delivered by air.
Saddam has no nukes. So even if he did manage to pass some poison gas or anthrax powder to someone (which still wouldn’t be easy) this potential threat is inconsequential compared to leaving him in power to fund, train, or just inspire more terrorists.
[/hijack]
Ditto. If by the “end” of the “war” he still hasn’t used them, I think we can pretty much take it for read that he never had them, or got rid of the ones he did have.
Wonder where that will put Bush and Blair legally?
Then again, we may all be in for a nasty surprise.
Uh, am I just paranoid in thinking you’re being sarcastic? Because this looks exactly like the sort of propaganda lies we ought to be expecting by now.
I mean, it may be true: it may be that there’s some sort of nerve gas that you can use to coat bridges, and that Saddam has it, and that he’s been able to do this. But the fact that a military spokesman says it’s true in no way lends the statement credibility.
Nobody believes that the military is going to be feeding accurate information to the press, do they? What in the history of warfare makes you think that’d happen?
Daniel
What about German mustard gas attacks in WWI? Those were pretty effective, I thought.
Chemical/biological weapons can be effective when used against an opposing army.
In small quantities, they also make excellent weapons of terror.
(Of course, IANATerrorist, nor do I live anywhere where people use such weapons very often.)
(an addendum to what I posted above: the military isn’t, of course, a bunch of pathological liars. But if it suits their needs to exaggerate, distort, or outright lie, then of course they’ll do it. It’s bizarre to me that anyone would give credence to military reports during the middle of a war.)
Daniel
MrBlue,
I think you are overestimating the risk from Saddam’s pov. It’s not as if he has to commit lots of resources by sending a few agents out of the country. If they fail it won’t much matter in comparison to the scale of the US invasion. He still has large amounts of other resources to protect him. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t trust the terrorists becuase they are a much less urgent threat than the invading US forces. So it’s a really a no-lose proposition from his pov. Once the US invades the terrorists will become the “enemy’s enemy” so he will be much more inclined to help them.
Let me get this straight. Either:
a) Sadaam doesn’t have any WMDs (Which seems to be the world consensus because no one is supporting the US).
or
b) Sadaam does have WMDs. And that’s why we shouldn’t attack him, because he’ll use them/distribute them.
Most people in this thread go with the latter. “Oh, we know he has WMDs but we’ll let him keep them so he doesn’t give them to terrorists”. That seems like appeasement to me. And appeasement is bad.