Don’t you understand that sooner or later the terrorists will have access to weapons of mass destruction ? From Saddam or whoever but they will. The US will be able to stop some but not all. Technology is becoming more accessible for everybody. If we don’t find a way to deal with our enemies different than blowing each other then we are doom.
And the US because of its power, might, and position of a world leader should be an example for the rest of nations. But the message they are getting now is not very encouraging. We think we are more civilized well let’s prove it. Let’s lead the world to a new era of peace and let’s not play a game that at the end would kill us all. VIOLENCE CREATES VIOLENCE!
I know it is hard to think a way to deal with people that hate us so much, but we need to find such way, it is about surviving. Our own arrogance has blinded us and our leaders keep telling us that our military might is going to save us, when the truth is that in every war we fight we just create more anger against us.
Only thirty years ago, nuclear weapons were an exclusivity of the USSR and the US, now seven or eight countries have them, what is going to be like in thirty years from now. How long until Osama or whoever gets the technology to create a weapon that would kill thousands or millions of Americans.
We have to stop this vicious circle now.
Yes just like when those evil communists Soviets developed nuclear weapons, we were left with no choice but to cede them the world. Perhaps you would have also posited that N Korea would ahve immediately invaded S Korea on obtaining a nuclear weapon.
I sense an intense preoccupation with oil in your argument. The biggest fear so far is that Saddam could become a power player in international politics. Not a good thing, nuclear proliferation never is, but hardly a matter of self defense. It seems more like a way to control oil prices.
As to reasons to fear Iraq, the endless repitition of “He gassed his own people!” is now subject to question. Rather than hi-jack, I have threaded.
errata: “Yet hasn’t he shown far less military action since being contained?”
I think you’re missing the point. 1) Saddam continued to make military maneuvers during the 1990s, which were effectively countered with the use of US military forces and some adept diplomacy with the Syrians. Oh, and sorry, massing 80,000 troops near the border of a country that you recently invaded (as Saddam did in October 1994), is not a mere “troop movement”. Rather, it appears that he figured that he could occupy Kuwait and that the US would be too pre-occupied with Haiti, Bosnia, etc. to counter his move. Wrong again, Saddam.
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Nonetheless, as long as Saddam is using conventional weapons, he’s in a box.
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But once he acquires a nuke, all bets are off. There are also biological and chemical weapons to consider.
errata: " This part is still pretty shaky, evidence wise. "
Ok, so the issue turns on whether Saddam is pursuing WMDs. If it can be shown that he is not, I would oppose an invasion. [Furthermore, if containment could be re-assembled - that is, if we could persuade the Turks, Syrians, Iranians and Jordanians to stop trading oil with Saddam outside of the UN food for oil program AND we could persuade the French and Russians to stop circumventing UN resolutions regarding trade restrictions, then I would also oppose an invasion]
But let’s look at the evidence that Saddam has not forsworn WMDs.
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Saddam refuses to have Iraqi weapons scientists meet with UN officials without being accompanied by his secret police. Why?
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In May 1992, Iraq was shown to have lied about having a biological weapons program, and basically made a (partial) confession. (Pollack, p. 63)
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In 1995, following the defection of Hussein Kamel, the UN was shown to 650,000 pages of documents, revealing Saddam’s ongoing bioweapons program.
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In 1997-98, Saddam blocked a surprise inspection of UNSCOM, harassed that organization’s personnel (eg tried to seize controls of a helicopter in flight, put a rocket-propelled grenade through UNSCOM HQ in Baghdad) and generally hindered their work.
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Though Iraq has categorically denied ever putting VX nerve agent in its missiles, UNSCOM found traces of the agent in missile fragments that the Iraqis had cleaned and then unilaterally destroyed. This was in 1998.
Following the departure of UN weapons inspectors, I find it difficult to conceive of a scenario whereby Saddam would suddenly cease his WMD programs without presenting evidence of it.
errata: " Yes just like when those evil communists Soviets developed nuclear weapons, we were left with no choice but to cede them the world. Perhaps you would have also posited that N Korea would have immediately invaded S Korea on obtaining a nuclear weapon. "
Ok, rhetoric aside, you make an interesting point. Our approach with N. Korea is “deterrence”. North Koreans know that if they attack S. Korea, the US will attack them. So why not use the same technique against Saddam? The answer (as I have written elsewhere, following reasoning by K. Pollack) is that Saddam is a serial miscalculator with territorial and even somewhat messianic ambitions.
Wrong, flowbark. The following link documents that the Iranians used chemical weapons as well during the Iran-Iraq war. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html
Tip of the pen to elucidator.
I think you may be missing my point. I’m trying to determine how Iraq presents an issue of self defense to the US. Sure Saddam is dangerous still, no one is arguing that, but to whom?
The fact that Saddam has made some threatening moves inside his own borders still pales compared to the Iran/Iraq war or invading Kuwait.
I was actually referring specifically to nuclear weapons, which you don’t address.
I think we also have some “carrots” to use in combination with the “sticks”.
Yet he somehow maintains an iron grip on power. I doubt he’s as incompetent as you imply. He may have made some miscaculations, the invasion Kuwait in particular may have been partially attributed to our previous alliance with him. As for him sticking around there, most Americans didn’t think we’d kick him out of Kuwait so easily.
So far I haven’t seen anything to make me think he’s completely wacko and is acting without regard for any consequences.
errata: Now we’re getting somewhere. Sort of.
- The problem is that Saddam may lob a nuke or bio/chem weapon at Tel Aviv or lob a nuke at Saudi oil fields, thus instigating a global recession. Either way, tens of thousands of deaths result. IMO, the preceding scenarios are bad.
The point about movements within his borders shows that Saddam retains military adventurous inclinations.
You seem to have granted the contention that Saddam pursues bio and chem weapons on mass destruction. This, in and of itself, is a security threat.
I’ll now try to evaluate the nuclear threat (with the help of Pollack’s book: I trust my nonexpertise in unquestioned). Then I’ll draw a distinction between “looney” and “chronic miscalculator”, showing how Saddam is that latter, if not the former and how the latter is incompatible with a deterrence framework.
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Background: As of the time of the Gulf War, UN inspectors believe that Saddam could have acquired a fully workable nuclear weapon within one year. All he lacked was fissible material.
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“According to Khidhir Hamza, the longtime head of Iraq’s weapon design program who defected to the West in 1994, Iraq’s nuclear effort actually expanded after the Gulf War and in 1993-94 numbered 2000 engineers and 12,000 other workers.” (p. 174)
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“A recent defector who worked as a design engineer stated that Saddam had ordered the entire nuclear program reconstituted in August 1998, when he announced that he had ceased all cooperation with the UN inspectors” [Indeed, flowbark would be surprised if Saddam had expelled the inspectors, then out of the goodness of his heart decided to secretly forgo development of WMD. Secretly. Such behavior would not be sane.]
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“Just to be clear about this: in 1990, Iraq build a workable nuclear weapon. All it lacked was the fissible material. Iraq has natural uranium deposits… Thus it is only a matter of time before Saddam’s regime is able to acquire nuclear weapons if left to its own devices”.
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Background: Saddam has give up anywhere from $130 billion to $180 billion worth of oil revenues to hang on to his WMD programs.
It’s difficult for me to imagine that Saddam is not pursuing nukes, given the above.
errata is correct that Saddam is quite good at staying in power and dodging coup attempts. (One of his methods is to create 11 or more departments with overlapping internal security responsibilities. This is inefficient but does keep potential coup leaders off balance: nobody has the big picture and everybody is monitoring everyone else.)
But Saddam has also created a climate of fear at the top, where skeptical generals are reluctant to express themselves with candor. This helps explain how Saddam could engage in boneheaded military adventures: (Actually they weren’t boneheaded so much as a product of wishful thinking.)
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In 1975, Saddam tears up an agreement that he had made with the Kurds a couple of years before and attacks them. It appears that he didn’t believe that the Shah would intervene on behalf of the Kurds. It is not clear why Saddam had this opinion. Anyway, Saddam was wrong. Would a skeptical committee (KGB or CIA, either one) uncovered this error ahead of time? Maybe.
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In 1982?, Saddam invaded Iran with little logistical preparation. Again, this reflects poor planning.
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In 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait, assumed that the US would respond militarily, but that the Iraqi army could beat the US. It appears that Saddam never considered the possibility that Iraq would endure extended bombardment before the land war would commence. Poor planning. Wishful thinking.
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Even more bizarrely, once his war plans were shown to be out of date, and he was facing 700,000 troops, 3500 tanks, etc., he refused to withdraw. The Russian diplomat Primakov “repeatedly tried to warn Saddam that when the coalition launched his ground offensive it would sweep away the Iraqi Army, but Saddam simply would not listen”.
To summarize. Saddam is homicidal, but he isn’t irrational. He is, however, prone to wishful thinking and his intelligence services, “do not provide Saddam with anything like a comprehensive or objective picture of his strategic situation”. Rather, they are focused on internal threats.
“Deterence works best when decision makers are conservative in their goals, avoid taking risky actions, are content with the status quo, have access to high quality information about their adversary, and work within an effective decision making process that considers a range of possibilities…” Somehow, I don’t think that Saddam fits this profile.
Quotes from Pollack (2002).
Saddam had an invisible friend, but he had him executed! <rim shot>
But seriously folks…
Making assessment as to the relative sanity of another human being is dicey at best. Is Kim Jong-Il sane? Quadaffy Duck?
How about Stalin, who’s paranoid behavior is breathtaking in its scope and who’s poor judgement is legendary. It was very poor judgement to be unshakeably convinced that Hitler would not invade despite intelligence to the contrary. An insane response would have been to declare war on the Moon.
And yet…a policy of containment seems to have worked, did it not? Despite his being insane, massively armed and nuclear equipped.
Saddam reminds be of Dennis Hoppers line in Apocalypse Now “The man is clear in his mind, but his soul has gone mad.” If he were as crazy as some would have us believe, why has he sat on his hands for ten years while America repeatedly bitch-slapped him?
Yet you must concede that containment has had a positive effect.
The fact that someone has weapons, is not a serious enough threat to make it a matter of self defense. All of the governments in the world have weapons. Almost all of them are probably pursuing nuclear weapons at least clandestinely.
Isn’t that like saying,“he has everything he needs to build a car, except an engine”?
Khidhir Hamza has his own critics. Here’s on assessment of him. At one time this man also said that Saddam had decided to focus on Chemical and Biological weapons instead of nukes
I’d like a more detailed cite on this. Does anybody believe N Korea’s “sea of fire” threats to America for instance?
Appearing aggressive and dangerous sometimes works. A different US president very well might have blinked and not because of Iraq’s might, but because of fear of another Viet Nam.
Interesting that the Saudi’s we’re supposed to be defending don’t want us there. The Israeli government, OTOH would just as soon have us take over the entire middle east.
Furthermore this is not a matter of self defense. If we’re defending the region from Saddam, I would expect to see more leadership from them.
Yes those scenarios are bad, but so is war with Iraq. With an invasion the casualties are definite and the blood is firmly on our hands. With a speculative nuclear weapon, neither of those things are certain.
Iraqi "Sea of Fire"Iraq will use its own people as “suicide” bombers. Of course, I’m sure it will be voluntary.
I’d like to see the cite on this, just for my own education. I’d also like to know why self-defense is the only legitimate justification for an invasion. We (well the U.N.) intervened in Bosnia, did we not? Milosevic posed no direct threat to the U.S.
Despite Beagle’s reach for neutron density sarcasm, he inadvertently makes a good point. Defending against the invader is one of those human instincts that is difficult, if not impossible, to guage. You will recall, no doubt, that one of the justifications offered for using the atomic bomb on Japan was the presumption of fanatic resistance on the part of Japanese civilians, who were being drilled on the use of sharpened bamboo spears against automatic weapons.
Time and again, people are willing to make irrational sacrifices to defend thier “homeland” against a foreign invader. And, in other instances, they are not. As to avoiding the horror of American troops killing or being killed by civilian “martyrs”, Beagle’s preemptive sneer is more or less irrelevant. Such can be avoided by the simple expedient of not being there.
As a ghastly sidelight: there was considerable contention in Iran during and just after the Iran-Iraq debacle in the matter of adjudicating just who could be accorded the status of martyr, with its attendant death benefits, not the least of which was the assurance of Paradise. Mullahs were pressed into service to review individual cases and to determine whether the death of the nominee was such that it merited the status of martyr for Islam. This is the sort of utterly sincere proceeding that buggers all satire. You can’t make shit like this up, and it is almost impossible to satirize.
Straight to signature. You know me so well.
I agree with you that some people will voluntarily blow themselves up. The existence of such a program says a lot about the regime. Of course I’m not a licensed psychic so I can only surmise that Saddam just might force some people into duty. It’s happened before.
To niggle: no, it doesn’t say much of anything about the regime, my point being that it is entirely irrational, hence unpredictable. The Iraqi people may strew roses in the path of thier liberators, and I, for one, would certainly wish it were so. It is equally likely that they will fling themselves against our armored divisions in an utterly futile gesture. We cannot know. But we will have, by our actions, adjudged the “worst case scenario” as acceptable. I contend that it is not. Your Martyrs May Vary.
As to the sig: will that be cash or charge? Other compensations are restricted by gender, age, carnal expertise, and proximity.
It says a lot about the regime. Saddam is not that unpredictible. He always seems to do the wrong thing.
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Saddam can cooperate and turn over his weapons.
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Saddam can leave the country.
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Saddam can step down, and face the consequences.
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- Saddam can send kids out to blow themselves up.
One and two are actually reasonable options. Three is honorable and suicidal. Four is sadistic. Saddam chooses four. I could have seen that coming.
But, the whole idea of shooting kids running at our troops with bombs strapped to them sucks all the glory right out of any war plan, doesn’t it?
I confess that I find this tit-for-tat stuff somewhat tedious. However, I can play as well.
That’s not the issue. Containment (that is, sanctions) worked well in the early 1990s and satisfactorily in the late 1990s. It has broken down right now: the sanctions are no longer in force.
The issue is not convention weapons, it’s WMD. I thought I had made that clear.
Really. Even Togo and Madagascar. CITE?
No, it’s like saying, “he has a car, he just lacks gasoline, which is available from the Russians”.
Thanks for the link. I’ll take a look. Ok, I just took a look. It looks more like a “hatchet job” than an “assessment” to me. Anyway, what’s the point?
Jeez, I’m sounding like Scylla now (above)…
*elucidator[/]: “Making assessment as to the relative sanity of another human being is dicey at best. Is Kim Jong-Il sane? Quadaffy Duck?”
Just to be clear, I’m saying that Saddam’s reign of terror has made him poorly informed by his staff. I’m also saying that he is prone to wishful thinking. Nobody in this thread has asserted that he is insane. I’m saying however that he is a serial miscalculator. Unlike Kim Jong-Il (who plays his hand rather well actually) or even Quadaffy (who has shown much spiritual development subsequent to the loss of his, um, niece.)