eratta:Do you really want me to respond to the above 2 questions? I seem to be perceiving a dubious signal to noise ratio coming from some parts.
Let me see if I can return to the OP: “I, for one, have not been convinced that Iraq presents an immediate and viable threat to the US.”
Well, we half agree. The threat from Saddam is not immediate: it happens after he develops WMD (as opposed to conventional weaponry). (Complication: Chem and bio weapons are apparently easier to develop than their delivery systems are. It is Saddam’s lack of the latter which makes his threat less-than-immediate).
As for “viable”, character assassination aside, I haven’t seen any real objections to the estimate that he has been pursuing a nuclear weapon and may very well attain one within the next several years.
[Answering errata’s question at the top of this page will require a lot of typing, and I’m inclined to pause a little before doing so.]
Do you know anyone who possesses the necessary ingredients and equipment for a, ah, glaucoma prevention regimen? Call them at once! Herbal intervention is clearly called for. Strictly for medicinal purposes, you understand. Mental health, and all that.
I am in no way implying that Saddam Hussein is not a horrible man. Understand that first.
But I think the more immediate threat to the American people is its current POTUS, who seems to be more interested in getting his name in the history books alongside a heroic account of a war and getting back at the man who threatened to hurt his daddy than taking care of the people he has sworn to protect.
We are waging a five billion dollar war on a country that has not taken much, if any, aggressive military action on the US since the Gulf War, and we don’t have the bloody funds to do it. The economy is falling apart. The unemployment rate has increased dramatically. We need to rebuild our country before spending vast amounts of money to attack another.
So, yeah. Bush scares me more than Saddam. End of angry rant.
That’s a point you haven’t made overtly yet. Do you think that we can’t have effective containment anymore?
Well, the issue in this particular thread is self defense I thought I had made that clear. What you haven’t made clear is why the mere possession of weapons (MD or otherwise) is a matter of self defense for the US necessitating a pre-emptive strike. Russia had thousands of ICBMS and could have actually destroyed the US, but that didn’t mean that they would.
Maybe you think you’re debating another issue and should move on. Although I certainly welcome your input if that’s the issue you really want to address.
I’m afraid that would compromise national security.
Well I suppose we could play an analogy game, but I believe enriching uranium is the most technically challenging part. The rest is convential explosives applied in a precise manner. The sort of stuff every nation has and could develop very easily.
The point being that your source has credibility issues and has also contradicted himself regarding Saddam’s nuclear capability.
Uh, let’s stick to WMD. I never said that their mere possession justifies a pre-emptive strike. Indeed, it would be inappropriate to attack France, the UK, Russia or China. Indeed (IMHO) it would be inappropriate to attack N Korea.
Why? Because the “deterrence” option has a good chance of working for N Korea and a poor chance of working for Saddam. To quote flowbark channeling Pollack, “So why are we singling out Saddam?
Unlike other seekers of WMDs, Saddam is more adventurous (having engaged in umpteen boneheaded military excursions with surrounding countries in 1975, 1982?-1988?, 1990-91) and most importantly, is a serial miscalculator. Thus, deterrence is a risky option: it breaks down when one of the parties is expansionary and has tendencies towards wishful thinking, unchecked by a skeptical committee of advisors.”
Analogies can be educative, but they never prove anything. So I’m glad we’re moving into the realm of verifiable claims.
My understanding is that uranium can be obtained by rogue Russian military types. Furthermore, it is my understanding that acquiring switches that allow for simultaneous detonation of the explosives surrounding the core of the bomb isn’t easy.
Anyway, I’m having difficulty understanding your position. Why does Saddam resist UN inspectors? Why didn’t he cooperate and allow sanctions to lapse in the first few years after the Gulf War? (As it was, there was continued international support for sanctions at least through (um) 1994-5.) I would claim it is because he is pursuing WMD, including nukes. I’m not sure what errata’s reasoning is.
So your source says. Give me your best example, and I’ll take another look. As it was, I saw a number of dubious claims made in that article. I could provide examples, but I would rather focus on its strongest claims.
Flowbark’s grand argument (borrowed wholesale from Pollack)
Definition: Sanctions + inspections = containment Policy options
Containment is a great option, but it no longer exists. This is unfortunate.
Deterrence is another alternative: we allow Saddam to acquire a nuke, but we deter him from using it via military threats. This worked with the Soviets. Alas, Saddam is a serial miscalculator who is unhappy with the status quo and receives poor intelligence regarding those outside his border. So deterrence is a bad option. (Note: here, there is some disagreement among experts, or so I understand).
Assassination and coup plotting would be ok, except we tried that and failed. This strategy plays to Saddam’s strengths (internal security) and our weaknesses (human intelligence in Arab societies in general and Iraq in particular).
That leaves invasion, the least-bad policy option. Alas.
We ceded the Soviets control of Eastern Europe and spent trillions of dollars trying to contain them around the world. All the while, nuclear warheads were pointed at us and several times the earth was on the brink of intercontitental thermonuclear war. This is not a state of affairs I think we should go back to.
North Korea did not invade South Korea because it would lose a war with South Korea and all its leaderships would either be killed or imprisoned. Iraq has already conquered Kuwait and all the stands between Iraq and Saudi Arabia is the US military.
I asked whether you thought it was possible not whether it was currently effective.
I have a lot of problems with the sanctions, but I still prefer them to war. Saddam Hussein and his inner party will also be the last to die in a war.
I’m sure we’ll hit mostly just military targets though like Chinese embassies and stuff.
So the serial miscalculator part seems to be your main angle. Let’s examine what happens when he miscalculates. So far none of your scenarios present a direct threat to the US. Sure, him bombing Saudi Arabia would be a bad thing for our economy, but even the Saudis don’t want us there.
The mere fact that weapons inspectors were allowed back shows some respect for the American willingness to attack. Yes he’s pushing the envelope, but not in a way that suggests he’s willing to assure his own annilation to set off some bomb.
Then shouldn’t that be what we focus on then if we’re really concerned about nuclear proliferation?
Well I have already mentioned twice that he’s flip flopped on assessing Saddam’s nuclear proclities and capacities. But I’ll spell it out. Here’s an excerpt:
Douglas Pasternak and Stacey Schultz of U.S. News interviewed Hamza in December 2001. The following is an excerpt from their subsequent article:
‘Hamza and his colleagues had 31 kilograms of uranium from their Osiraq reactor that had been destroyed by Israeli bombers in 1981, from which they could distill 18 kilograms enriched enough to form the core. But they also knew that any such move would set off alarms at the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitored Iraq’s use of uranium, and that Iraq would be stopped from developing any more enriched uranium. Thus, Iraq would be able to build only one oversize bomb. Informed of this, Hamza says, Saddam agreed to shift to concentrating on using chemical and biological weaponry to halt the allied forces of Desert Storm.’"
“Even worse, he says, he is certain that Saddam Hussein has been rebuilding Iraq’s chemical and biological programs-a task far easier than reconstituting the nuclear program.”
This was said at a time when the public was fresh off of the anthrax scares. He seems to be saying whatever is necessary to make Saddam look scary.
From there, I found a link to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS): http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/iraq.htm
2 links in, there’s a page on Iraq’s nuclear program during the 1998-2002 era:
Here’s a quote.
The tube evidence has since been shown to be ambiguous: I include it to dissuade anybody in any particular analyst’s infallibility.
Anyway, it would appear that Iraq’s nuclear threat turns on obtaining fissible material from the former USSR, over the short to medium term. Returning to errata’s post:
I’d like to hone in on what I see as the central issue. There are 4 policy options under consideration:
“Containment” - prevent Saddam from acquiring WMDs via sanctions.
I argue that this option is no long feasible. Some argue it’s not desirable, given the burden it places on the Iraqi people: it permits Saddam to build palaces while his people suffer from malnutrition (though not actual starvation). errata may fall in this camp.
I would argue furthermore that containment cannot be reconstructed, that we will not be able to persuade the Jordanians, Syrians, Turks, Iranians, French and Russians to all support it. If we could, I would be against an invasion.
“Pure Deterrence” - Let’s say we drop most sanctions, permitting the Iraqi people to receive the benefits of oil revenues. We let Saddam gain WMDs (though we may cajole him not to and put (ineffective) trade barriers to discourage him). The welfare of the Iraqi people improves (good) and Saddam acquires WMDs (bad) but doesn’t use them because he’s not suicidal.
errata is correct in that my main angle is the “serial miscalculator” one. The danger is that he would act aggressively by threatening to set off a WMD in Tel Aviv -or a US population center, delivered via installation rather than by projectile. If Saddam was merely a risk taker, I might take my chances with deterrence. My problem is that he appears to show an aversion to cutting his losses: he’s not the sort of cool calculator that is assumed in most deterrence models.
3) Invasion: The least bad option, among feasible alternatives.
4) coup attempt/assassination.
Much narrower issues
Thanks for the US News & Wld Report cite. It appears to say that Saddam decided that since he only had one nuke during Gulf War I, that he would rely on chem and bio WMDs if he needed to halt allied forces (presumably on their march to Bagdhad?).
My cite said that Saddam increased his nuclear program following Desert Storm.
So where’s the contradiction? Look, it’s not like I know Hamza personally or anything. It’s just that I haven’t seen any evidence of those so-called flip-flops. I’ve only seen assertions.
errrata: " I asked whether you thought it was possible not whether it was currently effective."
Alas, it was tried by Clinton and it was tried by Powell (remember “smart sanctions”? Our friends and associates wouldn’t play along, for various reasons.)
Me:“My understanding is that uranium can be obtained by rogue Russian military types.”
Errata: " Then shouldn’t that be what we focus on then if we’re really concerned about nuclear proliferation?"
C’mon, you’re ducking the issue. Sure, we should avoid making it easy for tyrants to acquire nukes. Indeed, the programs sponsored by Sam Nunn et al receive wide support. Whether they can be effective enough to counter a focused and determined adversary is questionable, however. (This is an example of “tit-for-tat” stuff. An analyst weighs conflicting evidence. An ideologue pretends that it all goes in one direction. A fanatic can’t tell the difference.)
Soapbox: Here at the SDMB, we have 2 core missions: Fighting Ignorance and Making Wisecracks. Please act accordingly.
(Let me know if you want me to amplify any more of my points. But please make them central ones, my posts are overly-long as it is.)
