They knew who was in the villa. They were working with info from an Iraqi. Why would they rather kill them instead of capturing them?
It seems they would have beacoup information to share.
Political bulls***. A “newsbreak” about private lynch, incompetent hero. Followed by a “newsbreak” about husseins sons being killed. I smell a PR rat.
Why would they want information from the mini husseins, its not like the current administration listens to any information, they just kind of make it up as they go.
I’m afraid the best you can do with this question at this point in time is to harvest opinion.
I would think a factor is that, like it or not, the military trains to kill people. When they see a problem like this, they don’t think handcuffs first, they think TOW anti-tank missiles.
Also, shooting missiles at a house is much safer for the troops on the ground than rushing it SWAT style looking for prisoners. Is the Husseins capture worth the life of an American soldier?
…Because they would’ve kill our soldiers first. DUH!!!
Perhaps they did try. When someone refuses to surrender, though, they’re at risk of getting killed. How would you have handled this?
I am once again struck by this brutal feature of his war. First the iltary tries to kill Saddam Hussein by airstrike, then kills his sons. In what other war have we ever gone out of our way to kill ather than capture the enemy leaders? (When I brought this up in an earlier thread, people drew a parallel to Admiral Yamamoto in the Second World War. But the case isn’t parallel – amamoto as an admiral, not a head of government. AFAIK, we didn’t try to kill Tojo or Mussolini or Hitler, and certainly no Emperor Hirohito.)
I honestly believe that there is a desire to avoid capturing the Husseins. It eliminates the nasty question of what to do about them – pu t them on trial? Execute them? Risk their escape, or the taking of hostages? It’s easier all around for the administration if they just happen to get killed. But it doesn’t make it right.
…And shouldn’t this thread be in like the pit or GD? Because I have a feeling this is going to get heated quick.
A capture mission is a darn difficult trick to pull off.
The highly-trained (British) SAS didn’t even try to do a snatch against the bad guys holding the Iranian Embassy in London years ago. Even with five days to plan their attack they never had any other goal than to kill the Bad Guys.
No look at the situation the Americans faced. A good solid rumor that the Chucles and Smiley might be in a certain place at a certain time. Of course the tip could just be bait for a “Blackhawk Down” sort of ambush.
Troops available? Lots of conventional guys with guns. Intell available? A good solid rumor no blueprints, noplace to do rehersals, no wiretaps, no convert surveilance. Time available? The Commander wants this wrapped up. A siege would almost certainly draw in nutters to take potshots at the surrounding troops.
Remember, the rules prohibit the use of tear gas.
Finally, after all is said and done, the Bad Guys have guns and seem to LIKE to kill people.
Given a choice between a fairly quick firefight and a prolonged siege, which would put more of the Good Guys in danger, which would you choose?
We can use tows and helicopter gunships but not tear gas??
I will need a cite for that please.
What would have been wrong with waiting them out?
Maybe they had them confused with Branch Davidians.
Reeder, he’s correct. Using chemical agents to pacify enemies violates the Geneva Convention. There was a great deal of talk from the US government about doing similar things - using calming agents on crowds in Iraq if there were soldiers in there - but it was ultimately rejected because enough countries or prominent people noted that it’s a war crime.
Yep, American policy is that we will use tear gas only to defend “special weapons” (that is nukes) and to strip away civilians who might be used as shields by the Bad Guys.
Why not wait them out? You ever see a little film called “Blackhawk Down?” The besiegers would soon be besieged by a ton of Iraqis shooting at us from the wrong way. Bad scene.
Don’t sweat it. They had lots of chances to surrender.
Actually the troops attempted several times to enter the building and were fired upon. I remember reading it yesterday, but don’t have a cite handy. I’ll see if I can find one.
A DoD spokesman stated in an interview that they felt that they had to either capture or kill the brothers since they were so dangerous, so the option of allowing them to escape, in hopes that they could be recaptured later on, was not practical. They were given the option of surrendering, but chose not to. Even the US government officials would have preferred to have taken the brothers alive, since they could have told us where daddy’s hiding.
Did other people from the house leave at some point? I haven’t seen that specified anywhere yet. Family members, servants, Baathists, the plumber? Nobody else reported wounded, nobody taken prisoner.
If I had a reward on my head, and if I was laying low, I would prefer being in an empty house.
I suppose the Brothers Grimm had someone chase everyone out of the place before they arrived.
Reasons have been given in this thread for the deaths, but if the US had the resources available that you would expect, the decision could have been made to capture them regardless. So it looks as if the decision was to kill, rather than to go to major effort.
They did have repeated opportunities to surrender, and their decision was not to do so. It’s impossible to tell whether the alleged treatment of detainees by Americans may have influenced their decision.
The President was being keep apprised from hour to hour, probably beginning with the information that the two had been located. Any amount of resources and time could have been applied, if questioning them or trying them had been seen as the priority.
What would they have been tried for?
The administration said the two were on their list of potential Iraqi leaders who could be tried for war crimes. (That would probably include the wars against Iran and Kuwait, though I don’t know how involved they were with that. Still, they sure committed enough other atrocities.) I’d love to know who would have tried them, since the US doesn’t recognize the World Court, but that’s another matter.
I’m not one to take the Bush administration at its word, but it’s not a stretch for me to buy that these two wanted to go out shooting, and as such, capturing them would’ve been very hard. Keeping American death to a minimum over there is probably a political priority right now anyway.