When we go to war (no longer an if, at appears) do you think Hussein will use chemical and biological weapons, if indeed he has them? (I personally suspect that he’s been developing them)
On one hand, I can see him wanting to inflict as many casualties as possible on any forces we have out there. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if he’d hold them back to demostrate that our aggression is unfounded…
Thoughts? Will he justify our decision our skeptics by proving that he has them and is willing to use them?
Yes it’s very likely. Once the US attacks Saddam will try to inflict the maximum possible damage both to American soldiers and civilians. He will no longer have anything to lose.
More worrying than the direct use of weapons against American soldiers is the possibility that he will pass them to terrorists supposedly the very thing that the invasion is supposed to prevent. The CIA said as much in a briefing to Congress a while back: that Iraq was unlikely to work with terrorists unless attacked first.
Even if against the odds Saddam doesn’t manage to use his weapons , they will almost certainly leak into the illicit arms bazaar after the war since the US doesn’t have a clue where they are hidden and is unlikely to find all of them before they are carried away and sold off by rogue elements.
I think that if he has them he would likely pass them on to terrorists if attacked. In the war, they won’t prevent him from losing, but in the hands of terrorists he would get revenge.
If the only thing preventing him from assisting Al Qaeda and other anti-west terrorists is the fear of an attack from the US, then when the attack happens anyway he’ll have nothing to lose and vengeace to gain.
Bottom line is Saddam Hussein is a coward. A coward will try and hurt you before they run or they’ll just run. My money is on Saddam just running but he may possibly gas us a little bit depending on what undies he’s wearing that day. Saddam Hussein is a sorry excuse for a man.
Although the US claims the right to retaliate with nukes if ever attacked with a WMD I seriously doubt we would. Almost certainly not if it is used ‘merely’ against our troops. If Saddam managed to pull that off in a US city then the chances are better but I still doubt it (although with the Bushistas running the show I have to wonder a bit if they just might do it).
Doesn’t matter though because Israel will likely do it for us. Don’t forget that Saddam may very well toss a few WMDs over Israel’s way. The Israelis, I believe, would be far more likely to retaliate in a nuclear fashion when faced with that kind of attack. They almost have to send that message in that fashion and that forcefully.
I gotta go with Whack-a-mole here. What did Saddam do last time he was attacked? lob scuds at israel. If he decides to do that again, and uses chemical/bio weapons this time, I just hope the israelis give us enough warning to get our guys out of the way.
I wonder how many ‘middle of the road, middle class’ folks in the Middle East kinda feel the same sense of being shit scared?
Imagine how scary it must be for those folks? I mean, as much as we here in the Western World might like to portray EVERYONE in the Middle East as being some sort of subversive terrorist in waiting, the reality is that vast numbers of folks in that region, if not the silent majority, are probably wanting nothing more in life than to be as I described above - namely, just “middle of the road and middle class”.
Those are the folks I truly care about if the place goes berko. And THEY must be shitting themselves I dare say.
I agree Boo, there must be a lot of terrified people there.
The question that must be asked is whether or not the innocents that will die by the US attacking Iraq will be less than the innocents who might die by any future assholery by Iraq if there is no attack. I can answer that with a firm “I dunno”.
Saddam’s “duck and cover” strategy worked last time and people tend to repeat what they think works. So the hope is, by the time he realizes it won’t, he will not have the ability to use whatever he has.
Saddam may be a madman but his mindset is hardly so. If you have a war where your opponents are many and much more powerful and they leave you in power, guess who the winner was?
Saddam believes Desert Storm was his success and from his prospective, it was.
Maybe and maybe not. Hard to say. If Tel Aviv gets smacked with a million deaths from anthrax flung by Saddam in a SCUD missile it’d be very hard for other Arab countries to get righteous and indignant if Israel retaliated.