WMD? I think it's a moot point.

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Zakk: *
*because it's common sense that Saddam would never even consider such a thing

One of the commonest arguments about the use of force against megalomaniacs like Saddam is that when pushed to the wall they would attack their enemies with WMD's. Oddly this argument has never been proven, Hitler did not use Chemical weapons in WW2 against the Russians, nor did Saddam.

[/QUOTE]

Saddam didn't use his chem weapons in WWII...I agree. But he did gas the Kurds, the Iranians and his own people plenty enough times, thank you.

Give ME a break. No....instead....give me a Kit Kat bar.

22

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Zakk: *
*because it's common sense that Saddam would never even consider such a thing

One of the commonest arguments about the use of force against megalomaniacs like Saddam is that when pushed to the wall they would attack their enemies with WMD's. Oddly this argument has never been proven, Hitler did not use Chemical weapons in WW2 against the Russians, nor did Saddam. Even in the case of Al Qaeda, most evidence of an interest in developing chemical agents was after Al Qaeda leaders heard how worried the American government was over a possible chemical weapon terrorist attack.

At the same time depleted Uranium and daisy cutters have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan with impunity.
[/QUOTE]

Good points Zakk. But we have had the democratic powers use WMD against innocent civilians - the British against the Iraqi Kurds, the American's against the Japanese etc.

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did gas the Kurds, the Iranians and his own people plenty enough times, thank you.

That's a separate point, America's concern for the Iranians who died some 2 decades ago is touching. Practically, if Saddam was going to use them, he would have definitely used them against the US...push comes to shove, if he wouldn't use them to save his own skin he'd never have pre emptively used WMD's against a major power. Iran was an exception, he knew he could get away with using chemical weapons.

Similarly look at the US, I think the US military would think twice when using daisy cutters if they knew their opponent had a similar stock pile.

In the end WMD's and their variations are used against those who can't strike back.

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**

:k: True.

25

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Zakk: *
*did gas the Kurds, the Iranians and his own people plenty enough times, thank you.

That's a separate point, America's concern for the Iranians who died some 2 decades ago is touching. Practically, if Saddam was going to use them, he would have definitely used them against the US...push comes to shove, if he wouldn't use them to save his own skin he'd never have pre emptively used WMD's against a major power. Iran was an exception, he knew he could get away with using chemical weapons.

Similarly look at the US, I think the US military would think twice when using daisy cutters if they knew their opponent had a similar stock pile.

In the end WMD's and their variations are used against those who can't strike back.
[/QUOTE]

In your earlier post, you made a point that Saddam didn't use WMD. My point was that he had a history of doing so, regardless of whether that history was 10 or 15 years ago.

I think you and Nadia are dead wrong when you say (agree) "In the end WMD's and their variations are used against those who can't strike back."

Iran proved plenty capable of striking back with gas of their own in the Iran/Iraq war. If memory serves me correct, WWI might well be renamed the mustard gas war.

As it turns out, Saddam didn't use them against the US in this latest war to save his own skin. Your logic suggests his non-use in the latest war is indicative of a lack of intent/desire to use them. This presupposes he had WMD ready for use and chose not to use them. You can't have it both ways. He either had them and didn't use them or he didn't have them and couldn't use them.

The evidence does seem to suggest that he didn't have WMD ready for deployment and use within 45 minutes or any other reasonably short time frame. BAD on our intelligence agencies. If he did have them, I have no doubt that he would have used them.

I also have no doubt that he had salvaged his WMD program, possibly put it in hibernation and would have been able to stockpile weapons again shortly after UN sanctions and inspections ended. Thus, the threat of WMD in Saddam's hands was very real. The "imminence" of the threat turns out to have been, apparently, overstated. My support for the war in Iraq was not contingent upon the potential use of WMD by Saddam within 45 minutes of giving the order. I would have supported the war even if I had believed that it would take him 3 months, 6 months or even a year to have WMD in launch position.

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After the fall of the USSR our main concern was controlling the flow of knowledge. It was relatively easy to keep ICBMs parked where they were, but the scientists that made them weren’t so easy to control. So we initiated a massive program that pretty much subsidized postSoviet military science.

In Iraq we now know that there were no operational WMD. But we do know, without doubt, that they once had these weapons and who in the regime made them. So did we control the flow of knowledge there? Nope. WMD are a moot point. But we did blow hundreds of millions of dollars and killed several months trying to prove that moot point.

I don’t really see the logic behind proving a moot point, but letting these things happen:

  • David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, has expressed concern that since coalition forces entered Iraq, several top Iraqi weapons makers have left Iraq for Syria and Jordan. (AFP, October 3)
  • Dr. Modher Sadeq-Saba al-Tamimi, the head of Iraq’s program to develop long-range missiles, escaped four months ago to Iran. (AP, November 17) Acquiring Iraqi expertise is clearly significant to Iran and imperils American and international efforts to bring Tehran into compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
  • U.S. weapons teams have reported having difficulty finding Iraqi experts and are not equipped to track them once they have been located. (AP, November 17)
  • Scientists remaining in Iraq have now been out of work for eight months, and could easily be susceptible to the entreaties of regimes or terrorist organizations who would find their expertise useful. (AP, November 16)

These are the key bullets from a letter (pdf) drafted on DEC 8 by 3 congressmembers addressing this subject and sent to Condi Rice.

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So if their ability was scary enough to warrant invasion, are we not any safer today? Was the invasion a failure in this regard. Their ability lied solely in the hands of their scientists. Those same scientists that are fleeing elsewhere.

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As much as we all now know that the intelligence was faulty, we all saw American troops charging across a raging hot desert in chemical warfare suits. Those suits are blistering hot, lethal in some cases, and drastically reduces efficiency of the troops. Obviously the military was convinced that a chemical attack was a reasonable possibility. Only after a week of combat with no chemical attack did they shed the suits.

Some of what was expected was, the unexpected. The scorched earth retreat from Kuwait, by burning oil wells, and by dumping raw crude into the gulf is certainly indicative of a willingness to do nearly anything. The profile of a desperate tyrant who would almost certainly be facing death or a war crimes trial has to be taken into account. Let us also not forget a number of years after Desert storm the aligning of Iraqi troops once again on the borders of Kuwait, testing the US ability to respond quickly. Saddam showed no signs of being a good world citizen. He could have easily become another Qaddafi, and lived a pathetic but marginally acceptable life. The prototype was there to be followed......

And last of all, let us not forget that the policy of "regime change" was a Clinton policy, not Bush. Clinton was convinced that Saddam posed a danger.

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*This presupposes he had WMD ready for use and chose not to use them. You can't have it both ways. He either had them and didn't use them or he didn't have them and couldn't use them. *

Actually i can have it both ways, I am not arguing a case in court..and neither am I in a position of inside information about the Saddam regime. I am stating on the basis of historical precedents, Saddam had every reason to use WMD's either in the 1990 War or in the present one...( if he had them)

*Iran proved plenty capable of striking back with gas of their own in the Iran/Iraq war. If memory serves me correct, WWI might well be renamed the mustard gas war. *

I haven't heard about Iran counter attacking with Chemical weapons during the 80-88 war..if I am mistaken on that please post a link. I also think calling WW1 a mustard gas war is an exaggeration. German attacks stopped when they realised the destructive capacity of the weapons. So even a pseudo Military dictatorship like Kaiser Germany was extra cautious about using Chemical weapons.

Thus, the threat of WMD in Saddam's hands was very real. The "imminence" of the threat turns out to have been, apparently, overstated.

MV nowadays individuals can even create forms of chemical weapons, factually Iraq was never a threat to the US, with or without Chemical weapons. Historical precendents show as I said, it is usually those who can't retaliate against WMD's..

Two forms of regimes use WMD's..one pseudo Military/dictatorial regimes wanting to overwhelm a stubborn rebellion/enemy with no fear of a tit for tat retaliation, the other are Democracies which want to minimise their own casualties and maximise victory.

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Zakk,

I don't have time to find the link this moment, but I will try this evening. You can search some of the other WMD threads, there are many posts there.

In the Iran/Iraq war both sides used chemical warfare. The Iraqi's were largely outnumbered, and therefore had to use chemicals more to defend positions. One of the controversies over the gassing of the Kurds is that the nerve gas used was known to be possessed by the Iranians, but it was thought at the time that the Iraqi's did not have that type of weapon. While the Kurds reported seeing an Iraqi aircraft, it represented the first realization that Iraq had a nerve gas capability.

It was not until the UN interviewed Iranian casualties and came to an independent judgement that Iraq had used chemical weapons that it was clear that Iraq had indeed extensively used the weapons. For the most part they used them when their army was in danger of being overrun, and for quite some time Iran did not complain as the Iraqis frequently misjudged the wind and ended up killing their own soldiers more than the Iranians. Only when the Iraqi's became more competent did they raise a concern with the UN.

Do a search in World Affairs and you will find lot's of good links.

31

Spoon:
Actually, I think that letter shows some good thinking and ideas. You can knock me over with a feather that Congressmen wrote such a good piece.

If all the component pieces of Saddam's WMD program are allowed to disappear and become hard working little worker bees for some disparate other groups or countries, that will be a real lost opportunity for us to contain WMD proliferation.

But, having some of these guys splinter off and help someone begin developing WMD programs from scratch or help expand such programs that are in their very early stages is of a different level than having all of them in one place, under the thumb of Saddam, just waiting for the word to reconstitute that which they already had in place previously. The latter presents a much shorter term threat while the former constitutes a threat that takes longer to become operational.

The best case scenario is, of course, that you deal with both threats at the same time. If the current administration has been a little slow on the uptick to do this, shame on them. I hope the letter you linked to is considered seriously and that we address those issues sooner rather than later.