Maybe Saddam was Telling the Truth about WMDs!
Posted By John Moore on January 8, 2004
The lack of use of WMD’s by Iraq, and our subsequent inability to find any of the weapons has been used by anti-Bush forces in all sorts of silly ways, with lots of headlines.
More interesting is the question of why Saddam apparently didn’t have WMD’s by the time of the war, and yet caused his country to suffer 12 years of UN sanctions. After all, his lack of cooperation with inspectors was the strongest evidence that he had WMDs and was the cause of continued sanctions!
When asked, shortly after capture, Saddam said he resisted the inspections (an action which kept the sanctions in force) because he didn’t want his privacy in his palaces violated!
What if he is telling the truth?
It sounds insane… putting up with extensive sanctions for a dozen years just to maintain his personal privacy.
But consider it from Saddam’s malignant narcissist point of view. One aspect of such a personality is that he cares nothing for other human beings, having no more compassion for them than he has for a inanimate objects. Furthermore, as a narcissist, his “dignity” is extremely important to him - in fact, threats to his dignity are viewed as bad as threats to his life.
Such a person might very well subject his country to those sanctions just to protect his dignity. After all, he was able to skim off enough money to build 41 palaces during the sanctions. He suffered no personal harm as a result of the sanctions. The harm others suffered were of no interest to him, given his personality.
At the same time, WMDs are expensive and he had no delivery system. Furthermore, the only WMD’s that would be effective against US military are nuclear, and he would be unable to build those under constant scrutiny, because of the large required infrastructure. Biological WMDs would be useful for terrorism, but they are so easy to hide that he may very well have had them without us knowing it. David Kay has made some ominous discoveries in that regard.
On the other hand, being suspected of having WMDs is handy to maintain face in the Arab world, and to deter potential attackers. Being the great leader standing up to the west appealed to his narcissism, and appearing to have WMDs and his continuous (if futile) attacks on no-fly-zone patrols enhanced that image. A man who erects tens of thousands of statues and pictures of himself cares a lot about image!
Finally, the sanctions would not last forever. He knew, from his French friends, that pressure was building to remove the sanctions. Furthermore, his propaganda campaign, claiming (with sad pictures) that children were dying as a result of the sanctions, was working. It was convincing many eager-to-believe Europeans who either ignored or were ignorant of the diversion of Oil For Food funds. Thus Saddam knew he would eventually be freed of sanctions, and could then reconstitute WMD’s fairly quickly, with the exception of nukes, which he could buy from North Korea or the Libya centered nuclear project (which DebkaFile reported as having a significant Iraqi complement).
Thus, amazingly, Saddam may have been telling the truth!
One theory is that Saddam actually thought HE DID have WMDs– underlings who told Saddam what he didn’t want to hear had an awful tendency to find themselves taken out and shot.
More to the point, seeing as he had no problem taking, oh, 300,000 or so of his people and having them executed, what did HE care if they were tortured under sanctions– it was always about him anyway.
Furthermore– the Familia Tikriti did fabulously under sanctions, controlling the black market rackets.
Look: only an idiot would argue that removing Saddam was a bad thing. The issue was, and remains, the cost of doing so.
John–
I continue to be amazed at my liberal brethren who seem to imply that the war was such a bad idea that even the one undeniably good thing about it (the removal of the Hussein-Tikritis) was itself also a bad thing. Honestly, I’m just disappointed that someone didn’t drop a grenade down Saddam’s little rat-hole before the SOB surrendered; now figuring out what to do with him presents a whole boatload of bad options.
As to the rest of the war, I just hope it can be turned around before we lose 500 or more additional Americans. I’m still thinking that how it ends is going to be far more important than how or why it began.
Best,
Seth
Too many of todays left are driven into an irrational rage state by the way George Bush was elected (never mind that he got a higher percentage than Clinton EVER did and innumerable post-decision recounts by liberal press organizations concluded that he won Florida). On top of that, his attitude enrages them. It is sort of like how many of us on the right were driven somewhat nuts by the fact that Clinton could get away with many immoral activities and nobody seemed to care!
Those of us on the right are alternately amused an appalled by the left. I fear, based on comments on indymedia and other left wing blogs, that one of these folks may snap and assassinate him! That’s how out to lunch they are. In any case, they are literally psychotic in a clinical sense: they cannot accept reality, and live in an alternate world. It is truly amazing… sort of like early Nazi germany (not meaning to use Nazi in a pejorative sense, but rather to describe the surreal attitude of the Germans and sympathizers during that time.
Actually, I am glad he surrendered. It totally destroyed the myth he had created, which has to have very positive impact on the ‘Arab street’. In addition, be assured that he will pay for his crimes, and he will have plenty of time to contemplate his impending doom. Furthermore, we may actually get some useful information from him. In any case, history will be glad that he survived.
You are right about the ending being the most important. The war was never just about WMDs, but was part of a much larger geostrategic plan. Frankly, if it costs us 500 more soldiers to achieve the desired result, it will be worth it - sad, but worth it! We are in a war against the most dangerous barbarians in history, and most people tend to forget it. My personal belief is that Al Qaeda or some similar organization will eventually turn loose a WMD that will kill in excess of 100,000 Americans. Most likely, it will be a contagious biological weapon, but it might be a loose nuke. Hopefully they don’t use a genetically engineered organism that kills of 90% of humanity, but that outcome is IMHO a likelihood! Hence the stakes are so high, and those against the war so unwilling to confront those stakes, that the whole thing is really scary.
That’s a grim scenario. The problem is, once you can get people to kill themselves for the cause, the issue becomes simply logistics; I have no doubt that if Osama HAD a nuke or bio-agent, he would have used it on us by now (and, living in his favorite target, I would be dead by now). On the other hand, most people (besides, evidently, some Saudis, Afghans and Pakistanis) are really repulsed by the likes of Osama; he was by no means Saddam Hussein’s buddy. In fact, I suspect that either of the two would have gladly turned on the other, if given the opportunity. That said, the good news, it seems, is that it won’t be so easy for Osama to get his hands on the really, really bad stuff. I concede it won’t be impossible, either.
I tend to think that Saddam was a bit farther out of the loop than Osama and his minions are; going after Saddam may, unfortunately, have diverted just too large a swathe of our military from going after Osama (or more to the point, the active elements of Al Qaeda), and while one can scoff at the value of diplomatic initiatives, we clearly need other country’s help in this, and I don’t see the value in pissing on countries whose help we will need for the real battle against terrorists unless absolutely necessary (and I’m not convinced it was absolutely necessary).
I tend to agree with you on the Bush-hating/Clinton hating relationship, though I will say that during Clinton’s term, I always described felt that a couple of friends of mine, myself, and some right wing extremists seemed to be the only people in America who thought that Clinton was a dishonorable prick who should have resigned if he had so much as a microgram of integrity; had he done so, btw, I think Al Gore would have been handily reelected as the incumbent. But that was just me. As to Bush, what are you gonna do? He has been frustrating to many, myself included. Unlike most of those running against him, at least he seems certain of what it is he wants to do.
A couple of disagreements…
I don’t think we diverted military from the Osama hunt. Osama is in “untouchable” territory - Pakistan or Iran - and we couldn’t go after him anyway. It is arguable which country we should have invaded after Aghanistan, but we certainly didn’t have the military power to occupy Pakistan (not to mention that it is nuclear armed) and we are trying other means to overthrow the regime in Iran.
The famous maxim: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend is at work with Saddam. There is vast evidence of interaction between Saddam and Al Qaeda, although the press has chosen to ignore it. Check out this article . Especially in the Middle East, your allies are often people you detest… they may even be people who killed your children a month before when the situation was different!
Furthermore, the real danger from Saddam was in the future… after the sanctions were lifted, which would have been pretty soon. He was generating a tremendous amount of pressure though the “sanctions are killing the children” propaganda ploy, tied to his intelligence agency’s control of a number of Al Jazeera reporters and other in the media. Furthermore, France and Russia were champing at the bit to trade more with him. The only way we could get inspectors in there was to expend tens of billions of dollars to put a credible invasion force on his borders… and as long as we had done that, going ahead and doing the invasion was a pretty simple extension of the policy. Otherwise, he would have eventually gotten out of the box and done some real damage. Furthermore, there was always the possibility that he would arm terrorists with doomsday biological weapons if he were close to dying, or if he could do it with NO traceability. Thus he really was a major danger.
As far as needing other country’s help… our attack on Iraq really didn’t break any significant relations. Europe was against any sort of significant action because Europe is that way (other than England). They have no military to speak of, they resent US power and their increasing irrelevance, and their governments are increasingly corrupt. Thus the idea that we destroyed any important relationships just isn’t true. Also, although this wasn’t widely publicized, the European insistence that we get UN approval was a smoke screen for their real intentions… after all, the war against Serbia (that Europe begged us to do) was not UN approved and neither were the two French invasions of African nations during 2003 (which the press chose to ignore).
Furthermore, the security agencies of these countries (even France) are closely cooperating with our security agencies.
We are engaging in lots of diplomacy. But just talking has little effect. Talking while carrying a big stick (which you have recently used) is a hell of a lot more effective. For example, although liberals like to claim that the Libya defection was a result of 8 years of diplomacy, it’s hard to argue with what Gadaffi told Berlusconi recently: “I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.”
Also, it was important for the world to recognize that some cold war structures, such as the UN, had become the antithesis of what they were supposed to be. The UN, with its silly equality between dictatorships and democracies, is a fairly useless organization. The only reason other countries care about it at all is because it is the only power that can restrain the U.S. As Americans, that is hardly a useful property!
Agreed. Of course, your definition of “right wing extremists” may very well include me, since the left tends to label almost anyone on the right as an extremist. To me, a right wing extremist is either a white power fanatic, a violent anti-abortion fanatic, a black-helicopter survivalist type, or other wacko. The rest of us are just right wing.
I like Bush, even if I disagree with some of his policies. I think he is very much like Reagan, who is my hero of the 20th century. I just hope he knows what he is doing, but certainly he picked a powerful team of advisors and subordinates, something that can not be said for Clinton or Carter. I fear that Bush may be too idealistic, that he may have decided to democratize the world. Personally, I would have been much more militaristic, doubling the size of our forces in anticipation of a number of contingencies that might require a lot of force (such as war with North Korea, the collapse of Pakistan with Islamofascists taking over, the occupation of Iran, or a war with China over Taiwan, which is growing increasingly likely).
You sound too open minded to be what passes for a liberal these days!
I think the older Bush wanted power because he thought he knew how to do the job better than Reagan (he had, after all, a very long distinguished career serving the country). I think the younger wanted to be president because of his convictions and the fact that he enjoyed governing - having been governor of Texas. I think initially he wanted to combine parts of conservative philosophy with some welfare state stuff (compassionate conservatism), with a vision of converting most of the organs of the welfare state to private management (by charities, including faith based ones). After 9-11, it is clear that within seconds he understood that he had a much more important job - protecting the nation against a kind of threat never before seen and never likely to go away. And that is what he has been doing.
I am not convinced about the ‘73 WTC connection, but it is very suspicious. As far as Saddam/Al Qaeda, did you check my link showing the large number of connections. If not, here it is. But the real issue wasn’t existing connections, it was the threat. Saddam had already shown himself to be capable of terrible miscalculations, just the kind of miscalculation that might result in him giving a WMD to Al Qaeda. In other words, Saddam could not be reliably deterred. Thus it wasn’t existing ties, but potential actions that were the issue. Furthermore, his attempt to assassinate Bush-41 indicated that he might use his own agents (properly disguised) to attack America with nerve gas or even a small nuke. In that sense, Saddam was the most unpredictable leader of a country that was clearly out to do us harm (and was actively at war with us in its attacks on our no-fly-zone aircraft). In addition, we needed to plant a major force and a democracy somewhere in the middle east, and Iraq was the best candidate. We could have taken Saudi Arabia easily, but then the accusations “it’s about the oil” would be much greater and furthermore, taking the country containing Mecca and Medina would be really asking for a major Jihad! Hence Iraq was the logical target.
I think that is quite likely, although we know that Iran is harboring Al Qaeda leaders - Iran has told us so! Again, don’t make too much of the religious differences. When it comes to war against America, they’d make a deal with the devil if it would help. I think that Osama today is not the threat he was before. By forcing him to hang out in the NWP (or whatever rat hole he is in), we limit his abilities significantly. Furthermore, i believe that Zawahiri is more dangerous. Osama is more of a figurehead, while Zawahiri is a very smart operator and used to run the most significant Islamofascist organization (Egyptian Jihad or whatever it was called) himself.
First let me deal with O’Neill’s remarks. They are not significant. Of course the Bush administration had plans for a war on Iraq. So did the Clinton administration, whose outgoing members passed them on. Furthermore, Iraq was the most obvious threat pre 9-11, so the president would have been remiss not to have such options. I have heard commentators who used to be members of prior administrations say that this was completely normal and a red herring! I am Bush also was interested in plans about invading North Korea, dealing with a collapse in Pakistan, and lots of other issue.
Furthermore, I have no doubt whatsoever that Bush is driven to win the war on terror, and every international decisions is made with that as a major factor. It is just clear from the kind of person he is. And that means that he believed the war in Iraq to be important to the war on terror, and many of his advisors did.
I don’t know if our actions are the best, but I think that a lot of smart people with a lot more knowledge than me got together and agreed on them. That still doesn’t make the choice the best (Johnson inherited a lot of brains from the Kennedy administration but they turned out to be fools - Robert MacNamara especially). But remember, we are now using 20-20 hindsight. We had every reason to believe that Saddam had WMD’s. We had every reason to believe that he intended to cause harm to the US. We knew he was dangeorusly unstable, and had attacked other countries in serious miscalculations (Israel went on full nuclear alert in Gulf War I and only strong US actions prevented nuclear retaliation against Saddam). So when reasoning about this, one has to use the information available in late 2002. Also, once we had put the forces in place, there were very good reasons to use them even if we knew Saddam didn’t have WMDs (which, of course, we could never know and to this day don’t really know).
Don’t forget that Clinton’s invasion of Kosovo (never, btw, approved by the UN) never ended! But yes, it would be useful if Iraq ended well. However, it would not be a disaster if it didn’t end perfectly. We have lots of fish to fry, and Iraq will not be a threat to us again, after what we have done to them. For the sake of their people, I hope it ends well. But I guarantee you that unless a Democrat gets elected, or a 1974-like congress gets elected, we will not leave Iraq to be taken over by anyone antithetical to OUR interests!
The Carnival of the Vanities, issue #69
Welcome to the 69th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities. Hosting this bear has been quite a fun experience. As I received the entries piecemeal I was actually able to read all of them instead of cherry picking like I usually do. Some are great, som…
Saddam was lying. He had all the chance in the world to prove to the UN and the World at large he destroyed weapons. He never did.
http://www.dod.mil/news/Jan2004/n01292004_200401295.html
Iraq May Have Been ‘Far More Dangerous’ Than Believed, Kay Tells
By John D. Banusiewicz
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2004 – The man who spent eight months leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq told senators here Jan. 28 that although no such weapons have been found, he believes Iraq may have been “even more dangerous than we thought” before Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
David Kay, who stepped down last week as head of the Iraq Survey Group, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Kay told the senators he has changed his belief – which he pointed out was shared by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, including those of governments that opposed the war – that Iraq had stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons, and possibly an advanced nuclear-weapons program, before the war began. But he added that he now believes Iraq actually may have been more dangerous than anyone might have believed at the time.
“I think the world is far safer with the disappearance and the removal of Saddam Hussein,” Kay told the committee. “I think that when we have the complete record, you’re going to discover that after 1998, it became a regime that was totally corrupt. Individuals were out for their own protection, and in a world where we know others are seeking WMD, the likelihood at some point in the future of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country than even we anticipated with what may turn out to be not a fully accurate estimate.”
Iraq was in “clear material violation” of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, Kay said. The resolution gave Iraq a final opportunity to comply with previously mandated disarmament requirements. “They maintained programs and activities, and they certainly had the intentions at some point to resume their programs,” Kay told the Senate committee.
Looking back on the evidence, Kay said, he understands the decision to go to war. “I think it’s often easy to forget that in the case of Saddam, here’s an individual who had invaded two neighboring countries, used chemical weapons against one of those, used them against his own neighbors, and who, by U.N. testimony, had cheated and lied for a decade,” he said.
The day before, Kay appeared on the NBC “Today” show and said the notion that U.S. leaders misled the American people in building the case for war is unfair. “And it trivializes what we did find and the problem we face,” he told interviewer Matt Lauer.