Saddam's Bag of Tricks

[adios]

Look's like the containment strategy may be exactly what Saddam wants:

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030210/4852137s.htm

[IrishHand]

As opposed to wanting to be killed?

[adios]

He could refrain from impeding inspections. He also could try complying with the UN resolutions he's violated and violating. Hey he might even try turning over Iraq's WMD's and all the components that he has to make them.

[IrishHand]

He could refrain from impeding inspections.
Impeding them how? Far as I can tell, he's let them go wherever they want. More importantly, if he has hordes of WMD, why on God's earth would he want anyone to find them? If he doesn't, he's put in the impossible position of proving a negative. (If you owned California, and someone accused you of having hidden stores of weapons, how would you prove you didn't have them other than letting them look wherever they wanted?)

He also could try complying with the UN resolutions he's violated and violating.
Why? (a) Those same UN resolutions are bent on crippling his country. (b) The UN is a bit of a joke anyway - he's been successfully ignoring them for a dozen years. (c) The US using the UN is even more of a joke - the US sabotages more UN proposals than any other country (generally ones that are good for humanity, but bad for US economic domination, although the US is equally eager to torpedo initiatives which might curtail it's modern imperialism).

Hey he might even try turning over Iraq's WMD's and all the components that he has to make them.
If our goal was really to get all his WMD's, we could have simply offered to trade conventional weapons for them. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[Jimbo]

IrishHand,

You response outlines perfectly why we should simply bomb the living crap out of his country till he crys "uncle". Anything less is useless since he cannot prove what we wish him to prove. Now we bomb until we assume he is dead, if he turns up again we just bomb some more. It may not be efficient but will ultimately prove quite effective.

[MMMMMM]

"Impeding them how?"

Uhh, guess you must have missed that part, Irish...

"If he doesn't, he's put in the impossible position of proving a negative."

He isn't even trying to prove that he doesn't have WMD...he could at least offer some supported accounting of what he did with the WMD the world knows he had

Irish...maybe you should consider joining Ramsey Clark's defense team...I hear he's serving as legal counsel for Iraq now (yes I really did read that, and that he's working in legal capacity for Slobodan Milosevic's defense now too. It's also interesting that this same man is one of the leaders of the anti-war movement, and further that he has set up a website to try to impeach Bush).

[adios]

Here's an impediment

Iraq Approves U-2 Surveillance Flights

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030210/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_527

Hussein's little bone to keep stringing the inspectors along.

As far proving a negative. I find Colin Powell and other representatives of the USA a much more credible source than Iraqi officials regarding the existence of WMD's and the components to make them in Iraq.

[IrishHand]

How exactly is them letting spy planes overfly their country an impediment??

[AceHigh]

He's got to prefer containment to war, doesn't he? He can't think he will survive (continue to lead Iraq) a war does he?

I'm surprised he didn't turn over his weapons and hope America loses interest or Bush loses the election. Then, in a few years go back to developing weapons.

[MMMMMM]

There's no end to the tricks he can continue to pull out of his bag as long as he remains in power--the example you proposed is but one scenario out of many he might employ.

Since Saddam has demonstrated an inability to do anything other than deceive, evade, stall, confuse, and lie for 12 years, the only solution is obviously regime change since it would be impossible to babysit Saddam and the entire Iraqi military to the extent that would be necessary to ensure that they do not continue their covert WMD programs.

[John Ho]

You don't think he's impeding them? He did last time they came around. And Powell showed the photos of trucks leaving the sites to be inspected. If you choose not to believe him that's fine, but I think Powell and our country have much more credibility than Saddam.

[IrishHand]

I think Powell and our country have much more credibility than Saddam.
I don't trust either one especially. Why do people tend to equate a deep suspicion for our government's policies, actions and motives as a preference for the current chosen adversaries'? Hussein is surely an egomaniacal, lying dictator. On a scale of 1-10, I'd say my trust in him is around a "2". My trust in what our government has to say (at media conferences, in speeches, at the UN) is probably closer to a "4" on that same scale. So - twice as good as Iraq, but still pretty bad. Offhand - I can't think of a country that I'd rate higher than a "6" - maybe I'm just naturally skeptical and feel a need to question the motives of those who direct the lives of millions. Not sure...

Basically, I'm not comparing what our country says to what Hussein says. I look at what our country says and consider it in light of our country's history, reasonably likely motives, etc. When I feel like considering Hussein (which I rarely do - I concluded long ago he was a dictator acting more for personal glorification than that of his people), I consider his statements, actions, motivations, etc. So...when our country says "he's a threat to us because he's got WMD and he's going to sell/give them to terrorists", I don't use what Hussein (or his government) says as an authoritative rebuttal. I use our government's complete lack of evidence and the extremely high likelihood of ulterior motives in forming my opinions.

[nicky g]

Tom, this is absurd. Only the day before yesterday we were being told that one of the main obstructions was the refusal to allow spy planes to fly over Iraq. It was an absurd request to begin with; Iraq was being asked to allow US planes to spy on it, not even UN ones but American spy planes, desite the fact the US has admitted using previous inspections as a cover to spy on Iraq for its own purposes, and will probably be using those very photos in a month's time to aid its bombing. Nevertheless the Iraqis agreed and now we're being told the issue is irrelevant, and even an "obstruction"! What is this, 1984?
Now that the Iraqis have complied or partially complied with all the procedural issues we can think of, we're told that they're still in breach becasue they haven't handed over weapons. Weapons they say they don't have, we can't prove they have, and which we say, without any evidence, are being produced by an Islamic militant group openly hostile to Saddam based in territory outside Baghdad's control that noone has even attempted to link to Saddam! Gimme a break!
"As far proving a negative. I find Colin Powell and other representatives of the USA a much more credible source than Iraqi officials regarding the existence of WMD's and the components to make them in Iraq."

This would be this same Colin Powell that hushed up the Mai Lai massacre, right? The same Colin Powell at the head of the Gulf War syndrome fiasco, right? Lord, he was trustworthy then so he must be telling the truth now, even though he can't seem to find a shred of evidence for Iraqi production of anything other than... trucks! Trucks of mass destruction! That's it, kill 'em all.

[MMMMMM]

Iraq made the OK of flights of spy planes conditional on US and British forces not bombing in the no-fly zones.

The Iraqis made this announcement shortly after their announcement agreeing to permit spy plane flights. Since Iraq fires on patrolling coalition aircraft every day in the no-fly zones, this is tantamount to saying: you have to let us shoot at you without shooting back.

More typical BS from the master of BS. The good news is that the time is rapidly approaching when his BS will no longer save him.

[MMMMMM]

Perhaps you're more suspicious of our own government than of Saddam Hussein. Your prerogative I guess.

[nicky g]

That's one way of putting it. Another way is saying that the skirmishes in the no fly zones had to be resolved before Iraq could guarnatee the safety of the spy planes. It wouldn't be logical to say, sure let the spy planes fly, but in the mean time let's continue shooting at each other. I imagine that the other side of the condition ending bombing in the no fly zone is that the iraqis won't fire at them if they don't bomb the Iraqis; in other words a ceasefire. Otherwise Blix et al would not have agreed to it. That said I can't find any coverage of it (any comments, Mark!), so I don't know.

[IrishHand]

Are you so wedded to your position that you're no longer able to understand that 2/10 is lower than 4/10?

[IrishHand]

The more of your posts I read, the more convinced I am you're looking at replacing Ari Fleischer. That one in particular is one of the more ignorant and one-sided ones.

Since Iraq fires on patrolling coalition aircraft every day in the no-fly zones, this is tantamount to saying: you have to let us shoot at you without shooting back.
No - it's tantamount to saying: if you want those planes to fly unmolested, we need to stop shooting at each other. For the past 10 years, they've been shooting at us and we've been sending raids to blow up AA and radar sites. Their shooting has met with next to zero success (I believe they've clipped a few surveilance planes - but it was purely superficial damage), and our raids have met with varying success (their AA is mobile, and tends to hide after it shoots so that by the time our fighter/bombers get there, they're gone - however, we tend to blow up any radar sites they're dumb enough to use). Bascially, for most of the past 10 years the "no-fly" zones have been live-action training for both our pilots and their AA gunners, with us getting the better end of the deal. Of course, neither side is about to make a big issue about this since it makes both look pretty bad - they're shooting wantonly at our planes and we've been bombing them for years. They don't want to be able to shoot at us unmolested - they want the equivalent of a cease-fire.

Now, if Iraq is going to agree to let planes overfly their country, ostensibly to help the inspections but clearly also to provide excellent intelligence for the US military, it would be logical for both sides to stop shooting at each other, wouldn't it? The Iraqis have rightly noted that if the US and British raids continued inside the no-fly zones after they accept these supposedly UN spy planes, then they're basically surrendering the territory in the no fly zones. The US would then simply send in low-level reconnaisance planes, find all their AA and radar, and obliterate it.

I agree that many Iraqi diplomatic initiatives are thoroughly self-interested an deceitful (no comment on the wider applicability of this approach), but in this case, what they're asking for seems pretty reasonable from a military perspective. They improve their "compliance" - whatever that means, and we get both better inspections and accurate intelligence to improve the efficiency of the upcoming invasion.

Ultimately, it brings me great amusement to see you promoting the official line so well. The US media spent much of their energy focusing on these supposed "conditions" to Iraq's completely caving on the spy planes issue. The rest of the modern world seems to think it's a huge concession and that Iraq has basically given in to every US demand short of a pre-emptive unconditional surrender and invitation to occupy the country. Feel free to check out French, German, or Russian newspapers - even the BBC headlined it as an Iraq cave-in. (I have neither the time nor inclination to link all the sites - but the ones I read were the BBC, Le Monde, Aktuell and the Moscow Times.) It's only the US sources that report it as "Iraq puts conditions on spy planes."

[adios]

I would just say that when two sides are diametrically opposed on the veracity of a claim e.g. Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction it's really not very complicated to infer that one side has credibility regarding that claim and one side does not. It's really not that complicated.

[nicky g]

Firstly, why should we believe people who never show us any evidence of what they're contending? Secondly, Iraq may be more likely to be lying, but Bush is more likely to simply not know. Thirdly, and i never get an answer to this, why do all the leaked intelligence reports from the US and the UK, fomer CIA men etc etc all say the casus belli is a crock?

[MMMMMM]

This is crap. The Iraqis have been firing on coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone practically every day for years, and NOT because the coalition aircraft are firing on them first. Coalition forces do often respond when fired upon, however.

The Iraqis are saying we need to stop the antiaircraft and responses to the fire? Then why don't they just STOP? They've had years to do it. Coalition foorces generally return fire or attempt to destroy sites which have fired upon coa;lition airplanes.


And no way are you in the military or you wouldn't have time to post so much every day. Either that or the US government is paying you way too much for goofing off an awful lot.

[MMMMMM]

You must have been reading some different reports than I have, nicky;-)

[IrishHand]

Good God...

Think about what you're saying. Your claim is that a foreign country has been - maliciously and for no reason - shooting at US aircraft for 10 years. This goes on, and yet we need to manufacture claims that Hussein is a threat to the US because of his (decimated) military power and his desire to give offensive weaponry to terrorists (who he's ideologically opposed to)? Last I checked, unprovoked aggression (firing on US planes for no reason) would be sufficient justification for war. Why bother with all the other nonsense if your views were correct?

And no way are you in the military or you wouldn't have time to post so much every day.
FYI - when an officer is on deployment, generally he works 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week. When he's on a base, it's a lot nicer than that - and I've yet to see the base that didn't have Internet access freely available. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

Either that or the US government is paying you way too much for goofing off an awful lot.
That goes without saying. I get a regular salary and great benefits and pretty much all I ever do is fly around on their dime.

[MMMMMM]

It's what I'm saying and it's what I believe to be true. I'm amazed that you would think otherwise.

[IrishHand]

ok - I'll try this again since you missed it the first time.

You believe that a foreign military has been attacking the US military for 10 years without provocation or just cause. Why wouldn't the US use that as a reasonable, logical and justifiable basis for invasion?

[Jimbo]

Allow me to take a crack at this one. You asked "You believe that a foreign military has been attacking the US military for 10 years without provocation or just cause. Why wouldn't the US use that as a reasonable, logical and justifiable basis for invasion? Because the doves would use the famous "it's the victims' fault logic" which goes something like this: If we were not flying around in their airspace we would not be dodging bullets and missiles. Seems to me that many people are using similar arguements for leaving him alone now. Like, he has not attacked the USA yet so why not wait till he does before we send in the troops? Ever hear of closing the barn door after the horses have already escaped?

[MMMMMM]

I've been wondering the same thing for quite some time now. It seems Saddam has managed to do everything imaginable to be obstinate and deceitful ad nauseum, yet he's gotten about a thousand breaks along the way. Iraqi forces firing on coalition aircraft is the norm, not the exception. It's a good thing their aim so sucks.

[nicky g]

MMMMMM that isn;t true. The allies have destroyed much Iraqi communications infrastruture that hasn't and couldn't have fired on them. They don't just fire on anti aircraft batteries. Which came first, the chicken or the egg, is irrelevant. If a ceasefire has been agreed in order to let the spy planes fly, the Iraqis have complied on the spy plane issue. if the Iraqis breach it or fire on the spy planes, they'll be fired back on pretty damn quickly and in open and clear breach of the resolution and we won't have to have this pointless argument.

[MMMMMM]

US aircraft used to be only authorized to attack sites in the no-fly zones which had actually attacked coalition aircraft. Due to the high frequency of Iraqi antiaircraft attacks on patrolling aircraft, the authorization was broadened to include installations which are perceived as threats as well. Whether the locking of radar upon coalition aircraft originally fell under the first definition or the second, I'm not sure.

It's not quite a chicken/egg parallel, although there are some similarities. Iraq never recognized the validity of the no-fly zones to begin with, and so felt free to fire at will upon coalition aircraft, which they did quite often. Coalition patrols, in order to ensure compliance with the no-fly policy and protect themselves, necessarily fired back at antiaircraft installations and gradually came to take broader measures as deemed necessary and authorized.

It's really pretty simple. If the Iraqis would have just stopped firing, that would have been the end of it. Remember, they lost the war--they had no business attacking these patrols in the first place. Now however US forces are proceeeding to slowly take out more antiaircraft installations ostensiby in preparation for the likely coming war.

[IrishHand]

You speak with an amazingly high level of authority for a civilian about what military aircraft could and couldn't do, and about what they did and didn't do for the past 10 years. If you have any friends who are pilots in the Navy or Air Force, I strongly suggest you ask them about this issue. You would find it quite enlightening.

[MMMMMM]

My cousin is a Major in the USAF, still active, and he was stationed in Germany for many years and was in charge of computer software while on an AWACS over Bosnia during the conflict. However I have not asked him about this matter because I glean plenty of information from the Internet about this and like matters anyway. Maybe you should try researching such matters on the Internet. You might find it enlightening.

[IrishHand]

Why would I research this matter on the Internet when I know countless pilots who've been stationed in the gulf in the past 4-6 years?

[MMMMMM]

other matters then;-)

[IrishHand]

Indeed.