Saddam's "bluff"

[nicky g]

In the Brisith press there has been a lot of specualtion that while Saddam did not have WMDs, he was "bluffing" that he did; he kept up the pretence that he did in order to discourage an attack, save face, whatever, and fooled the colaition into believing they had a significant WMD arsenal and programme. I don't know if this analysis has become popular in the US.

What a pile of crap. These stories make it appear as if the Iraqis never denied, or actually confirmed, that they still had WMDs. In fact, everyone appraised of the facts is agreed that over 95% of Saddam's chemical and biological munitions were destroyed by the Iraqis under the auspices of the UN inspectors in the 90s. Furthermore, the Iraqis repeatedly claimed that the remaining few percent had ben disposed of, though without submitting proof, while others pointed out that even if they hadn't, it would have long degraded past any useful form. How this amounts to an attempt to fool the West into believing they had a significant WMD threat, I don't quite understand.
The only people who tried to fool anyone were the ones that offered forged evidence for claims that had already been disproved, suggested that they knew where WMDs were being stored when in fact there was nothing there and so on. And all this was less than a year ago. I can't believe how quickly the fabrication of history proceeds.

[Wake up CALL]

Nicky, just wondering if I told you I removed 95% of the bullets from my handgun that was pointed in your general direction if you would feel all warm and fuzzy. Or might you still be a bit nervous?

[adios]

The "bluff" theory is a new one on me. The US Congress is exploring this issue now. To me the focus seems to be on the quality of the intelligence and what the administration actually knew in initiating the regime change (how am I doing practicing as a Republican spin doctor using the term "regime change" /images/graemlins/smile.gif). Chris Alger IMO is right in his analysis regarding the $87 billion bill presented by the administration. The sh*t is really starting to hit the fan over that IMO. I've seen a lot of the particulars, very interesting indeed.

[nicky g]

But the 95% figbure didn't come from the regime. It came from the inspectors, based on their estimates of Iraq's stockpile etc. Arguing that Saddam was concealing stockpiles of WMDs is one thing - I don't see any evidence for it but it at least makes some kind of sense - but this "bluff" idea is patent nonsense. The Iraqis consistently said they had no WMDs - they may have been lying but I don't see how denying something amounts to pretending you have it. Unless this was the most elaborate double-bluff of the century?

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
But the 95% figbure didn't come from the regime. It came from the inspectors, based on their estimates of Iraq's stockpile etc. Arguing that Saddam was concealing stockpiles of WMDs is one thing - I don't see any evidence for it but it at least makes some kind of sense - but this "bluff" idea is patent nonsense. The Iraqis consistently said they had no WMDs - they may have been lying but I don't see how denying something amounts to pretending you have it. Unless this was the most elaborate double-bluff of the century?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually the bluff is absurdly clear. Hey Officer I don't have a dead body in my trunk. No, you can't open my trunk and see for yourself. Yes I know I have been letting you search my vehicle before but now I have changed my mind and you cannot look in my trunk. I still promise you there is no dead body in there.

Now there may very well be no dead body in my trunk but what would you think?

[nicky g]

I seem to remeber the weapons inspectors being in up until a few days before the war. THey were destroying missiles up until the bombing started.

Anyway, let me get this straight. You think they were pretending not to have WMDs when they really did - the pro-war position up till now? Or you go with the "bluff" theory, that they were pretending not to have WMDs in order to make us think they did have WMDs, when in fact they really didn't have WMDs?

[Wake up CALL]

Actually either scenario justified the war, whether they really did or were bluffing so that we could not be sure.

[nicky g]

C'mon. you can't have it both ways. Either they really did have WMDs, and were pretending they didn't, or they didn't, and pretended they did. You can't pretend the evidence can suggest two directly contradictory possibilities.(Or, they didn't, said they didn't, and were telling the truth - but obviouly you're not going to accept that).

If they didn't have WMDs but wanted us to think they did, why wouldn't they just say "We have WMDs. We won't let the inspectors in. Go away."? Everyone was desperate to believe they had WMDs - you think if Iraq said, "yeah, you're right, we do", Bush et al would have said "Hang on a second, they don't!"?

[andyfox]

How would you feel if you were surrounded by 200,000 troops from a country that suggested that "tactical" nuclear weapons might be needed in your country after it invaded you?

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
How would you feel if you were surrounded by 200,000 troops from a country that suggested that "tactical" nuclear weapons might be needed in your country after it invaded you?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't exactly understand the wording of your question Mr. Fox. I'd like to answer but wish to be sure I know what I am answering first.

[Ray Zee]

i dont think his stance was about bluffing. in lots of cultures like this one when faced with a threat, they always say that they will destroy the opponents completely and wipe them out etc, etc.
bin laden said the same thing as well as many of the little guys that were about to be plowed under in history.
bush merely used this stance to help convince the people that our govt. did indeed have proof of WMD. which of course we soon found out was a lie to justify the war. which is still debateable whether we should have gone in or not. although no one is said saadam is gone except those who profited from his leadership.

[Chris Alger]

The story that appeared here was that the Iraqi order to deploy WMD's during the attack was "good intelligence," therefore he must have been "bluffing." I doubt that anyone's disclosed the basis for the intelligence, but note that it probably comes from the Pentagon or NSA and not the CIA.

Your point is well-taken but stranger stories have been told. After Vietnam, it was an article of faith among the loony right that American prisoners were still being held, a myth fueled by unscrupulous adventurers and Nixon's manufacture of the POW "issue" in the 1972 campaign. Of course the Vietnamese denied it and no evidence of it ever surfaced.

The funny part was the purported reason the Vietnamese kept US prisoners but denied it: they intended to use them as "bargaining chips."

[adios]

I believe that this story contradicts nicky's take on the "bluff" theory, From the Oct 2, WSJ:

Report on Iraq May Speculate
Hussein Bluffed About Weapons

By WALTER PINCUS and DANA PRIEST
THE WASHINGTON POST

With no chemical or biological weapons yet found in Iraq, the U.S. official in charge of the search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is pursuing the possibility that the Iraqi leader was bluffing, pretending he had distributed them to his most loyal commanders to deter the U.S. from invading.

Such a possibility is one element in the interim report that David Kay, who heads the 1,200-person, Central Intelligence Agency-led team in Iraq, will describe before the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees Thursday, according to people familiar with his planned testimony.

In particular, Mr. Kay has examined prewar Iraqi communications collected by U.S. intelligence agencies indicating that Iraqi commanders -- including Ali Hassan Majeed, also known as "Chemical Ali " -- were given the authority to launch weapons of mass destruction against U.S. troops as they advanced north from Kuwait.

The intelligence prompted President George W. Bush to say shortly before the war began last March, "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons, the very weapons the dictator tells the world he does not have."

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former United Nations weapons inspector who has been in contact with Iraqi scientists since the war, said: "The idea of deployment and the authority to launch was very solid. But it's now being looked at as possibly misinformation or that they were playing with us."

This week, the officials expect Mr. Kay to say that the ousted Iraqi leader never abandoned his ability to develop chemical and biological weapons, and remained prepared to reconstitute his nuclear program once U.N. sanctions were lifted. Data now being collected will confirm that after U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998, the Iraqi leader continued to buy commercial equipment that could also be used to develop the prohibited weapons.

"It is risky to say that he was doing nothing," Mr. Albright said. "Saddam was scheming once we took the boot of economic sanctions and monitoring of his facilities off his neck."

Officials said they expect Mr. Kay to document what the U.S. intelligence community has long reported about Iraq's significant efforts to deceive inspectors, including the hiding of documents and materials related to weapons programs. In a CIA white paper issued in October 2002, for example, CIA Director George J. Tenet said, "Baghdad's vigorous concealment efforts have meant that specific information on many aspects of Iraq's WMD programs is yet to be uncovered."

At least one Iraqi scientist cooperating with the CIA has said that he and others were ordered by Mr. Hussein to record all interviews with U.N. inspectors, despite a Security Council resolution calling for inspectors to have unmonitored meetings. In addition, no technicians or scientists involved with the weapons programs were allowed to leave the country, although the resolution called for them to be permitted to go abroad with their families. None ever went.

Mr. Kay's group has also obtained what it believes to be new confirmation that the Iraqis were violating the U.N. resolution that prohibited Mr. Hussein from extending the range of his missiles and developing fuels to power them.

Mr. Kay has focused on gathering the most extensive information to date on the long-held belief that Iraq had developed sophisticated means for hiding weapons, their technical components and chemical and biological ingredients for deadly weapons.

But Mr. Hussein may have put in place a double-deception program aimed at convincing the world and his own people that he was more of a threat than he actually was. This included moving equipment and personnel, and making public statements all designed to make the world and his own people believe that they had weapons of mass destruction.

It is a theory that House intelligence committee staff and members are also exploring as they finish 19 volumes of data underlying the National Intelligence Estimate, the main intelligence document used by policymakers to decide whether to invade Iraq.

Among the possibilities the committee is exploring is whether Iraq destroyed many of its weapons and equipment before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. After the war, thousands of other weapons were collected and destroyed, along with equipment and facilities under the direction of the first group of U.N. inspectors.

In 1998, after those inspectors were withdrawn, the U.S. and British attacked for four days in December, hitting more than 100 targets associated with Mr. Hussein's missiles and weapons of mass destruction programs.

One of the most popular scenarios, barring the discovery of stockpiled weapons and equipment by U.S. teams, is that Mr. Hussein kept what amounted to "starter kits" -- precursor chemicals for biological weapons, for example, that could be developed in a matter of days.

Updated October 2, 2003

[Cyrus]

So far, this is what has been put forward as an explanation about the Iraqi WMDs and what happened to them. I don't think I've missed anything :

A. Saddam had destroyed all the WMDs a long time prior to the invasion but did not want to reveal this to the world, at least not clearly and unequivocally, because Saddam firmly believed that his enemies must still fear him and consider him to be strong.

B. Saddam had destroyed all the WMDs a long time prior to the invasion but could not persuade the UN inspectors because Iraqi bureaucracy is far from being as efficient as western intelligence believed it to be. A large number of WMD destruction, e.g. the burying of biological weaponry, occured without any official record of same. (This was suggested in a 'Time' magazine article recently. Various Iraqi sources were quoted to that effect.)

C. Saddam did not actually have the WMDs he believed he had. His dictatorial regime was corrupt to the bone and most, if not all, of the "projects" proposed to him by his "scientists" were schemes to make some people richer. (This was also suggested in a 'Time' magazine article recently.)

D. Saddam never really possessed the WMDs that western intelligence believed he had. Saddam's truthfulness was being measured by the UN inspectors against false data & assumptions which were provided by western intelligence. Thus, Saddam could not persuade the UN inspectors that he had indeed complied with UN instructions. Western intelligence was misled due to a combination of faulty understanding of intercepted Iraqi communications, faulty analysis of satellite images, false or misleading information provided by Iraqi defectors & informants, pressure from political higher-ups to be specific and assertive rather than precise, etc.

E. Saddam, shortly before the Americans invaded, moved the WMDs out of Iraq and into one or more neighboring countries, with or without the knowledge of those countries' regimes. (Iraq has frontiers with Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.)

F. Saddam, shortly before the Americans invaded, hid all WMDs inside Iraq in various safe places, so well that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the American inspectors to discover them. It will take the American inspectors at least six more months to discover them.

G. Saddam destroyed all the WMDs just prior to the American invasion but no evident traces of their destruction were left anywhere and no Iraqi is yet able to provide the Americans with information about the details and whereabouts of the WMDs' destruction. It will take the American inspectors at least six more months to find out what really happened.

H. Saddam possessed WMDs and the WMDs have been discovered by the Americans. What has been discovered in Iraq so far by the Americans is solid evidence of the existence of WMDs and conclusive enough to justify the military action and its cost.

This could've been a <font color="red"> Poll</font> but there's no way Mason would not be furious with the wording.

[MMMMMM]

A very important something at that.

Iraq's WMDs, besides being designed for concealment, were designed to be able to be broken down into their constituent parts.Thus they could be hidden with less fear of detection. Also, Iraq's many such programs made extensive use of dual-use facilities which could be altered relatively quickly for production of WMD instead of commercial products. Also, the methods of producing biological WMDs were well-documented, and small stocks (such as that vial of botulinin) were preserved because small stocks could be utilized with the above facilities to relatively quickly produce much larger quantities of toxins.

That's not to say he didn't ship some WMD or constituent parts to Syria, though.

[nicky g]

Thanks to you and Chris for pointing out that the alleged order to deploy WMDs is the main basis for the "bluff" theory. In defence of my scepticism I will say that the whole campaign has been characterised by incorrect or exaggerated intelligence.

"But Mr. Hussein may have put in place a double-deception program aimed at convincing the world and his own people that he was more of a threat than he actually was. This included moving equipment and personnel, and making public statements all designed to make the world and his own people believe that they had weapons of mass destruction."

This is interesting and would support the bluff theory. I'd like to see detailed evidence of these alleged occurrences(no Saddam speech suggesting he had WMD was publicised before the war, as far as I remember, which I'd have though it would be if he'd made it). I would have thought that the only weapons that would act as a serious deterrent to the invasion would be nuclear ones, and no amount of bluffing could have convinced anyone that Saddam had them - it was well known he didn't.

[Cyrus]

"Iraq's WMDs, besides being designed for concealment, were designed to be able to be broken down into their constituent parts. Thus they could be hidden with less fear of detection. ... That's not to say he didn't ship some WMD or constituent parts to Syria, though."

That's simply 'F' (and 'E') from my list worded differently.