Marduk

"7. He's hoping to make a fool of Bush by ridding himself of all WMD evidence. "


too late, that ship has already sailed

Blixy Sticks

Uhh....wait a minute boss....I juss remembers...we had that special arrangement with The Vatican and The Pope. They are holding the WMD's as collateral for the souls of our citizens.

ybnormal

Why hasn't Hussein used C/B weapons?

Because he/they never intended to do so, even if they still have any non-degraded C/B weapons. I have believed they would not use C/B weapons since it became clear that there was no organized effort to blow all of the oil wells, pipelines and other oil infrastructure. This belief has been enforced when they did not blow the dams or even the bridges to slow the US march to Baghdad. They obviously had another plan that has worked better than anyone on earth predicted.

At this point I think all these ideas were simply more scare tactics manufactured by my sneaky government for the purpose of gaining support. Yes the Iraqi gov is bad, but they obviously are not the madmen that they have been portrayed to be. Bush keeps calling them "desperate" when just maybe it is only Washington that is desperate.

If not scare tactics, then the US seems to have watched the Gulf War I movie and stupidly believed Iraq would be as willing to destroy their own country as they did Kuwait... just another in the long list of miscalculations by the US.

I'll go on record saying Iraq will not use C/B weapons.

capsaicin67

It's not over yet. So it's possible that it still is or isn't Plan Z. We also don't know if he's even the one leading anymore or if he's alive. But while we're sharing speculations, I think that he's shrewd enough to know that the best chance to stop the coalition is clearly to win the propaganda war. He's not going to beat the opposition with tanks and conventional means. If he uses WMD or even gets caught with them he'll lose the moral authority that he has brilliantly manipulated many into giving him. The US and Brits have the conventional military angle dominated. If the Hussein regime is to have any chance at all of maintaining it's occupation of Iraq it needs to not alienate the intl community and definitely to not get caught doing what GWB et al said they'd do. Right now, any WMD he has seem like they would only be detrimental to his cause. But who knows what script he's got playing in his melon? It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out. There are numerous possibilities.

I would say that the plan is to draw the forces into urban settings if possible, harass them from many angles with terrorist militias, try to blur the line between civilian and soldier as much as possible, focus on civilian casualties and try to blur the line between civilian and soldier,attempt to make it an Islam Thang and enflame and enlist the support of people from other countires that are Islamic, and hang on like a mf while you try to keep the intl community split and hopefully the UN would intervene on his behalf, or the coalition forces find themselves stuck there in extreme heat. Clean up all the evidence of WMD. Hang around Baghdad so you can say that you are defending and leading until the bitter end. Then when it gets apparent his goose is cooked, he spirits himself out of Iraq to Syria or the like. Go into exile. Survive once again, and try to sabotage the coalition nations from abroad. Be a pain in the arse for another 12 years because the coalition doesnt finish the job. All specualtion though.

ybnormal

Then when it gets apparent his goose is cooked, he spirits himself out of Iraq to Syria or the like. Go into exile. Survive once again, and try to sabotage the coalition nations from abroad. Be a pain in the arse for another 12 years because the coalition doesnt finish the job. All specualtion though.


Washington Post - Saddam's Greater Game

Joel

I've seen this mentioned a couple times on this thread and was wondering why anybody thinks it matters. A government is made up of more than one man, even if he is a 'dictator'. Odds are his government is filled with like-minded people who would still chart a similar course of action as Saddam would, the same as our government would continue on it's current course if GWB were no longer in charge simply because the government is staffed with people who have similar views and opinions. (Cheney, Rummy, Powell, etc. etc.)

ybnormal

I think it matters in that Saddam & sons are the main targets here... if their underlings are in charge now, they may be inclined to avoid war crimes trials and try the "I was just following orders" defense, which they would never be able to do if they used C/B after Saddam & sons were incapacitated.

Joel

Good point. Hadn't really thought about that. (Guess I'm really slow today, huh?)

Tyler Durden

According to the UN dossier it lists WMD as a completely separate criteria from "long range missles" and the range limits for such LRM is 150KM.

if the range of a missle is over 150 km, as per se the UN resolutions, then doesn't that entail a violation? What was the true actual range of those missles launched back on the 20th?

"a scud/al-samoud/mini is a WMD," so goes the illogic of my more 'chickenhawkish' friends.

Loren Pechtel

Actually, those missiles do bear a lot of resemblance to WMD. The big issue with both chemical and biological weapons is that their effect disproportionately hits civilians.

Things like the Scud's are too inaccurate to be of any real military use. All you can hit is things like cities. Thus they are an anti-civilian weapon.