The order may be somewhat random, but here are my responses..thanks to all for tolerating a minority viewpoint:
- When I say he was willing to do almost anything to pursue WMD, I'm referring to Saddam's acceptance of sanctions for 10 years. If UNSCOM had certified that his programs were truly over, the sanctions would have been lifted (per resolution 687).
If you believe that Saddam truly abandoned his programs at some point, I am interested as to your explanation of why he continued to refuse to cooperate enough with the inspectors to get the sanctions lifted.
Iraq behaved at all times as though they were hiding something. They had been found to have hidden things many, many times in the past (as testified to by your favorite, Scott Ritter (I have to say that the thing that bugs me about Scott Ritter is that all of his writing is about how he, Scott Ritter, was a genius and everyone else was a schmuck. For me it is a red flag)).
If it now turns out that on this last hand, Saddam was bluffing, I don't think that makes the US foolish for calling the bluff.
As to Iraq's kicking out the inspectors, ten US inspectors were expelled in October, 1998. Saddam announced (not for the first time that year) that he would not cooperate with UNSCOM. Butler pulled the rest of the UNSCOM inspectors out. The US and the Brits launched Desert Fox. Those, I think, are the facts.
So you can say Saddam only kicked out the first ten inspectors. But I think it's clear that he also ceased cooperation with UNSCOM altogether.
The replacement inspection regime, UNMOVIC, had significantly less power and, in fact, discovered very little. You may believe that's because UNSCOM did such a great job, led, of course, by the indomitable Scott Ritter. But Butler, at least, thought there was plenty left that UNSCOM hadn't found yet. I think we still don't know. Some stuff may be buried. Some stuff may be in Syria. But again, it was prudent to assume that Saddam had not abandoned production when he worked so hard to cripple the inspections and accepted the massive economic cost of sanctions.
Now as to whether sanctions were working or not, they clearly did _not_ work in terms of their main purpose -- to force compliance with WMD inspections.
They were also not working in terms of execution -- the regime was successfully trading billions of dollars of oil outside the oil-for-food program through turkey, syria, jordan, and the UAE (all starting in about 1999 and creating cash to spend on weapons -- very little trickled down to social programs). There were open borders with Syria and Jordan, if not Turkey, across which contraband could flow. And beginning in 2000 there were commercial flights connecting Baghdad and Europe (starting, of course, with France).
So the sanctions had not acheived their object, and they were losing the power to do so. That's why I say they weren't working.
If it is the case that Saddam had not yet used the loosening of the sanctions regime to start aggressively pursuing banned materials, that doesn't change my view that it would have been crazy to assume he wouldn't do just that in the future.
Now to the distinction between Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
The problem with Saddam WAS that he was prone to make errors. His attack on the Kurds in 1974. His attack on Iran in 1980. His attack on Kuwait in 1990. His mobilization towards the Kuwaiti border in 1994. His mobilization towards Syria in 2000. Combine these erratic moves, none of them beneficial to Iraq, with Saddam's absolutely effective monopoly on power, and you really did have a situation in which, as it seemed, one man could make any decision he liked and execute it, no matter how poor his judgement.
In Iran, by contrast, it's unclear how easily any single ruler could authorize, oh, for example, a nuclear strike on Jerusalem, or an invasion of Saudi Arabia. There is, at least, some distribution of power, together with a shared belief that the Revolution and the state are more important than any single individual. So the odds of Iran doing something totally erratic or suicidal seem much lower than in the case of Iraq.
Syria also seems to be fairly pragmatic, although obviously it's also a dictatorship with little distribution of power. That is, the Syrians haven't miscalculated any worse with respect to Israel than Egypt and Jordan (in 67 and especially 73). Syria is also relatively poor and is not facing any significant threats. So there is less incentive to attempt to be a bully (a la India or Iran) or to see nukes as a last resort of defense (a la Israel or Pakistan).
JMB -- you say you think the US would still have been wrong to go around the UN even if we were absolutely certain that Saddam had WMD.
Is it your belief that the US should only ever exercise military force if authorized by the Security Council?
Would you vote for a presidential candidate who promised to adopt that policy?
"If it now turns out that on this last hand, Saddam was bluffing, I don't think that makes the US foolish for calling the bluff."
We'll see. War orphans make good terrorists.
aw, c'mon now...that's a bit much, isn't it?
we don't know exactly how many iraqi casualties there were, but it's clear that there weren't many compared to any of iraq's other recent wars. or civil wars, for that matter (200k shiites and 20k kurds killed since 1991).
get a viable non-state economy going, with some political representation for all groups, and you won't have tons of iraqi terrorists. get direct oil revenue accounts for all iraqis and it will be even better.
there aren't any iraqi kurdish terrorists to speak of, and aside from the sadr guys i don't see a lot of shiites going at it. the problem is the sunnis, and hey, it's a real problem, but i just don't see angry tikritis getting on a plane to boston to solve their woes.
i know this may seem pollyanna-ish, but it's only been six months since the invasion. let's see how we're doing a year from now.
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- When I say he was willing to do almost anything to pursue WMD, I'm referring to Saddam's acceptance of sanctions for 10 years. If UNSCOM had certified that his programs were truly over, the sanctions would have been lifted (per resolution 687).
If you believe that Saddam truly abandoned his programs at some point, I am interested as to your explanation of why he continued to refuse to cooperate enough with the inspectors to get the sanctions lifted.
Iraq behaved at all times as though they were hiding something. They had been found to have hidden things many, many times in the past (as testified to by your favorite, Scott Ritter (I have to say that the thing that bugs me about Scott Ritter is that all of his writing is about how he, Scott Ritter, was a genius and everyone else was a schmuck. For me it is a red flag)).
If it now turns out that on this last hand, Saddam was bluffing, I don't think that makes the US foolish for calling the bluff.
As to Iraq's kicking out the inspectors, ten US inspectors were expelled in October, 1998. Saddam announced (not for the first time that year) that he would not cooperate with UNSCOM. Butler pulled the rest of the UNSCOM inspectors out. The US and the Brits launched Desert Fox. Those, I think, are the facts.
So you can say Saddam only kicked out the first ten inspectors. But I think it's clear that he also ceased cooperation with UNSCOM altogether.
The replacement inspection regime, UNMOVIC, had significantly less power and, in fact, discovered very little. You may believe that's because UNSCOM did such a great job, led, of course, by the indomitable Scott Ritter. But Butler, at least, thought there was plenty left that UNSCOM hadn't found yet. I think we still don't know. Some stuff may be buried. Some stuff may be in Syria. But again, it was prudent to assume that Saddam had not abandoned production when he worked so hard to cripple the inspections and accepted the massive economic cost of sanctions.
Now as to whether sanctions were working or not, they clearly did _not_ work in terms of their main purpose -- to force compliance with WMD inspections.
They were also not working in terms of execution -- the regime was successfully trading billions of dollars of oil outside the oil-for-food program through turkey, syria, jordan, and the UAE (all starting in about 1999 and creating cash to spend on weapons -- very little trickled down to social programs). There were open borders with Syria and Jordan, if not Turkey, across which contraband could flow. And beginning in 2000 there were commercial flights connecting Baghdad and Europe (starting, of course, with France).
So the sanctions had not acheived their object, and they were losing the power to do so. That's why I say they weren't working.
If it is the case that Saddam had not yet used the loosening of the sanctions regime to start aggressively pursuing banned materials, that doesn't change my view that it would have been crazy to assume he wouldn't do just that in the future.
Now to the distinction between Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
The problem with Saddam WAS that he was prone to make errors. His attack on the Kurds in 1974. His attack on Iran in 1980. His attack on Kuwait in 1990. His mobilization towards the Kuwaiti border in 1994. His mobilization towards Syria in 2000. Combine these erratic moves, none of them beneficial to Iraq, with Saddam's absolutely effective monopoly on power, and you really did have a situation in which, as it seemed, one man could make any decision he liked and execute it, no matter how poor his judgement.
In Iran, by contrast, it's unclear how easily any single ruler could authorize, oh, for example, a nuclear strike on Jerusalem, or an invasion of Saudi Arabia. There is, at least, some distribution of power, together with a shared belief that the Revolution and the state are more important than any single individual. So the odds of Iran doing something totally erratic or suicidal seem much lower than in the case of Iraq.
Syria also seems to be fairly pragmatic, although obviously it's also a dictatorship with little distribution of power. That is, the Syrians haven't miscalculated any worse with respect to Israel than Egypt and Jordan (in 67 and especially 73). Syria is also relatively poor and is not facing any significant threats. So there is less incentive to attempt to be a bully (a la India or Iran) or to see nukes as a last resort of defense (a la Israel or Pakistan).
JMB -- you say you think the US would still have been wrong to go around the UN even if we were absolutely certain that Saddam had WMD.
Is it your belief that the US should only ever exercise military force if authorized by the Security Council?
Would you vote for a presidential candidate who promised to adopt that policy?
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 12:56 am
"If it now turns out that on this last hand, Saddam was bluffing, I don't think that makes the US foolish for calling the bluff."
We'll see. War orphans make good terrorists.
- steve 9-24-2003 6:17 am [add a comment]
aw, c'mon now...that's a bit much, isn't it?
we don't know exactly how many iraqi casualties there were, but it's clear that there weren't many compared to any of iraq's other recent wars. or civil wars, for that matter (200k shiites and 20k kurds killed since 1991).
get a viable non-state economy going, with some political representation for all groups, and you won't have tons of iraqi terrorists. get direct oil revenue accounts for all iraqis and it will be even better.
there aren't any iraqi kurdish terrorists to speak of, and aside from the sadr guys i don't see a lot of shiites going at it. the problem is the sunnis, and hey, it's a real problem, but i just don't see angry tikritis getting on a plane to boston to solve their woes.
i know this may seem pollyanna-ish, but it's only been six months since the invasion. let's see how we're doing a year from now.
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 6:43 am [add a comment]
I think it's different when a big foreign super power with a reputation for bullying comes in there and kills people. Look at Iran's anger for what we did in the 50s.
- steve 9-24-2003 6:50 am [add a comment]
true. but in the 50's we deposed a representative government, installed a dictator, and privatized the state-held oil industry.
in iraq, we've disposed a dictator, will install a (more) representative government, and...ok, so we're going to privatize oil again...but if we institute the personal oil revenue accounts i think it nets out pretty well for individual iraqis...as well as being a bulwark against another kleptocratic regime
- big jimmy 9-24-2003 9:07 am [add a comment]
Big Jimmy, you write as if the Clintons, Paul Berman & Co were in charge instead of the Khristian Kriminal Keystone Kops. According to this AP article the next installment of our tax dollars is going to fund Iraqi zip codes, an Atrocity Museum, and 30 million worth of English lessons. Your optimism is boundless that something good is going to emerge from the current American regime's efforts.
- tom moody 9-24-2003 9:52 am [add a comment]
The goal is much broader than privitizing oil. The Bushies want to reinvent the Iraqi economy. Having gone through the re-invention of the power utilities in CA at the hands of Gov. Pete Wilson (R), Ken Lay (R), El Paso Natural Gas (R), et al, the Iraqis have my deepest sympathy.
The Bushies plan to delay the automony of the people of Iraq until after the state-owned industries have been auctioned off to the highest bidders. Of course, the highest bidders won't be Iraqis, since they have precious little capital.
That's why they can't cut and run. The pillaging isn't finished yet.
- mark 9-25-2003 6:32 am [add a comment]