Why the hell would Saddam have given chemical and biological weapons to one of his two arch-enemies (the other being the Ayatollah)?

"Why the hell would Saddam have given chemical and biological weapons to one of his two arch-enemies (the other being the Ayatollah)?"

For similar reasons to those that meant the west gave support to Iraq because it opposed Iran and supported the Mujahideen in Afghanistan because they opposed the Soviet Union???

I think it's known as diplomacy ....

hammac: No, it's not called diplomacy. Secretly giving armaments to the Mujahideen wouldn't produce much negotiation.

But tell me, what common enemies did Iraq and Syria have? Israel and the U.S.?

"I think it would remove "Bush Lied" from the popular imagination and replace it with "Bush Was Incompetent."

Maybe I'm in the minority, but..

That was and currently is already my perception?

I never thought the man lied...I think it's absurd to say he lied or, for that matter, that Obama's intentionally lied and find the whole "Bush/Obama wanted/want to ruin this country!" shouting a load of garbage unworthy of a nation founded by some of the most intelligent and rational people of the Enlightenment.

I think Bush's intelligence and his subsequent action was incompetent...
I think Obama's ability to play the dual roles of bipartisan peacemaker and Man in Charge has been shaky at best, incompetent at worst.

But of course--both are extraordinarily hard situations, for the two...

Then again, both were elected to the PRESIDENCY--dealing with these hard situations, that's sort of part of the job description.



But yeah, other than the very rare President--ie, Nixon--I don't view Presidents, whether I'm on their side or not, as intentionally lying to us with a distinct goal of hurting someone.

(Which is why I find the whole "I NEED my gun in case Obama kicks in my back door!" argument to be akin to the ramblings of a lunatic or someone who doesn't understand the basic political structure of this country and needs a Political Science 101 course and badly...the President is so hamstrung in so many ways...yeah...this isn't Oceania, guys, Big Brother isn't even close to existing here...paranoia in that regard is just survivalist nonsense by intellectually immature fools who need a sense of self-importance and that gun-toting, survivalist mentality grants them that in the stead of rational thought.

But how do I REALLY feel?) :)

I'm not just pulling this out of my ass, JECE. It's been seriously considered for a long time. Now that the Assad dynasty is about to fall (or at least start losing parts of the country) and both acknowledged its possession and threatened to use its weapons of mass destruction we may find out once and for all. It's not so crazy of an idea. Iraq and Syria were both ruled by the Baath party, and even if they weren't really all that close it sure makes sense for Iraq to smuggle out its weapons to a place Washington defintieyl couldn't get to so as to embarrass the American government immensely. And it's not as if Syria would say no to free weapons to balance Israel's nukes.

It may be the case that this didn't happen, of course. I just wonder how it would change things if we find out that Iraq really did have the WMDs the Bush administration said they did. It wouldn't excuse the inept conduct of the stay the course era and may not even justify the war itself in many people's minds, but I think it would be a helluva big deal.

Iraq smuggled its weapons out of the country when it was expecting invasion to embarrass the enemy? That's certainly some special logic there. I bet old Saddam was pissing himself with laughter, whilst waiting to be hanged, thinking of how silly Bush must be feeling right then.

In short I'm not convinced.

I'm something of a subscriber to the theory that Saddam himself believed he had WMDs and was rather surprised to find he didn't. It's very easy to believe a few of his henchmen in charge of WMDs were spending government funds on themselves rather than the weapons.

I think Oct has it about right except that I don't believe the henchmen were spemnding the money on themselves. They were just afraid to tell Saddam the progress had faltered and they didn't have anything yet, so they lied to stay alive.

Oh, and I don't think Bush lied. I think *he* truly was convinced they were there. He was just incompetent and in a rush to finish the job daddy had started not realizing daddy had followed Congresses desires and limited the scope to retakign Kuwait and pushing Iraw back to it's original borders. The elder Bush knew how to work with Congress and only got himself in trouble because of his "Read my lips. No new taxes." promise that had to be broken because of the situation the country ewas in after Reaganomics crashed.

Sorry for all the typos. eyes getting blurry and fingers getting tired. The heat is just putting me to sleep any more.

Octavious, they would have been moved while the weapons inspection was still going on. So, rather than moving them expecting an invasion, they may have been moved to try and prevent one. Or not. We won't know for sure till Assad's out of power, and even then maybe not.

Then I'm even more sure that it never happened. If you have WMDs and want them to stay hidden from fairly inept inspectors (not so much due to lack of skill, but more due to lack of numbers and authority) the last thing you'd want to do is take them out of their hiding place and cart them to Syria whilst Yank satellites and spy planes hunt for anything suspicious . Besides which Saddam wasn't the sort of man who'd assume the US would give up and leave Iraq be on the basis of weapons inspectors not finding anything.

I take Draug's point that fear more so than greed would most likely be the dominant motivation of Saddam's men

Invictus: If you didn't pull it out of your ass somebody certainly did.

By the way, they were ruled by two different Baath parties that spent their time killing each other's branches in their home countries. All the Baath parties across the Arab world were affiliated to either the Syrian party or the Iraqi party.

And the Bush administration claimed Iraq was producing nuclear weapons, not just any weapon of mass destruction.

Is the world better with Saddam and his sons dead, or would it be better if they were alive and still in control of Iraq? Is this the definition of a no brainer?

So the ends justify the means? I've seen similar logic in the Olympics snub North Korea thread. Do people not see that stooping to low levels only hurts the one doing the stooping? Instead of responding in kind or acting like asses, we should take the high road.

I think it's a no brainer that Saddam in control of Iraq is better to be honest.
Iraq fell into chaos for many years after Saddam was removed. Sectarian strife is tearing the country apart.

It may not seem like it now, but for much of his reign Saddam was the friendliest leader to the Western powers in that region. And even after the Kuwait debacle he made some efforts to reignite that friendship.

Well at least I know Gobbledydook isn't Shi'a or Kurdish without ever meeting him.

Not as if they are doing all too well in new Iraq.

Draugnar, if only Britain and France has let the ends justify the means to depose Hitler when he occupied the Rhineland. The ends are what count. Moral victories, a bad result attained for what some relativist calls a good reason, are infinitely more harmful than an ending with tangible benefits that was attained without being a Pyrrhic victory.

Thank goodness getting rid of Assad is so much less chaotic than getting rid of Saddam and his sons.

Emac: What tangible benefits? The destruction of Iraqi infrastructure (hospitals, the electrical grid, the water sanitation plants, etc.) without any attempt to have it rebuilt for years; the looting of Iraq's treasures from the country's museums and ancient archaeological sites; the massive civilian casualties from U. S. strategies that accept war crimes; a genocidal civil war that ravaged the country; infiltration into the country of extremists with a predisposition for killing hundreds of people in marketplaces every month; the continued use of torture on a mass scale; a botched execution of the old dictator after what amounts to a show trial; and today Iraq remains with an authoritarian regime.

The ends justify the means indeed. That's what those mass-murderers who want the U. S. to pull out are thinking I'm sure, ha ha.

bump

The end of mass killing JECE. War crimes? The world letting Saddam conduct mass murder was a war crime. Just as it is in North Korea right now. Just as it is in Syria. Getting rid of dictators is always worth the price. Iraq set off the Arab spring and the history books will mark the end of dictatorship in the Middle East with the fall of Saddam. Gaddafi-Mubarek-Saddam-Assad all gone! What a great leap forward for humanity.

Iraq didn't really set off the Arab Spring. But what is happening in Syria is just about what would be happening in Iraq if Saddam had been overthrown by internal unrest. With the American military involved in defeating the nihilistic Islamist insurgent groups, Iraq managed to get a fairly stable and democratic government. No perfect, but the only Asian Arab country which can at least claim such a title. With no outside support for liberals and the Islamists we can live with in Syria things could end up very different there.

For the record I'm dead set against intervention by American forces unless Assad uses his chemical or biological weapons, and even then only an air campaign.

Emac: Wrong. Saddam hadn't gone on a mass-murder campaign since the late 80's, before the First Gulf War. The U. S. had been killing more people in Iraq than he was with its bombing campaigns and economic sanctions.

And no, Iraq did not spark the Arab Spring. In fact, the Arab Spring spread to Iraq to protest its current authoritarian government.


Invictus: I'd say Lebanon is a much more stable "Asian Arab country" with a "democratic government". Lebanon is not exactly a perfect model. And are you forgetting the years of utter chaos in Iraq (which aren't quite gone, by the way)? We'll see how long the fighting lasts in Syria, but I'd bet you anything it won't last as long as it did in Iraq. Without an occupying army, there would be no reason to continue the fight. (Just cross your fingers and hope Turkey doesn't invade.)

What if...

We did further analysis on the rocks we've chipped away from the moon and found out that they were actually made of super-hard gouda cheese?

Lebanon a stable country? Look into that a bit more. The war in Syria could actually last a whole lot longer, since Assad can turn the Allawite mountains by the coast into a redoubt for his regime, and Sunni extremists could start killing Kurds. Israel probably will have to do some sort of intervention if the Assad remnant loses control of any chemical or biological weapons. And Turkey may intervene for any number of reasons, from humanitarian ones to fear of a Syrian Kurdish area where attacks on its territory could originate. In short, Syria has the potential to fall apart just as Iraq did, but without the American military there to make sure the forces of nihilism and reaction don't take control of the government or wide swaths of the country.

Don't worry. Syria will invade just like they did in Lebanon and stabilize things. ;-)

Errrr...nor reading ANY of this....but...DUHHHHHH....OF COURSE Sadam Hussien's WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION existed and were moved.

1. HE USED THEM....i.e. he had them at some point
2. At least one general that defected CONFESSED that his WMD's were shipped out to Syria.

NONE OF THIS "IDEA" IS NEW to anyone that actually paid attention back in the day.

Idiots....Hussien HAD WMD's. Period. End of story. REAL QUESTION: Why doesn't anyone give a shit that Syria is killing his people....because it was good enough to go to war in Libya, right?


Oh...wait...SYRIA....Radical Islamic regime. IGNORE...

Egypy...Libya....NOT radical Islam......help overthrow them.

IRAN - Radical Islam....IGNORE...

Israel....Throw under the bus....

OBAMA is a radical Islamic sympathizer....

I'm developing a strange affection for Krellin's debating style.
IMHO - Iraq was invaded for primarily political reasons, Saddam probably was in possession of some nasty gear but he was a nasty chap and it goes with the territory. By the "WMD" criteria of military involvement, the U.S and allies would be fighting wars all over the shop had that been the deciding factor. What clearer way to say "don't tread on me" when wounded than to flex your military muscle against an old and previously scrutinised enemy?

If the US had to invade every dubious regime which had illegal WMDs, they'd have to invade Israel. Unlikely.

Israel doesn;'t have illegl WMD's....wink wink,, nudge nudge. ONE, we gave them the bomb and TWO....they aren't a bunch of fucking dick-wad terrorist Islamic fuckheads saying, "As soon as we get the bomb, you will cease to exist...."

There is a significant differnece between RATIONAL governments, and non-democracies. You moronic Libs can't comprehend that difference....but then again, you aren't rational...for instance, most of you think killing babies in the womb is just a medical procedure instead of willful murder....i.e., your morals are *completely* corrupted by self-interest, such as personal comfort, etc. i.e. You murder to ease your lifestyle, you don't keep murderers in check if they don't immediately threaten your comfort 9even though they murder others)....Liberals, ironically, are the ***most*** self-absorbed assholes in the world....and yet they claim the 1%.....those that *could* hide from society and never be heard from again, and yet whom most often invest their personal wealth in risky adventures to build businesses so that assholes can have jobs....libs claim these self-sacrificing 1%'ers are the problem....while they WALLOW in self-absorbed bahavior.

Amazing...

Those satellites we have that can see the face on a postage stamp, the no-fly zone, the embargo on basic medicines that led to a`million avoidable infant deaths. The war on Iraq never stopped, the only fear was that defeating Iraq completely would leave them too weak and the allies feared an invasion by Iran so they stayed in military control. They knew about all troop and weapons movements in Iraq due to surveillance. The 10 years or so they weren't on the ground they were still carrying out regular bombing missions over Iraq. You guys know all this stuff right....
The bullshit B liar came out with to UK parliament was that Saddam had 'battlefield weapons' that could be deployed in 45 minutes, yeah, so what. Who was Saddam going to go to war with when he absolutely no air cover ..... nobody obviously.
The simple truth is the allies were never sending 250,000 troops to the borders of Iraq as a negotiating lever. IThe UN resolution was a fucking farce, that was B liars idea because he wanted to feel better about the destruction of Iraq, he wanted to legitimise it, he failed.
t was all about oil as we know, if Iran had got control of those oil supplies they would have held the world to ransom.
So enough of your WMD bullshit, Bush and B liar were weak men who were persuaded by military commanders to go to war, the only concession Bush required was to send in his mates US companies to get all of the re-building work paid for by Iraqi oil once it was over.
Did you know B liar has been Middle East Pence Envoy since he left office, what a great job he has done for peace in that region.

The amazing thing is I don't think krellin realizes that we're the bad guys. I don't think it occurs to him that we've invaded or bombed at least 5 separate countries since 2000, have a military budget roughly equal to the rest of the world combined, and have made it national policy to use unaccountable mercenaries wherever possible. I don't think he realizes that other people's fear and hatred of the US is an entirely reasonable response to our behavior.

Krellin must miss a lot by putting the blinders on when reading others info and just relegating all disagreement with him to liberal idiocy.

krellin, let me respond to your quotes with a statement of equal quality: no.

Intersting, I meant to say 'posts' instead of 'quotes'.

Common, obvious krellin is obvious. He even wrote such retarded thing that Ba'athists are islamists.