Putin reveals intelligence confirming Saddam planned attack on America

[johncmcleod]

Saddam has killed his own relatives when he suspected they betrayed him.

Saddam had lots of political enemies that wanted to assasinate him, so he was extremely cautious, rarely making public appearances and making sure that anyone that was suspected of betraying him would be killed. This was a brutal strategy but a successful one, he never was assasinated. Again, this is an example of his sheer brutality, but it doesn't show his craziness.

Saddam would never attack the US. First off, he has done nothing for 12 years. There is no reason to all of the sudden believe he is a threat or would want to attack us. Sure, he may be made at the US government for what they did, but he wouldn't commit suicide just for killing a couple of innocent Americans. He doesn't care about Americans. If he killed a couple of them, it wouldn't do him any good. Now maybe if he was extremely insane, he might commit an attack of terror against the US, but judging by how he looked when he made public appearances and the fact that he ran a country for two decades.

I will say it once more for the last time.

Insane people can't run a country efficiently for long periods of time.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Insane people can't run a country efficiently for long periods of time.

Anyone running a country efficiently for a long period of time will go insane.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

[johncmcleod]

Oh come on, Darius, if you are going to call my posts stupid, I don't care, but at least back it up and prove me wrong.

[Darius871]

Sorry, I don't dash to Apolyton every time I get home to see if you've posted.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Good job! You have been able to find one very stupid decision by Saddam Hussein. Does that make him completely crazy? No.

You said he wasn't suicidal enough to launch a terrorist attack on the U.S., and I mentioned one time where he quite literally threw his country into a meat grinder. How many times must he do so before you doubt his judgement? 3? 5? 10? n? What's the arbitrary number these days? As Skywalker/Kucinich said, what matters is the level of insanity/stupidity/miscalculation/bad luck/(whatever the hell you want to call it) that he displayed in that 1 decision, not the number of bad decisions. As Sirotnikov said, it was just the most obvious insane/stupid/(whatever the hell you want to call it) decision, and there are several others.

Still, this goes without mentioning that his connection to such a terrorist attack could be easily concealed, so it isn't even "suicidal" to begin with.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
My statement doesn't apply to one of your arguments in particular, it applies to the whole thing. I stated that Saddam was not a threat to America at all, you argued with me. So I am saying that a reason he isn't a threat is that he has done nothing to us for the past 12 years.

I responded to specific points in your post, and never argued that Saddam was a major threat to America. I'm not going to get dragged into that discussion.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Our intelligence is the best in the world.

Eh? The intelligence community that didn't foresee fall of the Berlin Wall, didn't prevent 9/11, was convinced Iraq and al-Qaeda had a collaborative relationship, and was convinced Iraq had WMD? That one?

We might be the best at cryptology, intercepting communications, and satellite recon, but our human intelligence is far from the best. The Mossad and SVR probably take the cake there, but I digress.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
If any of them got caught, if any of them got killed, they'd find out that Iraqis were carrying out the attack.

The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Did we invade Saudi Arabia in response? Saddam could have simply denied involvement, and the fact that the men who did it were Iraqi would have proven nothing. Even if it were proven that they had once been in the Mukhaberat, he could have said they had left Iraq years before and acted on their own.

He could have said whatever he wanted to look innocent, and it's not hard to imagine much of the world having believed him over Bush. Look at the political culture in the last year and tell me that's not conceivable.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
The operation would be too risky.

Going to war with Iran was risky. Invading Kuwait was risky. Refusing to withdraw from Kuwait on threat of war with the most fearsome military machine in the history of man was risky. Attempting to assassinate an American ex-president was risky. Kicking inspectors out of the country in 1998 was risky. Hindering inspections in 2002-2003 and doing a piss-poor job of accounting for missing weapons was risky. Having Mukhaberat operatives carry out a terrorist attack inside the United States with specific orders to cover up all evidence of Iraq's involvement would have been risky. So what?

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Insane people can't run a country efficiently for long periods of time.

The fact that he brutalized his people enough to stay in power for over 2 decades does NOT mean he was incapable of taking huge risks. If anything, it was his gambling nature that kept him in power.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Well first off, I had a reason to 'brazenly' declare conservatives wouldn't respond. Everytime I have brought up these arguments, no one argues back.

That is because everything you said has been said countless times. Don't think they never responded because they were afraid to.

Originally posted by johncmcleod
The fact that someone who doesn't even agree with the conservative position was the one that came and argued is pretty sad.

Oh I didn't say I wasn't conservative or that I was against the war. I just said I disagree with most conservatives about whether he had stockpiles of WMD or a collaborative relationship with al-Qaeda, and supported the war for my own reasons. If it turns out they're right about these two things, well that's just gravy.

[johncmcleod]

Sorry, I don't dash to Apolyton every time I get home to see if you've posted.

You don't??!!

The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Did we invade Saudi Arabia in response? Saddam could have simply denied involvement, and the fact that the men who did it were Iraqi would have proven nothing. Even if it were proven that they had once been in the Mukhaberat, he could have said they had left Iraq years before and acted on their own.

Saudi Arabia is our ally. They are possibly the most brutal regime in the world, but our government doesn't care. Bush needed to get rid of the 'evildoers' for his War on Terror and gain public support. Saddam was very weak, and brutal, and also had oil. He was the perfect target to invade. Bush looked for excuses to invade him. He still gets connected to AQ and 911 even though he didn't do it. Bush still connects him to it, and I still hear many conservatives talk about how he took part in it. If Saddam did anything that could possibly used against him, Bush would say look, we've got to invade Iraq. And that would be the end of Saddam. An example of this is when throughout the years he many times refused weapons inspectors into Iraq, for he knew that the CIA had infiltrated them, making it very risky for Saddam. He didn't want to get assasinated. So when Bush said we had to invade Iraq because Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors, Saddam even decided to let them in, even though it created a much greater risk. Bush's main argument was now gone, but he created more and still invaded. But I digress.

He could have said whatever he wanted to look innocent, and it's not hard to imagine much of the world having believed him over Bush. Look at the political culture in the last year and tell me that's not conceivable.

Yeah but it would be much harder to look innocent after conducting a terrorist attack. Saddam needed everything he could to look innocent and possibly avoid getting invaded. If he committed a blatant terrorist attack, that would be the last straw and the world would be more acceptable of an American invasion and he'd surely get knocked out of power. Remember the sympathy America got from 9/11? If a terrorist attack against America was made by a brutal dictator, I think the world would be much more okay with America going to get rid of him.

But tell me why Saddam would commit such an attack. As for people like ObL, they believe that if they kill Americans, they get a higher place in heaven. But Saddam definitely isn't like this. Why would he attack America? Sure, he may not like us. But what good would it do him if he was able to maybe kill a few hundred Americans? That wouldn't do him any good. It wouldn't make him more powerful or help him in any way at all, but what it would do is guarantee him of losing his power.

Going to war with Iran was risky. Invading Kuwait was risky. Refusing to withdraw from Kuwait on threat of war with the most fearsome military machine in the history of man was risky. Attempting to assassinate an American ex-president was risky. Kicking inspectors out of the country in 1998 was risky. Hindering inspections in 2002-2003 and doing a piss-poor job of accounting for missing weapons was risky.

His invasion of Iran paid off in the end, and how risky was it really? He was getting support from the US. He was even getting chemicals for WMD from American corporations. At the time he tried to assasinate Bush I, America wasn't bent on looking for a reason to invade Iraq with. Saddam knew that Clinton wouldn't do anything about it. Hindering inspections? He didn't let the inspectors in because the CIA had infiltrated them. But eventually, he let the inspectos in. He did this because he was interested in staying in power, and didn't want to give the US any reasons to invade him. Does this sound familiar? (Hint: he wouldn't want to attack the US, it would give them big reasons to invade him)

You said he wasn't suicidal enough to launch a terrorist attack on the U.S., and I mentioned one time where he quite literally threw his country into a meat grinder. How many times must he do so before you doubt his judgement? 3? 5? 10? n? What's the arbitrary number these days? As Skywalker/Kucinich said, what matters is the level of insanity/stupidity/miscalculation/bad luck/(whatever the hell you want to call it) that he displayed in that 1 decision, not the number of bad decisions. As Sirotnikov said, it was just the most obvious insane/stupid/(whatever the hell you want to call it) decision, and there are several others.

Look, if someone makes 99.999999999% of their decisions in a sane manner, I don't think they are insane. In twenty years of rule, he made a bad decision. But maybe he had reasons for it. Maybe he believed that if he let America have its way and use the Gulf War as a move to gain voters, they'd support Saddam for helping, and if Saddam withdrew and did what was asked of him, Bush would cut off his support, support Iraqi rebels, and possibly still invade him but take him out of power. After all, Saddam was left in power, and when the Shiite rebellion occurred, the US didn't support it. But he ended up being wrong, Bush didn't get reelected and the US put sanctions on Saddam. But then again, maybe Saddam would have wanted the sanctions. Sure, they really hurt the Iraqi people (it resulted in the death of over 500,000 Iraqi children), but they actually helped out Saddam, the sanctions just made the Iraqi people dependant on him and made it hard for a rebellion to occurr. Even though his army was crushed in the Gulf War I and his people wanted him out of power, he still was able to hold onto power. It shows how much the sanctions helped him. Since he made 99.999999% of his decisions in a rational manner, I might as well deduce that he probably made this one in a sane manner. Even if it was a really dumb decision, have you ever made a terrible decision like that before? I know I've made decisions before and afterwards I don't have any idea what I was thinking or what my rationale was. He efficiently ran a country for two decades and made one bad decision. I don't think he is insane. Even if he was a risk taker, this risk would be too stupid for him. It wouldn't help him at all, and it would directly lead to him getting thrown out of power, unlike some of his other risks.

I responded to specific points in your post, and never argued that Saddam was a major threat to America. I'm not going to get dragged into that discussion.

Well what do you think this discussion is? The whole point of the post was to only list a few arguments, then let the pro-war brigade come in, then I'd argue with them. If I just listed every single argument there was for why Saddam wasn't a threat, 1. it would take a long time, and 2. people would have less incentive to argue with me.

[Whaleboy]

Iraq is a hopeless case, full stop, thankyou Mr Bush.