How I know Saddam has no WoMDs

[zulu9812]

This has probably been said before, but oh well...

Have a think about it. Bush/Blair want to invade Iraq because he's a dictator with weapons of mass destruction. Well, Korea is a dictatorship with weapons of mass destruction (allegedly). Pakistan is a dictatorship with weapons of mass destruction. China is a dictatorship with weapons of mass destruction. So why don't we invade them? Simple - we don't dare, we're too afraid that they'll strike back. We're only daring to invade Iraq because we know they cannot strike back.

[Dauphin]

Weapons of Minimal Destruction

Face it people, Iraq does have WoMD.

[DinoDoc]

How I know Saddam has no WoMDs

So what happened to the 360 tons of chemical warfare agents, the 3,000 tons of chemical precursors, growth media for 20,000 liters of biological warfare agents, and the shells for use in biological warfare?

[SlowwHand]

As has been stated many times, Iraq was too have been open to inspection for the last 11 years.
Nothing in the agreement addressed other countries you name.

[Tripledoc]

How is it possible to disprove one's guilt?
I think that is a fundamental issue. The fact is that it is the accuser who have to prove the guilt of the defendant.

And how do you define W(o)MD. One million AK 47: does that run in that category. They have killed quite a lot of people in Africa to my knowledge. In Rwanda they used manchetes and wind-up radios to instrument the killing of a conservative estimate of 500.000 people. Now, that is mass destruction.

The chemical weapons used by the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq war were against large contingents of socalled 'human-wave' assault groups. The way the Iranians would plan an attack against an Iraqi strongpoint would be to mass bundles of teenagers, which were tied together with ropes in groups of twenty - then they would hurdle over minefields. When they got close the Iraqi's would pour chemical short to medium range artillery fire upon them.

This is not how any modern army would conduct attacks. Thus even if the Iraqi army were left with a modicum of chemical warfare capability it would have been rendered obsolete by the advances in modern equipment, mobility and healthcare facilities.

As such, even though the Iraqi's had any significant chemical warfare capability it would not constitute enough of a threat to alter the balance of power in the middle east.

If anyone would like to correct me on the military technical issues please do so.

[Goingonit]

"Weapons of Mass Destruction" is a specific term. It does not refer to the number of people that weapon can be used to kill, nor even to the overall destructiveness of the weapon. It describes nonconventional warfare, and can be divided into three parts: chemical, biological, and nuclear. If it does not fall into one of the three categories, it is not a WoMD, no matter how destructive.

And who is saying Iraq would only use their WoMD on military targets? The things that the American government (and myself) are most worried about are things like chemical-equipped SCUDs falling on Tel Aviv, or a suitcase nuke being placed in New York harbor by Iraqi agents. You are probably right that it would be difficult for Iraq to gain any sort of military advantage, but Saddam Hussein is not necessarily a rational person - he may not think of his own or his national good before doing something.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Goingonit
... but Saddam Hussein is not necessarily a rational person - he may not think of his own or his national good before doing something.

The Iraqi government was rational enough to call for aid from the West when its war against Iran was going badly - and the war-aim of the Iranian government was to topple the nationalist socialist ba'ath party of Iraq.

So if the Iraqi government was rational enough to save itself in using weapons of mass destruction - a difficult decision in my opinion - why would they be so irrational as to use W(o)MD against enemies with clearly superior capability.

Neither the Kurds nor the Iranians (well maybe not, I don't know) had W(o)md capability. Thus it was a risk worth taking.

So, what history has shown is that Iraq like America has used W(o)md against threats which did not have the means to respond in kind. We have not seen the Iraqi government use W(o)MD against nations which could respond in kind.

Thus by the logic of the United States and Britain nations would actually use W(o)MD against adversaries with capabilty to respond with similar measures. This can mean two things. Either the Iraqi givernemnt is bent on self-destruction - or the two aforementioned governments of the West are actually stuck with the belief that it is a feasible counter-strategy when their own nations come under threat that they would ensure the opponents partial destruction as well.

I think that we need to move beyond that kind of downbeat cold war thinking.

[OPD]

Bhah I thought this was going to be one of those complete the sentence things of the form.

I know Saddam has no WoMD because......

IMO they do have womds and also Saddam is a bit of a **** and he'd probably kill a load of my friends and family if he had the chance.

hmmmn
......... his dog ate them.