Taiee, one of the former major generals interviewed by The Post, agreed that Hussein had "not expected a war." The Iraqi president had concluded that "there would be bombardment as in '98 and the regime would continue and he would be a hero. Then, in case war did happen, these promises he had received from the French and Russians -- plus the resistance he thought the army would put up, not knowing that they would go home -- this would be enough to win a cease-fire and a settlement."So let's see, we have a confused person who doesn't understand the mechanics of deterrence, feeds massive numbers of his own people into plastic shredders creating mass graves as far as the eye can see, is the only known actual user of WMD (in Halabja against the Kurds -- ostensibly his own countrymen) besides the US in WWII, is responsible for the deaths of more Arabs than any other Mideast leader in history, invaded Kuwait almost for the glee of it, created one of the largest environmental disasters in history with the burning of the Kuwaiti oilfields, tried to assasinate a former US president (the elder Bush), funded Palestinian terrorists and was linked to at least al Qaeda affiliates (see my "No Evidence?"), and:
But Maj. Gen. Amer Shia Jubouri, 50, a former army division commander and chief of the Iraqi war college, said in an interview that he believed "the French and Russian governments delivered very clear messages to Saddam that the war was going to happen," and that if Hussein believed otherwise, it was a result of the president's own confusion.
"He obviously misunderstood the theory of deterrence," said Jubouri. "You have to know when this theory can be successful, and when it can be disastrous." [Emphasis added.]
"We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist," the leader of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, told Congress on Oct. 2. U.S. officials said that conclusion still holds one month later.was actually not completely nuts in his approach to constituting his WMD programs. And, oh yes, as a child he loved to run white hot iron rods thru animals (see Pollack's "The Threatening Storm"). And did I mention he was at minimum in clear violation of the cease fire agreement that ended Desert Storm?
The investigators' most significant new discovery over the last month, officials said, was that Hussein made a secret deal to purchase Nodong missiles from North Korea (news - web sites), in addition to a previously reported clandestine deal to buy North Korean missile parts between 1999 and 2002. Neither shipment came through, however, because North Korea's government said it was under too much U.S. pressure in 2002 to risk a delivery by sea.
The substantial evidence of Iraq's secret long-range missile programs, combined with more fragmentary testimony in which Hussein reportedly asked scientists how long it might take to reconstitute chemical arms, has led some investigators to conclude that Hussein saw missiles as his most difficult challenge. In this hypothesis, Hussein wanted to build or buy long-range missiles before he took on the risks of secretly restarting banned programs to make weapons of mass destruction.
"The pattern I think we're seeing is, they were working on the long pole in the tent," the missile program, said the senior U.S. official involved in the weapons search. When Hussein asked scientists how long it would take to restart sarin and mustard gas production, he learned the timelines "were all so sufficiently short" that he could afford to hold off until the missile program was further along, the official said.
So it's really a credible argument then that someone who has been proven to not understand deterrence could be trusted with what would certainly be the quick acquisition of WMD if sanctions were lifted (which was the only real alternative to the war for anyone who gave a whit about the Iraqi people themselves)?
Oh, and given his known use of WMD as well as the massive quantities of WMD he had during Desert Storm and were discovered in the succeeding years of inspections it's just simply craven to make blanket statements that an utter sociopath like Saddam clearly didn't have WMD -- or for that matter that he hasn't already given them to terrorists. If there is a clear pattern here it's that it's quite impossible to predict the moves of someone this completely nuts!
Finally, there is a great irony. Clinton's continuing appeasements and pinprick actions may have actually provided some of Bush's best ammunition in attacking Saddam: evidence that the US wasn't serious even with an armada on his border! For that matter, Bush senior's premature end to Desert Storm contributed as well.
After Chamberlain's appeasements in the 30's failed and the war started, Neville had the presence of mind to at least fall into line behind Churchill. Credit where credit is due, while I think Clinton as all former presidents should be more retiring in their retirements, he has at least been vaguely Chamberlain-like when it was required regarding this war...
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