BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Wednesday, June 04, 2003
More on why Saddam didn't save
himself. Got several e-mails in response to my
item yesterday asking why
Saddam Hussein -- if he really didn't have weapons of mass
destruction -- failed to save himself by being genuinely cooperative
with UN weapons inspectors.
M.O. pointed me to this
Washington Post piece by MIT's Michael
Schrage, arguing that
Saddam played a game of chicken and lost. In this scenario, Saddam
claimed not to have WMDs but refused to prove it, thus making it
appear he might be lying, and thus keeping his neighbors
discombobulated. Schrage writes:
In fact, WMD ambiguity was
at the core of Iraq's strategy. Why? Because if it ever became
unambiguously clear that Iraq had major initiatives underway in
nuclear or bio-weapons, America, Israel and even Europe might
intervene militarily. If, however, it ever became obvious that
Iraq lacked the unconventional weaponry essential to inspiring
fear and inflicting horrific damage, then the Kurds, Iranians and
Saudis might lack appropriate respect for Hussein's imperial
ambitions. Ambiguity thus kept the West at bay while keeping
Hussein's neighbors and his people in line. A little rumor of
anthrax or VX goes a long way.
R.D. sent a long, thoughtful
e-mail, the heart of which is this:
Suppose for a minute that
Iraq really did dismantle its chemical and biological weapons
programs in 1995, as has been reported by a senior Iraqi defector.
From the Iraqi standpoint, the entire WMD allegation takes on the
character of a massive snipe hunt. No amount of access will ever
be enough to satisfy the Bush administration. And, as Iraqi
leaders pointed out, never in history had any power assembled an
army as large as the one at the border of Iraq without eventually
using it....
My problem is that I don't see
any evidence that is inconsistent with the thesis that Iraq had
not had any chemical weapons since 1995. I saw very detailed
allegations, which later turned out to be overblown, faked, or the
outdated work of graduate students. So now we're supposed to
believe that, even though the evidence was bad, the accusation was
good. As a scientist, I find this attitude bizarre.
R.D. also took me to task for
indirectly quoting UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix as calling
Iraq's December report worthless. A bit glib, I'll concede, though I
still think it accurately characterizes Blix's overall
assessment.
As for R.D.'s larger argument, I'll
stick to my original point: if Saddam really didn't have WMDs, and if
he had made a genuine attempt to explain what had happened to those
weapons that the UN knew he had once had, then President Bush would
have been faced with two options: (1) go to war alone, with no one,
not even Tony Blair, to back him up; or (2) back down.
Either of those options would have
been -- should have been -- far more palatable to Saddam than what
actually happened. But, then, who knows what goes on in the mind of
Saddam Hussein?
W.W.S. pointed me to
this
post on his blog, Pepper
Gray, which is a variation of the Schrage argument. And E.R. called
my attention to this,
which says that Iraq's WMDs may have been moved to Syria -- although
she cautions, "I have no idea how reliable these people are."
Certainly that seemed to be a working theory in the immediate
aftermath of Saddam's fall, though we haven't heard much about it
lately.
My favorite explanation, though,
comes from R.G.H., who suggests that Iraq had long since lost its WMD
capability -- but no one dared tell Saddam! He writes:
I like the theory that he
didn't know he didn't have WMD because his underlings were afraid
to tell him they no longer had the resources to rebuild the
capability.
In college, I had a history prof
who was a retired Air Force colonel. He told a story about taking
control of the German Air Force headquarters in Bavaria at the end
of WWII. The Allies were concerned that their small numbers would
be unable to keep the Wehrmacht officers under control if they
were arrested and imprisoned. So, instead, the Allies essentially
locked the gate to the command compound and, as the command
continued to issue orders to a non-existent air force, the Allies
scooped them up and destroyed them. The command officers, having
their time occupied, never posed a threat to escape or cause other
problems.
This was told to describe the
German personality, but I think it's a fair description of the
military mindset, as well. Orders are issued and it is assumed
that they are followed. Certainly Saddam would assume that it
would be the case.
Then, put yourself in the place
of one of Saddam's lieutenants: "I'm not telling him. YOU tell
him."
It all makes perfect sense to
me.
Me too.
posted at 8:59 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
