Bloodless Coup

What? Iraq's own interior minister said that after five years, Saddam would have had a sizable contingent of nuclear weapons if we hadn't liberated Iraq. Don't believe the apologists.

Yay for the Buffy love!

Do our own intelligence services believe that Morris? Is there any reason to think that that guy is not some Chalabi-esque liar? B/c I follow such topics (Iraq and nuclear proliferation) quite closely, and I don't recall having read anything suggesting anything of the sort.

Frothing-at-the-mouth, evidence-free Pletka or Mylroie types might say such things - but then they make stuff up. Evidence?

And of course one could also ask the following question:

Would a poor Saddam in power with a nuke be worse than having spent trillions of US dollars of the US budget, lost about 4000 US lives and 25000 US casualties (and of course those numbers will grow), lowered US military standards, led many of the "best and the brightest" in the US military to leave it, crushed US soft power, greatly increased the power of Iran, civil war in Iraq that's killed hundreds of thousands and displaced far more than a million (and in the process greatly destabilized other states in the region), put Shiite religious parties allied with Iraq in control of Iraq's central government, and in control of much of its oil ...

Even if your hypothetical is true - which I find wildly unlikely as Iran's had a more active program and our intelligence estimates are that even they would need 5 years minimum with their old program - is seeing to it that doesn't happen worth the cost of what we've done?

Iraq's own interior minister said that after five years, Saddam would have had a sizable contingent of nuclear weapons if we hadn't liberated Iraq.

1. There is no definition of "liberated" that fits what the US has done to Iraq. "Occupied" is the term you're looking for. You're welcome.

2. Maybe they would have had a sizable contingent of nuclear weapons, if the program actually existed (vs being a fiction that was fed to certain senior members of the Iraqi govt and military) and if Israel etc had not chosen to Take Steps in the interim. I think the chances of getting past those two ifs are about zero.

"Do our own intelligence services believe that Morris? Is there any reason to think that that guy is not some Chalabi-esque liar? B/c I follow such topics (Iraq and nuclear proliferation) quite closely, and I don't recall having read anything suggesting anything of the sort."

Well you may want to pay closer attention to the publications of our own intelligence agencies, say for instance the Duelfer report:

"‘Abd-al-Tawab ‘Abdallah Al Mullah Huwaysh—
former Deputy Prime Minister from 2001 to 2003
and Minister of Military Industrialization from
1997 to 2003—

"To halt the slide, Saddam plucked ‘Abd-al-Tawab ‘Abdallah Al Mullah Huwaysh from nine years of bureaucratic exile, and installed him as the Minister of Military Industrialization. Huwaysh instituted strict organizational and financial reforms, centered on mandatory planning and personnel accountability. By 2002, MIC was thriving, its total revenues increasing over forty fold as had its revenue base, despite continuing UN sanctions and coalition attacks on its facilities.

"Saddam’s growing confidence in Huwaysh saw him eventually appointed as the Minister of Military Industrialization and, later, as one of the Deputy Prime Ministers of Iraq.

"During an earlier debrief Huwaysh speculated that Iraq would have reconstituted many of its proscribed programs within five years if OIF had not occurred."

Let us not forget the transcript of tape recordings of Saddam in the Duelfer report ordering that if our troops were to proceed to Baghdad in 1991, his forces should use their longest lasting germ weapons:

"I want the weapons to be distributed to targets; I want Riyadh and Jeddah, which are the biggest Saudi cities with all the decision makers, and the Saudi rulers live there. This is for the germ and chemical weapons . . . Also, all the Israeli cities, all of them. Of course you should concentrate on Tel Aviv, since it is their center....

"May God help us do it . . . We will never lower our heads as long as we are alive, even if we have to destroy everybody."

Knowing what we know now, only a fool would not have liberated Iraq from Saddam's tyranny.

Liberated from tyranny? Good god - how much Kool-Aid have you been drinking? Who do you think we put in charge of the place? Extremist religious authoritarians with murderous death squads, last time I checked. Women are living more constrained lives, in much of the country, than they did before. Gays are killed regularly. A grotesque civil war that killed untold tens/hundreds of thousands was unleashed. Shops that sell alcohol or show Western films are destroyed. Much of the place has a few hours of electricity a day. And there are now millions of displaced Iraqis, poor, angry, isolated, destabilizing the region. I think people other than fools can question whether creating that was worth the blood and treasure we've put into it.

And I still see nothing to suggest that they were any kind of threat re: a nuclear program. Your entire evidence is "X speculated". That's not remotely strongly evidence Mo. There was no program to speak of when we went in. Until we invaded inspectors were in the country. It's certainly not inconceivable that if they'd activated something in the last 5 years that we'd have turned up sanctions, inspections, bombings ...

Given the total lack of a WMD program in the place I think it's pretty clear that knowing what we know now, only a fool would say we should've invaded to stop their nuclear program.

"That's not remotely strongly evidence Mo."

My source is the head of Iraq's military industrial complex who became a deputy prime minister saying they'd have had an inventory of nukes in five years if we hadn't freed Iraq. He was one of only two men in Iraq besdies Saddam's sons who Saddam allowed to have any autonomy in making decisions. Who's your source? If they were as well informed as you assume, then why had you never heard of this before?

Errrr, since when do you assume credibility when one of Saddam Hussein's goons is talking.

And putting aside as pretty words, did we find any nuclear program of note there? No. Is there much reason to think that a regime as sanctions-enduring and arms-inspectored as his could have done this in 5 years? It strikes me as doubtful. And if he had made any moves in that direction, there's every reason to think the US and the world community would have taken action to tighten the screws.

Again, your sourcing is that X speculated something. That's not strong evidence - especially when given his job, pride and such it's not too shocking that he'd have liked to believe such a thing was possible. Show me the infrastructure that would actually have made such a thing possible.

"Is there much reason to think that a regime as sanctions-enduring and arms-inspectored as his could have done this in 5 years? It strikes me as doubtful."

For f- sake, with all you've read about Iraq, you still won't take the time to read the regime strategic intent section of Duelfer. Oil for food was Saddam's way of rewarding countries who would support ending sanctions against him. If that hadn't worked, Saddam was prepared to seek WMDs anyway if the promise of making the Middle East into a WMD free zone wasn't followed. Are you telling me a Sunni ruled country like Saddam's wouldn't have felt threatened by the nuclear weapons factory which Israel bombed?

Because Saddam already was holding his nuclear scientists in place (he called them "his people" and made sure they got projects and raises), there was no technological hurdle; all they needed was the machinery, and they'd be where they were at the beginning of Desert Storm, a year to eighteen months from a nuke. And on what basis besides your Bush hatred do you dismiss Huwaysh as "one of Saddam Hussein's goons." Sounds like an ad hominem logical fallacy, to me. You do realize that he is the source relied upon as to there having been no active WMD program in Iraq that we didn't find. You'll believe that because it fits in with your "Bush lied, people died" meme, but you dismiss him when he says the Iraqis were going to have nukes in five years?

1) I don't understand your opening paragraph Morris - "seeking" nuclear weapons isn't remotely the same as getting them (lots of leader would like them, but it's trickier than wishing for a pony to get them) - and, likewise, merely feeling threatened doesn't magically create the weapons.

2) "all they needed was the machinery" - yeah, b/c that's soooooooooo easy to get Morris - pray tell a) how were they going to get that? and b) if somehow they managed it, why do you assume we wouldn't become aware of it?

3) I dismiss him when your entire account of this great threat is his speculation (and I think "goon" is a perfectly appropriate way to describe any top aide to Saddam Hussein). He would indeed be in a position to know what was actually going on in 2002 - b/c, you know, that's a factual historical account. But his "speculation" about where things would be 5 years out is, no matter how you slice it, speculation - and isn't going to be based on any expertise of the ability of the US or the international community to learn of such attempts to build weapons, to respond to them, or to block them. He's one guy guessing five years hence - with little knowledge of what other actors would have done over those 5 years.

And, again, you are acting like somehow it's easy to get this stuff - it's not.