Interesting insights into the dictator’s pre-war mindset were revealed in the NY Post today by the American most qualified to have them: A Lebanese-American and Arabic speaking FBI agent detailed to debrief him:
Saddam Hussein didn’t believe the United States would attack Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction – so he concealed the fact that he didn’t have any to prevent an Iranian invasion, his chief American interrogator has revealed in a bombshell interview…
When it became clear that the US military was about to come marching in, Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the coalition off for two weeks, “and at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war” – a reference to the insurgency.
Even then, the Butcher of Baghdad still wouldn’t admit that he had no WMDs.
“For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong and defiant Saddam…”
Piro tells CBS correspondent Scott Pelley that Saddam still had the resources and intentions to restart the weapons program.
“[Saddam] still had the engineers. The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there,” said Piro. “He wanted to pursue all of WMD . . . to reconstitute his entire WMD program.”
According to Piro, the “entire program” included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Well, you know: Being a dictator, if it means anything at all, means more than just sponsoring kite flying competitions. There are plastic shredders to feed, citizens to terrorize, rape rooms to subsidize.
And WMD programs to reconstitute.
What is disclosed by this new report was well discussed in the Iraqi Perspectives Project report which came out a few years back. Google it.
And buy my book while you are at it
Ray Robison is the author of Both In One Trench: Saddam’s Secret Terror Documents
http://www.bothinonetrench.com
What will get lost in the “told you so” screaming that will surely now ensue (3… 2… 1…) is that the burden of proof was on him, not us.
Daveg, The anti crowd will not care one whit about this. They have their world ordered just the way they want and will promply ignore this information as well as any other that contradicts that order.
As Ray has pointed this is not really new information just from a new source.
Dave
I imagine everyone will see in this what they want to.
The Bush-haters will take it as yet more evidence that there were no WMD and BU$HITLER LIED!!! and we should IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!!
The Dems will give it as one more example of why the Republicans are a bunch of evil baby killers. They may even find some way to use it as an excuse to get out of Iraq ASAP.
A few might point out that Saddam having the means to produce and will to use WMDs might just have been a good enough reason to take action. You know, before he actually killed anyone.
At least before he killed anyone with a *recent* batch. Having done so in the past makes it just more likely that he would in the future.
Doesn’t make a bit of difference…Saddam and his crew needed to be taken down…hard. Just glad someone had the guts to do it, and then see it through.
A few might point out that Saddam having the means to produce and will to use WMDs might just have been a good enough reason to take action. You know, before he actually killed anyone.
This is wisdom … and anyone who possessed/posseses wisdom didn’t have to wait for him to actually use WMD, in order to KNOW he was going to be a problem.
The wise man could see it in his history … inside and outside Iraq … that Saddam shouldn’t have been trusted with a potato gun, much less the resources, wealth, and weapons of a modern nation.
The wise man could also see it in the lack of effective checks/balances (both within the Iraqi system of governance, and concerning the leaky bucket of “containment”) to inhibit Saddam & Sons from using the above in a violently capricious … and possibly, plausibly-deniable … manner.
The presence of such wisdom is the divide between the pro-victory and anti-victory (we are ALL anti-war, some of us realize we can’t wish it away) contingents … with the non-judgemental relavitism of the latter as the log-in-their-eye that inhibits wisdom on their part.
As this redneck says sometimes, tweaking his colleagues here on Long Island with some hillbilly wisdom …
… some people just need killin’.
And so the US remains bogged down for 5 years……for what exactly? Because Saddam deserved to be killed? I don’t understand that logic.
If he deserved to be killed, and he did, the ones doing the killing should have been the Iraqis-not the US.
Either way is does not matter now. Saddam is gone so our objective is accomplished. Yet we are still there expending lives and treasure for not very much.
Dunno, Skippy – one could re-phrase your remarks to say, “For what exactly? Mussolini/Pol Pot/Stalin deserved to be killed, and he did, so the ones doing the killing should have been the Italians/Cambodians/Russians.”
Fine insofar as it goes, the yoke of freedom should be born by those who seek to be free.
Except dictators tend to not like being overthrown and as a policy make life rough for those who might overthrow them.
Thus if the natives can’t do it, the task falls upon others. Us. Then one has to start a tricky bit of accounting — do we risk thousands of our kids to free millions under Saddam, or do we risk millions of ours to free the billions under Stalin?
Personally, I’m just glad my job isn’t to decide which people have to go it alone and which get help. Don’t think I’d sleep well at night with that on my conscience, for either helpers or recipients.
– Max
Your WWII analogy falls flat. The US was attacked and Germany and Italy declared war on the US. And it was the Italians who killed Mussolini.
My point is that whatever the US does it should be to promote US interests. A long term commitment in Iraq will not do that-no matter how we wrap it up in rosy rhetoric. Arabs are Arabs-they screw things up every time.
Skippy … keeping Iraq out of the hands of the next Saddam is in our interest … and if what you are saying is true re: Arabs, then we had sure better not leave the job to them alone if we are going to succeed.
BTW, I don’t believe what you are saying re: Arabs is true in Iraq … based upon the reports I am hearing.
While I wasn’t around to hear it, I would not be surprised in the least that in 1946 — after what we faced from them in the Pacific Campaign — similar skepticism was directed at the probabilities of transforming Japan from imperialist warmonger to peaceful democracy.
In every case like this, when you get down to it, these people are all human … and therefore yearn to live free and pursue happiness — a yearning that transcends culture when given the protection to do so.
BTW, the reason the Arabs have not, in other places besides Iraq, made the progress towards peaceful, rights-respecting governance … is because no one was insisting upon/assuring the presence of such protection of their inalienable rights as individuals … and kept up such assistance and assurance long enough to overcome the ignorance and indoctrination produced by years of unopposed mullahs and/or strongmen.
That persistent insistence/assurance — i.e. more than talk about “freedom” — was condemned as “imperialism” previously … and the alternatives to it were the derivatives of “realism” and/or “Leftism”, both of which at best maintain a status quo that is a drip-drip-drip of death and oppression, and at worst motivate free people to allow their good faith to be turned against them by thugs and fanatics in the name of seeking peace.
Rights-respecting governance — the foundation for sustainable peace, proven by history.
Accept no substitutes … for history shows that they can kill you.