The Hyperion Chronicles
“I feel Saddam lucky to be doing this”
#106 Questioning War (Part II)
Just as I promised, here are more answers to questions I know you’re dying to ask.
Why did Saddam invade Kuwait back in 1990?
This is a bit complicated. You have to understand, not all Muslims are Arabs, and not all Arabs are Muslims. Also, there are many types of Muslims, but two main ones: Sunni and Shiite. Iran is mostly made up of Shiite Muslims, who are not technically Arabs. Iraq is mostly Shiite too, but is ruled by Saddam, who is Sunni. When the Shaw was overthrown in Iran in 1979, and replaced by a Shiite Muslim regime, Saddam saw this as his chance to kill the hated Shiites and gain power in the whole Middle East, which is mostly Sunni. Saddam started a war with Iran in 1980, which lasted 8 years and killed over 1 million people. The problem was that early on Iran seized much of the Northern Iraqi oil fields, and Saddam couldn’t access them to get money to pay for his war.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates stepped in to help. Basically, if Saddam were willing to use and lose his troops in battle (something he’s never been reticent of), then those three countries would pay for the war, for they too hated Iran and the Shiite regime. Well, the war finally ended, and the money dried up. Kuwait, in particular, also started clamoring for money Iraq owed them. Worse, they started selling the debts to International Banks, and if Saddam couldn’t pay the debts (which he couldn’t), Iraq’s international credit would be affected and they would be screwed. Saddam got more and more mad at Kuwait, and when he threw in the fact that Kuwait and Iraq both pumped oil from the same field on the border, and Kuwait was a rich nation, it was a no-brainer for him to go in.
Why didn’t the Coalition get rid of Saddam in the first gulf war?
As to why he wasn’t removed the first time, three basic reasons. President George Bush (the first one) had built a coalition of nations to get Saddam out of Kuwait, including many Arab ones. There was a clear UN mandate to do so, and many people were on board. The mandate did not include removing him from power, but only getting him out of Kuwait, and to have toppled him would possibly have caused a giant uprising in the Arab world. Secondly, there was no guarantee that whomever replaced him wouldn’t be as bad. More importantly, America was afraid that Iran would move into the power vacuum and sweep up Iraq, and we wanted there to be a balance of power. Mostly, though, Bush didn’t want to pay the political price (or the actual price) it would take to go remove him. In case you didn’t know, talking soldiers out of leaving the desert of Kuwait (by bombing them for 30 days first) is a whole lot easier then taking a city. As Mat Cauthon once said, “Nasty thing, fighting in a city…Always leave [your enemy] a way out, unless you want to see how hard a man can fight when there is nothing to lose.”
Is the situation in Iraq America’s (or the West’s) fault?
The short answer is no: what’s going on gets laid mostly at the feet of Saddam himself. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of blame to go around. As I pointed out in September of 2001, when I wrote how we supplied Osama bin Laden with weapons in the ‘80s, America also helped Saddam in the ‘80s vs. Iran. Partly this was because we were angry at Iran when they overthrew the US-friendly Shaw and the whole hostage crisis. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: whether it’s Castro, Noriega, bin Laden, or Saddam, very often when we get involved with these people it comes back to bite us later. You lie down with dogs…
Secondly, after the first Gulf War was over, we watched idly as Saddam’s forces crushed and massacred the opposition Shiite’s in the south and the Kurds in the North. What makes this bad is that President Bush had urged them to overthrow Saddam, but when they tried, we didn’t help. Again, Bush didn’t have the will to sacrifice American lives to do this. It’s hard to judge past events with present knowledge, although you can make the argument it would have been better to do that then. But who knows.
Lastly, there are the sanctions. After the first Gulf War, America’s official policy toward Iraq was “Containment.” This meant Iraq was isolated and crippling economic sanctions were put in place until Saddam disarmed his weapons of mass destruction (which, by the way, even France admitted Iraq had back then). What happened was the inspections to show Iraq was disarming were a joke. Saddam would move weapons from place to place, and the Inspectors couldn’t get any support from the UN Security Council (including America, I’m ashamed to say), so the weapons program built up virtually unabated. What’s worse: Saddam pretty much openly flouted the sanctions. He managed to smuggle oil (mostly in trucks, since the pipelines were closed) through Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. So, basically, the sanctions punished the people of Iraq, who were and are brutalized by the man in the first place, and Saddam was able to continue building his arsenal. In 1996 a plan was put in place to let Iraq sell oil to go toward food and medicine for the Iraqi people, but even that had limited use. Basically, after the Gulf War, everyone just conveniently acted like Iraq wasn’t there, let them build up their weapons, foment terrorism, and here we are.
Why is Saddam acting the way he is? Is he just evil?
Saddam told his official biographer once he didn’t care what people thought of him now, but rather what people would think of him in 500 years. Sit there and think about it for a minute: what would you do differently if it didn’t matter what people think of you now, but it was paramount what people thought of you in 500 years? When you think of Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great, do you think of men who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, or do you think of great generals? I think this is what drives Saddam. Much of the Middle East has a great sense of history, and he sees himself as another Tamerlane or Nebukadnezar, a conquering hero, repelling the invading hordes.
What is Saddam’s battle strategy?
Other than the Shadow, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? However, it seems likely that Saddam wants a war of attrition. He knows what happened in Vietnam, where the North Vietnamese quit fighting a frontal assault and went to guerrilla warfare, sniping at the US, never letting them know who the enemy was, until America stopped talking victory strategy and started talking exit strategy. Saddam knows that America has better troops, better equipment, better weapons, better money, better technology, and better intelligence. What he has going for him is that he’s harder than we are. Americans (and Britons) live a relatively rich life compared to the misery in that region. We are so rich and well off we can afford to fall to pieces when a few people are killed or captured, and spend hours agonizing over whether a female soldier is going to be raped.
Well, wake up and smell the world of difference. In that part of the world, rape is a battle strategy, and it’s still usually the woman’s fault. Saddam has demonstrated time and time again an utter disregard for his own men; hell, he has gassed his own people on numerous occasions. I think it is quite likely that Saddam is going to make Baghdad the last stand. He is going to try to rally the troops to fight for their home (much easier to get enthusiastic about defending your house then a piece of desert), and take as many casualties as he can. I think he’ll hold off on chemical weapons as long as he thinks world opinion will be turning against the Coalition, but if necessary, he’ll use them. Or, as my friend Borgy suggested, he’ll go on TV and tell his troops not to use them, to give himself plausible deniability, while ordering their use all the while. That way he can claim he wasn’t a part of it. All Saddam cares about is surviving, and living to fight another day. And if he has to kill hundreds of thousands of his own people to turn the world against the Coalition, or to kill enough Americans that we don’t want to fight anymore, he’ll do that.
So how do we win the war?
I’m going to talk about this more in the column on Geneva Conventions and Rules of War, but suffice it to say, it seems clear it’s all Saddam all the time. He needs to leave Iraq. He also needs to die, but I truly believe that America wouldn’t have to do it. Saddam has built up so many enemies that there is nowhere safe for him to hide. One way or another, this war hinges on the ability of Saddam to keep breathing, and once that stops, the war will most likely stop in short order.
How long will the war take?
I don’t know, but it won’t last past this year. Starting in November, people have to run for reelection, and they want to talk about what is done and over, not what is dragging on.
What happens afterwards?
Waaaay too soon to talk about that.
Will there be more terrorism because of this war?
The short answer is that nobody, and I mean nobody, knows. With all the data we’ve collected, and all the powerful computers we have, we can’t predict weather. You can’t even predict whether your six year old will eat his breakfast. There are just too many variables to say whether or not this action will quell the terrorism in the region, or stoke the fires. I could give analysis, but there is just too much unknown. What I do know is that it is beyond stupid to run a foreign policy based on what we think some crazy people might do if angered. We do that, and we’re already being held hostage. The fact is, no matter what we do, there will likely be terrorism in the future. As I’ve written before, I don’t think fanatics would like us even if we dropped money out of planes to them. It’s possible that terrorism will only die when the terrorists are all gone. Or it’s possible—if unlikely—they’ll just give up being evil. I do know that you do what’s right and what’s in your interest, and plan for the worst, because sitting idly by out of fear isn’t going to stop anyone. The world has way too many examples (Neville Chamberlain, if you’re listening) of what happens when you do nothing: evil keeps spreading. They may never like us, but if they are ever going to, they’ll like us when we win.
What if chemical weapons are never found?
I think that’s not only possible, it’s likely. You can’t find your remote on the couch, or the keys in your purse. You think it’s going to be easy to find chemicals in a desert the size of California? This is a country filled with underground tunnels and bunkers. Look: the bottom line is, it’s not going to matter. Anyone who has any brains at all knows there are weapons. They’ve found warheads that you’d put the weapons in. Just the other day they found a plant with gas masks and antidotes, and you know America doesn’t use the weapons. Before the war started Saddam suddenly found some missiles to destroy he swore he didn’t have. Saddam has never accounted for the documented tons of chemical and biological weapons he was proved to have at the end of the Gulf War.
What do you think he did: went legit? Even France, who has been arguing the weapons might not be there, said they’d support the US if chemical weapons were used. Nobody seriously believes there are no chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. And those who claim to believe it? It wouldn’t matter what you show them. They will claim that any weapons found are planted by the Americans or Israel. It’s the same with September 11th. Many people in the Arab world and Europe were saying there was no proof bin Laden was behind the attacks out one side of their mouth while praising him out of the other. This isn’t a court of law with a burden of proof that will ever satisfy some people. It’s the real world where people get hurt, and they same people who demand proof for everything have sat on their hands up to now letting this man kill so many innocent people. So don’t worry about satisfying the world. Just do the job.
And since my job is done (for now), I bid you a safe journey, wherever it takes you.
Hyperion
March 27, 2003
Credits:
Thanks to Koz for great ideas
Thanks for Bear for great ideas and formatting
Thanks to Wilde for always being there
Special thanks to Borgy for all his knowledge and help
Special thanks to Coach Krizikowsky for being an inspiration
Special thanks to Tootsie-Foot for all her help with ideas and editing
Additional Sources:
Readers Digest: August 2002
Frontline: March 19, 2003
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