Posted on 09/16/2002 12:30:06 PM PDT by EternalHope
If he thinks he is dead either way, then I suspect he will strike first in an attempt to bring as many of us down with him as possible. He would want to revel in the spectacle.
ODDS: All in all, I rate the odds of a major attack against us as very high: Say, 85%.
WHEN: My guess is a first strike. I suspect it will come right after Congress passes a resolution authorizing an attack against Iraq.
Other possibilities exist, such as a public threat first, coupled with a demand that we back off.
Hmm, if I was Saddam what would I do, hmmm. I got it, blackmail. Yep that's the ticket. He may very well already have his pieces in place and now simply waits for the moment of truth to make the ultimatum. I think the probability of this scenario playing out is very high. He seems to placid not to be holding a high card or two.
Interesting times indeed.
I agree. He has what he thinks is a strong hand or he would be playing his cards differently.
You saw what I did to you on 9-11, using a handful of men armed with box cutters. You have the analysis of that powder I sent to Daschle. You understand what a few more such men could do with that powder. So, you have to ask yourself: "Do I feel lucky?"Your predecessor, President Clinton, was smart. He understood: what people don't know won't hurt them. Listen to him now.
I'm happy with 9-11: I got my revenge, and it was a gas. So let's call it Even Stevens, okay? Because, if you point the finger at me, you'll have to kill me. And if you kill me, you'll regret it for the rest of your days. Got the picture? How about it?
Care to venture a guess at what Bush is now saying to Saddam?
I don't think Saddam has too many sleeper agents in the USA willing to commit suicide as a gesture to mark his downfall.
Smallpox is an outside threat.
And 3. What weapon(s) will be used in the attack? Biological (anthrax, small pox, etc.)? A conventional (fission) nuke? A stolen (or bought) thermonulear fusion bomb from the Russians? A "dirty" bomb? VX or sarin gas?
To attempt to answer your two main questions, I'd suspect that an eventual WMD attack on our shores is very high. However, Saddam Hussein doesn't necessarily have to be behind such an attack. There are multitudes of Islamic terrorist orgs (aside from al Qaeda), and a lot of them are well financed. So the attack can originate from almost anywhere in the radical Islamic world.
When is the attack most likely to occur, you ask? If Saddam is behind it, expect it very shortly (within a couple of months). If it's an Al Qaeda operation, the answer is .....when we least expect it.
They don't have to be willing to do it for Saddam. These al-Qaeda people are like attack dogs, straining at the leash. They want those codes (locker combinations, whatever). That's the beauty of this setup, from Saddam's point of view. It's golden.
Saddam clearly thinks he has some very high cards, and I believe he does.
Care to venture a guess at what Bush is now saying to Saddam?
That's the million dollar question. You can bet it includes an explanation of what will happen to Iraq/Saddam if weapons of mass destruction are used against us.
It looks to me like President Bush thinks we are ready, and has decided to take the next step. Alternatively, he knows we are not ready, but believes waiting will only make it worse.
BTW: It looks to me like neither side will back down. If this is a game of chicken, my guess is that we are about to crash. We live in perilous times.
He does not NEED many agents of his own. He can attack us directly, of simply make sure it gets into the "right" hands. His people do even have to do the dying. Radical Islam has lots of volunteers.
He can do this any time he chooses to.
So, there are plenty of levers to pull. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that this will be enough to get Saddam out without a catastrophe. If it isn't, we could be in for a very long stand-off, because Bush isn't going to gamble losing New York or Washington, DC by attacking Saddam directly, not IMHO.
This is a nightmare situation, no question about it. Thanks, Bubba.
What's Bush saying? Probably something akin to:
I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?
His people do not even have to do the dieing.
(post in haste, repent at leisure...)
Before the UN speech, I would have agreed with you, but I have to wonder if Bush has forged ahead in the "upper hand" department of late...
If we can pull this off, fantastic. We are certainly making progress.
But I do not think this will be sufficient to dislodge Saddam.
We are in a position that REQUIRES us to act if something does not change. President Bush has thrown down the gauntlet, and cannot back down without losing all credibility forever.
I agree, it seems highly unlikely our President would risk losing New York or DC unless the alternative was even worse. We may be there.
Well, of course that depends on what the risk level is, and whether the alternative is really worse, and what our confidence level is about that. We were here, forty years ago, with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only trouble is, Russia hadn't already pulled off a 9-11, its ICBM placement could be verified by our satellites, and Nikita Kruschev wasn't Saddam Hussein.
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