Posted on 09/23/2002 9:51:37 AM PDT by areafiftyone
WASHINGTON (AP) - Worried that a cornered and desperate Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites) might order his military to strike pre-emptively with biological or chemical weapons, the Bush administration is beginning to deliver a stark message to those who would pull the trigger: Save yourselves and disobey his orders. "The people (to whom) he says, `Go do it,' better think very carefully about whether that's how they want to handle their lives," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Senate panel Thursday. Administration officials have not suggested — publicly, at least — granting amnesty to those in Saddam's military chain of command who refused to carry out orders for a final act of desperation. Rumsfeld in particular has focused on what they have to lose, rather than what they might gain. "Clearly, people who would use those weapons are not going to have a happy future if, in fact, they do use them," the defense secretary said on PBS' "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." Rumsfeld had noted repeatedly that Saddam could not launch such an attack himself. He would have to count on the loyalty of lower-level field commanders and soldiers. "They would be nominating themselves as part of the regime that ought to get special attention," he told reporters Sept. 16. Asked about the specific chain of command for Iraq's weapons arsenal, Rumsfeld said he could not talk about it publicly. But he said the final responsibilities are at a level well below the Iraqi leader, and that U.S. officials believe they include people who "aren't very pleased" with Saddam's rule. "We would have to make very clear to them that what we're concerned about in Iraq is the Saddam Hussein regime," and not the lower-level military officers or the civilian population, Rumsfeld said. "They ought to be very careful about functioning in that chain of command for weapons of mass destruction." In calculating the risks of a military attack to topple Saddam, the administration is confident it can overwhelm Iraqi forces in relatively short order. But the prospect of encountering a chemical or biological attack either before or during the war presents an entirely different challenge. Saddam did not use the chemical or biological weapons he had at hand during the 1991 Persian Gulf War ( news - web sites), but those were different circumstances. Saddam could safely assume that the U.S.-led coalition's objective was limited to expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait. He could live to fight another day. This time, however, President Bush ( news - web sites) has made plain that Saddam and his regime are the primary target. Thus, officials say it's more likely he would opt to use — or at least order used — internationally banned weapons, such as mustard gas, nerve gas and biological toxins like anthrax or botulinum. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked Thursday at a Senate Armed Services Committee ( news - web sites) hearing whether Saddam, seeing his regime about to fall, would use weapons of mass destruction. "You'd have to assume they would be used," but impossible to know for sure, Myers replied. Thomas D. Grant, a research fellow at England's Oxford University, said the United States must aggressively press what he called a simple message inside Iraq: "After regime change, there shall be no retribution." That would greatly increase the odds that those upon whom Saddam must rely to carry out an order to use a chemical or biological weapon would refuse, Grant said in a Washington Post opinion piece. "In Iraq the case for an amnesty pledge, communicated loud and clear, is infinitely stronger than anywhere else in the past," he wrote. Rumsfeld seems to hold out some hope that Saddam will give up without resorting to an act of national suicide. "Now, if Saddam Hussein and his family decided that the game was up, and we'll go live in some foreign country like other leaders have done, ... that could happen," as it did with the Shah of Iran and others, the defense secretary said. But if Saddam stays, he said, there's no telling what he might do when a U.S.-led attack appears imminent. Asked whether those who now profess complete loyalty to Saddam will stick with him and help launch an attack with a weapon of mass destruction, Rumsfeld replied: "One will not know until one gets to that moment."
More than conceivable, when you consider what financial inducements it would make sense for the U.S. government to offer such a person.
No, because they would be members of the Iraqi military, secret police, and/or political leadership.
The scheme could be elaborated for extra security easily enough, e.g. by distributing the "launch codes" among multiple, independent people. You can play with scenarios like that -- say maybe five out of ten people have to send their codes for the whole thing to work, or whatever. But that's probably being too anal about it. I just don't think it's that big a problem. You don't get to be a dictator without solving this kind of carrot/stick problem all the time -- otherwise your own security guards would do you in long before you came to power.
Again, control problems were no obstacle to the acquisition of doomsday deterrents by the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel. It only takes about five minutes to figure out "good enough" solutions to the problems involved, once you set your mind to it.
Unless the controller was already here. And instructed to act on his own initiative under certain circumstances...
The more thought we're applying to the situation, the more likely it seems that many of the risks can be suppressed.
But I just don't think we're necessarily going to be able to eliminate every single one of them. It's conceivable, but we'd best not plan on it, certainly.
All he has to do is hand over his germs to the terrorists
(in some third country)
and they will do the work for him, lots of fun for years to come.
It's the doomsday scenario. They get the germs after the war starts. (Or shortly before).
Well, he could do that, too. But the control issues are the same. There has to be a hand-off of control and, ideally, that hand-off has to occur even if Saddam is killed. So there is really no important difference between the two scenarios, except that in one case we get whacked immediately, and in other case we get whacked later (maybe). And, from GWB's standpoint, the calculation is exactly the same. In fact, it's exactly the same even if, in reality, Saddam's bluffing -- even if he has no capability to manufacture powdered anthrax in anything but gramme quantities. We have to assume the worst, because the worst is perfectly plausible.
Control-freak Saddam is not going to let any of those germs leave the country
until he knows for sure he is done for.
There are no sleepers now in the USA waiting for secret codes to be sent.
BS. We already know he has moved anthrax in-country. Safest place for it. No weapons inspectors will ever find it, here in the USA.
I can't believe they mentioned anthrax and exile in the same article.
Baby steps for the hard-of-thinking.
There is another possibility: They are already in the U.S., but not in the hands of the perps who will use them.
This is the logical equivalent of the "fail safe" mechanism on a nuclear bomb. All that is needed is to pass the necessary information on to the "right" people.
These people (the actual perps) will be extreme Islamists who can be counted on to use them. They will be members of various Islamic extremist groups (Al Qaida is only one of many), and will not even think of themselves as doing Saddam's bidding.
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