U.S. Sends Message to Iraq Military

Yahoo News ^ | 9/23/02 | Robert Burns

[aristeides]

Somebody in Iraq would then have to e-mail the codes to the terrorists. And doesn't that just raise the same problem of potential disloyalty in those communicators?

[aristeides]

It is conceivable, in fact, that an agent of Saddam, with sufficient cover, might just walk away and make for himself a new life in the land of capitalist plenty.

More than conceivable, when you consider what financial inducements it would make sense for the U.S. government to offer such a person.

[The Great Satan]

Somebody in Iraq would then have to e-mail the codes to the terrorists. And doesn't that just raise the same problem of potential disloyalty in those communicators?

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.

[okie01]

"Somebody in Iraq would then have to e-mail the codes to the terrorists."

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.

[aristeides]

Remember how Albert Speer sabotaged Hitler's orders for the destruction of the German economy in the last months of the Third Reich? Speer had a lot of helpers.

[Wolfstar]

Re your Scenario #3, absent hard evidence to the contrary, I will continue to believe that last year's anthrax attack was a test case initiated by Atta and his gang, and completed by one or more sleeper agents.

[Nogbad]

Hey you guys, why should Saddam go through the trouble
of putting sleepers in the US with secret codes, etc?

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.

[Nogbad]

RePing

[aristeides]

If the terrorists already have the germs and the ability to release them, why should they have waited until now (and probably longer) to do so?

[Nogbad]

Saddam has not given the germs to the terrorists yet.

It's the doomsday scenario. They get the germs after the war starts. (Or shortly before).

[aristeides]

That means some lieutenant of Saddam's has to do the giving. And that lieutenant can be deterred from doing so.

[The Great Satan]

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.

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.

[Nogbad]

There is a big difference.

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.

[The Great Satan]

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.

[Fred Mertz]

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.

I can't believe they mentioned anthrax and exile in the same article.

[The Great Satan]

I can't believe they mentioned anthrax and exile in the same article.

Baby steps for the hard-of-thinking.

[patriciaruth]

[The Great Satan]

Me too!

[EternalHope]

If the weapons are already in the U.S., they are in the hands either of agents of Saddam or of terrorist surrogates. But I think we can exclude the surrogates, as they would already have used them. That leaves agents of Saddam. But what reason would they have to follow orders and actually use the weapons when the time comes?

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.