A different Operation Iraqi Freedom

flamelord

flamelord

What if Saddam had really had WMD's like Bush said when we invaded Iraq? Would he have used them? What would have been his most likely targets? If he had, how would we have responded?
 

King Thomas

Banned
He would have used them,and quite possibly the USA might have responded with a nuke (which Bush Senior privatly threatened to do in 1991.)
 

MarkWhittington

flamelord said:
What if Saddam had really had WMD's like Bush said when we invaded Iraq? Would he have used them? What would have been his most likely targets? If he had, how would we have responded?
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The Coalition was ready for attack by chemical or biological weapons. There would have been some more casualties and the pace of the invasion would have slowed somewhat, but the ultimate outcome would not have changed.

What would have changed was what happened after. There would have been no gassing by the looney left about "Bush Lied! People died!" since the WMDs would have existed, just as every intelligence service on the planet said they did.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
If WMDs had been found in Iraq (especially if Saddam had used them against the Americans), it would have completely transformed the post-war political situation in the United States. The Bush administration would not have bee tainted by the charges of incompetence and the resultant improvement in Bush's popularity vis-a-vis OTL would have meant that the 2004 election wouldn't have been nearly as close as it was IOTL.
 

Mirza Khan

What if Bush hadn't invented wild little stories about "Yellowcake" and "mushroom clouds"? What if Bush had listened to Hans Blix (who turned out to be perfectly right about the amount of WMD Saddam had-NONE)

Oh, wait...
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Tolkienguy said:
What if Bush hadn't invented wild little stories about "Yellowcake" and "mushroom clouds"? What if Bush had listened to Hans Blix (who turned out to be perfectly right about the amount of WMD Saddam had-NONE)

Oh, wait...
Click to expand...
Hans Blix is no American. Why would Bush listen to a foreigner, when CIA did such a good job locating those WMDs.:p
 
flamelord

flamelord

Someone explain to me what RogueBeaver was saying about a circlejerk.

P.S. I'm not trying to push some ideological agenda here...
 

BlairWitch749

Banned
IFFFF Saddam had wmd's and used them using them against the united states and allied forces would be stupid because they were well prepared to operate on a chem/bio battlefield and had trained for it for months. saddam would have in all likelyhood tried to use them on Israel via rockets and this would have led to their immediate nuking by the Israeli airforce who would not even bother with political guilt or apologies
 

terence

Banned
flamelord said:
What if Saddam had really had WMD's like Bush said when we invaded Iraq? Would he have used them? What would have been his most likely targets? If he had, how would we have responded?
Click to expand...

The reason that the Anglo-American forces invaded Iraq in 2003 was that knew very well that Iraq did not have any WMD capability. That was one of the reasons that other countries would not join the invasion: they knew the intelligence.
Note the difference in the stance to North Korea, where no military attempt was made to prevent the production of nuclear weapons-or effect regime change. Even before the production of a nuclear device, N. Korea was and is well armed with a substantial CBW arsenal.
Iraq did have a CBW capability in the 1980s, the technology having been supplied by over a 150 companies from around the world including most Nato members. The US government granted at least 771 export licences including those concerning nerve gas agents, and over 40 biological agents, including anthrax. Many of the exports were for 'dual-use' equipment that would certainly be used in missile, nuclear and CBW warfare and were carried out with the full approval and often financial support of the US Administration, Pentagon and intellgence services: this however, did not stop the US administration arresting many company officials and those of their non-US subsidiaries after 1991.
The upshot of this is that Western intelligence services knew, down to the last can of fly-spray, where every item of CBW or equipment that could be used in CBW in Iraq was and had supplied that information to the UN teams charged with its destruction after 1991 except where it would embarass the government concerned.
From 1991, Iraq was subject to 'no fly' zones, constant aerial surveillance and penetration by hundreds of western intelligence agents. Every aspect of the economy and military was monitored.
In 2004 Saddam Hussein had admitted to Prince Hassan of Jordan that he had no WMD left, but feared the Iranians would find that out.
No WMD--no story.
 
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