DBWI: Saddam Hussein did not use Sarin gas in 1991?

In July a Cargo ship left Iraq bound fot the port of New York, just one month before Saddam launched his invasion of Kuwait. What was on those ships? 20,000 gallons of liquified Sarin gas. His goons sprayed the gas all over Times Square at Midnight on New year's Day 1991, just as the ball dropped. The attack killed 125,000 people, just three weeks before the Allies Scheduled invasion of Iraqi Kuwait. What would have happened if Saddam had not done this?
 
In July a Cargo ship left Iraq bound fot the port of New York, just one month before Saddam launched his invasion of Kuwait. What was on those ships? 20,000 gallons of liquified Sarin gas. His goons sprayed the gas all over Times Square at Midnight on New year's Day 1991, just as the ball dropped. The attack killed 125,000 people, just three weeks before the Allies Scheduled invasion of Iraqi Kuwait. What would have happened if Saddam had not done this?

A close friend of mine still remember the virulent condemnation of Saddam's actions that came out of the press offices of Soviet premier Gorbachev.......anyway, if this hadn't happened, it's possible the Soviets would have stayed outta the war instead of aiding the U.S. starting in late January.
 
I still believe Bush would have been reelected in 1992, but not by as wide a margin (408-130) because would not be seen as the great Uniter who brought us all together after the horrendous attacks.
 
Things would be a lot more pleasant in New York during New Year's Day. My aunt works in the World Trade Center (Tower 2), and prior to '91, they all celebrated at the observation deck. Now, everyone is too paranoid and saddened by the attacks to go to the top. A shame.

(OOC: I figured a terrorist attack in 1991 would butterfly away 9/11)
 
In July a Cargo ship left Iraq bound fot the port of New York, just one month before Saddam launched his invasion of Kuwait. What was on those ships? 20,000 gallons of liquified Sarin gas. His goons sprayed the gas all over Times Square at Midnight on New year's Day 1991, just as the ball dropped. The attack killed 125,000 people, just three weeks before the Allies Scheduled invasion of Iraqi Kuwait. What would have happened if Saddam had not done this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know the details. Do we have to repeat them all the time whenever this POD comes up?

It's still painful for me, I lost some good friends in that disaster, and a lot of fellow soldiers in the war that followed.
 
The 1990s will always be remembered as the darkest decade in the history of the United States of America, if only because of the brutal Middle Eastern War that followed the attacks.

The Middle Eastern War might not take place as a result, and extremism might no take root in the United States as it did following the attacks. The Republican Party might survive the early 2000s instead of being replaced by the American National Party.

And all of this means no Korean Nuclear Crisis in 2010; as it is unlinkely the Soviet Union reforms into the Eurasian Confederation.
 
Breaking the DBWI, was this actually possible? I doubt it.

Also, how much a war could possibly have followed.

Bush nukes Baghdad and 7 million Iraqis are killed or wounded/exposed to radiation. The end.
 
I got drafted when I finally reached 18 years of age, and boy let me tell you... it was brutal. I'd probably be in a better place in this ATL, hopefully.

That and most of the Middle East wouldn't be a smoldering nuclear crater right now. I assume.
 
Breaking the DBWI, was this actually possible? I doubt it.

Also, how much a war could possibly have followed.

Bush nukes Baghdad and 7 million Iraqis are killed or wounded/exposed to radiation. The end.

OOC: Followed by at least a couple of decades of clean up work, which would quite possibly involve disputes with neighboring nations in the Middle East with which the U.S. has shaky relations.

IMHO, it's kind of up in the air whether Nukes would be used. The American public may prefer a total invasion of Iraq, ferreting out Saddam to make sure he and his cronies get captured and executed, rather than just nuking some city and hoping that he didn't go hide in the mountains because he knew what was going to happen. The Bush administration may also want to avoid it, knowing that the rest of the world is just as likely to feel the deaths of 6.99 million innocent Iraqis rather outweighs the deaths of 125,000 in New York. Bush wasn't exactly a trigger-happy president, considering he decided to get out of Iraq after he felt the job was over.
 
It has been/and currently is US policy that WMD=WMD. That is, if you use ANY form of WMD against we will respond with nukes - being as the US has no chem or bio weapons.

Baghdad is slagged, and a few small tac nukes are used on suspected/real WMD sites & major military bases. The Kurds form Kurdistan - a US protectorate, and Southern Iraq, where most of the oil that is not in Kurdistan is is occupied by the USA with significant bases erected and oil money taken in perpetuity as reparations. The local population is given the choice of conforming to US standards (with freedom of religion), English becoming the language of government & commerce etc or leaving. Any attempts at insurrection are brutally repressed, and families of convicted insurrectionists are expelled.

Needless to say the Iranians are not so subtly informed that any misbehavior on their part, whether local or via proxies such as Hizbollah & Hamas will result in nuclear urban renewal in Tehran and Qom.
 
Baghdad is slagged, and a few small tac nukes are used on suspected/real WMD sites & major military bases.

The latter is believable, the former not. Pure counter-population strikes have been outside of US doctrine since the 1960s (and even outside of the Soviet one since late 1970s). Unless there is a big fat Sarin factory righ in the center of Baghdad, Bush knows very well that "slagging Baghdad" is an act of terrorism pure and simple.

That said, any location where Saddam may be even suspected to be WILL be levelled using conventional means.

The Kurds form Kurdistan - a US protectorate, and Southern Iraq, where most of the oil that is not in Kurdistan is is occupied by the USA with significant bases erected and oil money taken in perpetuity as reparations. The local population is given the choice of conforming to US standards (with freedom of religion), English becoming the language of government & commerce etc or leaving. Any attempts at insurrection are brutally repressed, and families of convicted insurrectionists are expelled.

US protectorate is again believable, though not the rest. English is not even the official language of the USA; legally it is just the most used one. The whole rest is contradicting itself; if Kurdistan and South Iraq are separated from Iraq, they are not legal successors to Saddam's Iraq and cannot pay reparations; some legal construction like "preferred contractors" may be in place for a while before it gets shot down by a court. A ethnic cleansing an order of magnitude larger than that in Yugoslavia as you propose is not going to happen. Period. There may be proposals for something like this but not an execution.
Every ethnic cleansing in history of mankind went with 5-10% casualties.
 
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