TheKinkster
Banned
Of course not. This wasn't a total war.
The US wouldn't have, but if Saddam had used chemical weapons against Israeli civilian targets the Israelis would have.
Of course not. This wasn't a total war.
The US wouldn't have, but if Saddam had used chemical weapons against Israeli civilian targets the Israelis would have.
On nukes it depends. Are we talking city destroyers or small, tactical nukes that can say take out just a city block or a block of government buildings?
Maybe just detonating a tactical nuke on a remote army outpost with the message more were coming would give Saddam the message to surrender.
Um, no. "Guaranteed vengance" is the mechanism through which deterrence works. Because the enemy knows that retaliation will come, he will not strike. It is one of those paradoxes quite commonly found in nuclear strategy: in order to prevent the use of WMDs, you must be ready and willing to retaliate with WMDs.
So you are saying that the only thing that stopped the use of nukes during the cold war was the risk of retaliation?
Wiped Baghdad off the map?oh, come on!!!!
Saddam would just call America's bluff, as he would KNOW that if American wiped Bagdad off the map, Public opinion would IMMEDIATELY turn against Washington for slaughtering “poor, innocent civvies”.
Gen. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF: My nightmare scenario was that our forces would attack into Iraq and find themselves in such a great concentration that they became targeted by chemical weapons or some sort of a rudimentary nuclear device that would cause mass casualties.
That's exactly what the Iraqis did in the Iran-Iraq war. They would take the attacking masses of the Iranians, let them run up against their barrier system, and when there were thousands of people massed against the barrier system, they would drop chemical weapons on them and kill thousands of people.
Gen. WALT BOOMER, Commander, U.S. Marines: I was overwhelmingly concerned about casualties. We were outnumbered when we attacked into Kuwait. Sometimes people have lost sight of that. But in addition to being outnumbered, there was this overriding concern, overwhelming concern about chemical warfare. This just occupied most of my waking moments.
Col. JOHN ADMIRE, U.S. Marines: We expected casualties somewhere in the 25 to 30 percent range. But there were essentially no firefights, essentially no battles. The Iraqis were there, but they chose_ they elected not to fight. In many respects, they could retreat and they could surrender much faster than we could attack or advance and the_ the war really became a war of collection of enemy prisoners of war.
Gen. WALT BOOMER: While I remain apprehensive about some of their capability, I'm also confident that we can work through that. I think we can work through their chemical capability.
Gen. CALVIN WALLER, Deputy Commander in Chief, Coalition Forces: I don't think anyone predicted that the Marines would get much farther than maybe five kilometers - at the very most, maybe eight - and that then, with the enormous, overwhelming forces that were arrayed in that area, that it would stop the Marines.
Gen. COLIN POWELL: Knocking off the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers would have caused enormous destruction downstream. The loss of civilian life would have_ would have been terrible and we really had not thoroughly analyzed_ we knew how to hit the dams, but I don't know if we analyzed what the effect downstream would have been. But nevertheless, it would have been a good one to threaten the Iraqis with.
And, of course, there was always the implicit threat of nuclear weapons. I don't think we ever would have used them, but nevertheless, the Iraqis didn't know that. And we could have if the provocation was serious enough.
I am pretty sure it was De La Billiere who mentioned the 20-40% Kuwaiti breaching unit casualty numbers. But you Americans being Americans, the PBS version of the BBC Gulf War documentary (the quotes above are from the PBS transcript) cut out all the British interviews apart from the Tornado crew that got captured. The BBC version of the documentary is on YouTube.
So you are saying that the only thing that stopped the use of nukes during the cold war was the risk of retaliation?