Suddam Hussein. He would get crazy again and would have to be taken out. Imagine if he gassed Israel?
Fifty bucks says Israel would nuke him.
Suddam Hussein. He would get crazy again and would have to be taken out. Imagine if he gassed Israel?
Pakistan would be more stable as the taliban wouldn't of fled there.
Not to nitpick, but 24 was actually conceived and the first season filmed before 9/11.
No invasion of Iraq? I beg to differ. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer and many others in the administration were dead set on removing Saddam. There was no way we'd have made it through the first Bush term without invading Iraq. 9/11 made it easier, but after the 2000 election it was inevitable.
Well, it doesn't hurt that Hussein Kamil (Saddam's son-in-law, who defected in 1995) told the US, UK, UN and CNN that Iraq destroyed its WMD after he defected. Clinton still claimed Iraq had WMD- and nobody went after him on it. (Even in the recent Clinton Tapes book, he told the guy taping him that he hoped Kamil's execution (after returning to Iraq) that he hoped Kamil's death would encourage other nations to maintain the Iraq sanctions. Further, back in 2004, Clinton told Time magazine that he defended Bush against "the left" on Iraq and viewed the Iraq War as the right thing to do.)Please do remember that, pre-9/11, the United States had already fought against Saddam's Iraq 3 times:
If G.W. Bush ITTL can pull off the same stunt of stringing along Congress with false evidence of WMDs, then a 4th war with Iraq is inevitable. That doesn't make it wise, moral, or in any other way justified. It's just that foreign policy is the one area where the U.S. Constitution gives the President all of the power, and invading Iraq was G.W. Bush's number one foreign policy goal for years before 9/11.
- a proxy war under Reagan
- a ground invasion under G.H. Bush
- an extended bombing campaign under Clinton
The Iraq invasion definitely still happens.
In fact, the timing wouldn't even change much.
Remember, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush certainly took advantage of unscrupulous party hacks who were willing to tart up a connection, but the actual argument pre-war was:
(1) Iraq has just acquired a large stock of yellowcake Uranium from Niger and is months away from a successful fission bomb test.
(2) Saddam "tried to kill my dad."
(3) Even pro-peace American politicians agreed that Saddam Hussein was one of the most dangerous, villanous leaders in the world. (That consenus was what the Saddam character in the South Park movie was parodying -- even Saddam got the reference!)
(4) sotto vocce: This is going to really confuse and splinter the Democrats!
All this applies without 9/11.
BTW a previous post suggested Reagan had a proxy war again Iraq. If you are referring to the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 the US supported Iraq against Iran in this conflict.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War for more info.