WI: WMD used in Bosnia

It is well known that The Yugoslavs and Iraq were very close.

What if Saddam shipped some WMD (Sarin, Anthrax, VX etc.) to Yugoslavia and is used by Karadzic in his genocide campaign?:eek::eek::eek:
 
Well, the media would have loved it.

The general public (or at least those more than 100 miles away) 'oh, that's bad..........what's happening in (Insert national Soap here).
 
Well, the shipping of arms from Iraq to Serbia would be unlikely, given the UN sanctions on Iraq. However, 1995 (the year Karadzic took command of the VRS) was around the time the weapons were being destroyed*, so I'm sure that, if Saddam wanted to sell them, that year would be the last best chance.

This would definitely encourage the UN and NATO to intervene greater in Yugoslavia. It could also give the US and others the excuse to attack Iraq.

If the US did invade then, two factors would be different. Iraq's armed forces and infrastructure would have decayed far less than in the 2003 war. However, Iraq's calls for outside Muslim support would likely fall on deaf ears- even for Bin Laden. After all, many of the Bosnians and Croats that Karadzic killed were Muslims.

* See for example http://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html and http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/iraq_defector/kamel_transcript/index.html
 
I heard rumors WMDs where used. However, why would Sadam give WMDs to the Serbs who where fighting muslims. Sure, Saddam wasn't above killing muslims but he tended to have some kind of reason.

Now, giving them to the muslims (extremists) would be *interesting* (while I see no good reason for that either, maybe sneaky guy manage to steal it?).
 
THE PEACEMAKER

well, there is this scenario from the abovementioned 1997 film as well...

as to WMDs being used in Bosnia OTL, yeah I have read some stuff speculating that during the fall of Srebrenica in July 95, the VRS used some sorta nerve agent agaainst the Bosniak defenders, which is why so many thousands of Muslim men were so dazed after wandering thru the forest & wanting to give up. Dunno how verifiable such a claim is, though...
 
Why would Serbs want to use WMD in Bosnia? Until NATO barged in to directly support their proteges (Izetbegovic and Croats), Serbs were slowly but surely winning and, once NATO made it clear that Serbs would be stopped no matter what, there was no point to use WMD against hapless Muslims and Croats. Those propaganda movies like Melvin Loh mentioned are nice examples of distortion and demonization, but of very limited value as far as facts are concerned.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
well, there is this scenario from the abovementioned 1997 film as well...

as to WMDs being used in Bosnia OTL, yeah I have read some stuff speculating that during the fall of Srebrenica in July 95, the VRS used some sorta nerve agent agaainst the Bosniak defenders, which is why so many thousands of Muslim men were so dazed after wandering thru the forest & wanting to give up. Dunno how verifiable such a claim is, though...

That's not how nerve gas works...
 
I heard rumors WMDs where used. However, why would Sadam give WMDs to the Serbs who where fighting muslims. Sure, Saddam wasn't above killing muslims but he tended to have some kind of reason.

Now, giving them to the muslims (extremists) would be *interesting* (while I see no good reason for that either, maybe sneaky guy manage to steal it?).
How about the wild conspiracy theory that the Earthquake in Kosovo in 1999 was the result of someone testing a superweapon? Have you heard that one?
 
I haven't heard anything about the earthquake but I heard that the Russian forces moved very quickly to the Pristina airport to let the Serbs move something (cue spooky music) out with trucks.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I heard rumors WMDs where used. However, why would Sadam give WMDs to the Serbs who where fighting muslims. Sure, Saddam wasn't above killing muslims but he tended to have some kind of reason.

Now, giving them to the muslims (extremists) would be *interesting* (while I see no good reason for that either, maybe sneaky guy manage to steal it?).

I used to subscribe to a magazine called Air Forces Monthly, mostly because it had a shitload of pictures from aircraft from the collective armpits of nowhere.
When NATO finally when into Bosnia and Kosovo, some photos started leaking out that the Yugoslav's had been doing some work for the Iraqis repairing their MiG-23 Floggers. This was all based on some pictures someone had taken of a tarmac that was supposedly in some northern Serbian airfield of some Floggers with the roundels scraped off.

Supposedly, some NATO intelligence service thought they were Iraqi Floggers due to the radars or something. Myself, I think it was a load of crap, and just some people jumping at shadows.

I personally think that the Serbians probably could've gotten chemical weapons from some dump somewhere else at the end of the Cold War, and then used them. That's all I can think of.
 
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