WI WMDs used in Iraq?

Just as the Americans reach the outskirts of Baghdad, the Republican Guard launches a massive Sarin and Mustard gases attack?
 
Hans Blix goes down in history as an idiot. W goes down in history as a hero. Iraq will still fall but now everything there will be perceived as totally legit.

No one will care about torture if blinded mustard gas victims are sent home. Of course, OTL almost no one cares about torture anyway.
 
Given what WMDs were actually found, any realistic ATL would feature sporadic, small-scale use (individual shells, frex) that might not have all that much effect beyond killing some soldiers unprepared for it.

(I remember Michael Moore wishing Bush's daughters were in Iraq wearing chemical suits, so somebody was expecting it, but I read a book about the assault on Baghdad and I don't remember any references to chemical gear.)
 
Given what WMDs were actually found, any realistic ATL would feature sporadic, small-scale use (individual shells, frex) that might not have all that much effect beyond killing some soldiers unprepared for it.

(I remember Michael Moore wishing Bush's daughters were in Iraq wearing chemical suits, so somebody was expecting it, but I read a book about the assault on Baghdad and I don't remember any references to chemical gear.)

I recall at least one referance to troops wearing chemical gear in the initial assault. (on CNN).

Could be by the time they got to Baghdad that they had removed them.
 

Cook

Banned
If GW Bush believed that Iraq had a serious wmd capacity would he have started the war?
It is a good question... Probably not...
Well that didn’t take long for this to wander into conspiracy land.

Since every intelligence agency in the World, including people who’d defected from the Iraqi intelligence agency were sure that Saddam hadn’t completed the destruction of his chemical weapons when he’d expelled the UNSCOM chemical destruction team from Iraq in 1998 it is safe to accept that George Bush Jnr. fully believed Saddam still had significant stockpiles of chemical weapons.

George Bush Snr. went into Iraq in 1991 when he was very well aware of the enormous chemical weapons capacity Iraq had at the time and the enthusiasm Saddam had for using the stuff during the Iran-Iraq war and the Kurdish insurrection.

A total of 56,281 chemical weapons; mortar shells, aerial bombs, artillery shells, rockets and missile warheads were destroyed by the United Nations Special Commission between 1991 and 1999. UNSCOM also the located and disposed of 411 tonnes of bulk Chemical weapons agent and 2,850 tonnes of precursor agents, the ingredients needed to manufacture the chemicals for the weapons, were also destroyed.

Could be by the time they got to Baghdad that they had removed them.
The troops were still wearing the suits, with masks and gloves within reach until after Bagdad was taken.
 

gaijin

Banned
The diffence was that in 1991 Saddam had a choice: use chemical weapons and you die (by the magic of nuclear weaponry). Don't use them and take your chances and maybe survive (which he did).

In 2003 he had a slight different choice. Don't use them and we will come to kill you versus use them and we come to kill you. Knowing the charming person Saddam was he probably would have used them if he had them. I have always been convinced that the lads in the pentagon must have been aware of this. I find it hard to imagine theywould have pushed through with the attack if they expected chemical retaliation.
 
Given how one sided both Iraq wars were, I'm having a hard-time believing that the Iraqi army would have done much better if they'd been able to put chemical instead of HE shells in their artillery. It's not like the Iraqis would have been firing at a static mass of Iranian teenagers with no CW protection.... Just how many Coalition troops were hit by conventional Iraqi artillery anyway in either war?

Another thing to remember, is that the most effective use of chemicals in the Iran-Iraq war was from low-flying aircraft flying straight and level using something akin to a crop duster. Good luck with that one against the USAF...
 
The diffence was that in 1991 Saddam had a choice: use chemical weapons and you die (by the magic of nuclear weaponry). Don't use them and take your chances and maybe survive (which he did).

In 2003 he had a slight different choice. Don't use them and we will come to kill you versus use them and we come to kill you. Knowing the charming person Saddam was he probably would have used them if he had them. I have always been convinced that the lads in the pentagon must have been aware of this. I find it hard to imagine theywould have pushed through with the attack if they expected chemical retaliation.



from what I recall, the American troops were drilled quite comprehensively with chemical protective gear and conducting military maneuvers while wearing same, as well as in the use of epipens(or something similar) etc.

while I know the film/book "Jarhead" depicted the 1991 Gulf War, I think the measures taken as shown in that account probably reflect the measures taken in the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a memorable scene in "Jarhead" was of soldiers being told to play football in full chemical gear to demonstrate ability to function fully while wearing their protective equipment.

while I almost violently disagree with the decision taken to invade Iraq in 2003, and am almost at the point where I question if we needed to militarily intervene in 1991, I don't doubt American military ability to prepare for and carry out combat in the face of chemical and similar weapons.





so...

in my opinion, if American forces were hit with the gases during their move into Iraq, I presume that a small number of American soldiers will be severely hit, with fatalities and/or severe injuries. for the most part, the soldiers would, as drilled repeatedly in doing so, don protective gear the instant that wmd's were detected being used.


the awful thing would be the civilian casualties resulting from the wmd gases, since I suspect that thorough measures to evacuate them in advance of such an attack would not have been taken.
 
Given how one sided both Iraq wars were, I'm having a hard-time believing that the Iraqi army would have done much better if they'd been able to put chemical instead of HE shells in their artillery. It's not like the Iraqis would have been firing at a static mass of Iranian teenagers with no CW protection.... Just how many Coalition troops were hit by conventional Iraqi artillery anyway in either war?

Another thing to remember, is that the most effective use of chemicals in the Iran-Iraq war was from low-flying aircraft flying straight and level using something akin to a crop duster. Good luck with that one against the USAF...


what he said :)
 
Well that didn’t take long for this to wander into conspiracy land.

Since every intelligence agency in the World, including people who’d defected from the Iraqi intelligence agency were sure that Saddam hadn’t completed the destruction of his chemical weapons when he’d expelled the UNSCOM chemical destruction team from Iraq in 1998 it is safe to accept that George Bush Jnr. fully believed Saddam still had significant stockpiles of chemical weapons.

George Bush Snr. went into Iraq in 1991 when he was very well aware of the enormous chemical weapons capacity Iraq had at the time and the enthusiasm Saddam had for using the stuff during the Iran-Iraq war and the Kurdish insurrection.

A total of 56,281 chemical weapons; mortar shells, aerial bombs, artillery shells, rockets and missile warheads were destroyed by the United Nations Special Commission between 1991 and 1999. UNSCOM also the located and disposed of 411 tonnes of bulk Chemical weapons agent and 2,850 tonnes of precursor agents, the ingredients needed to manufacture the chemicals for the weapons, were also destroyed.


The troops were still wearing the suits, with masks and gloves within reach until after Bagdad was taken.
Meanwhile Hussein Kamil, who oversaw the program told the UN and CNN that much of the material was destroyed by the Iraqis themselves. In addition, all the sites the inspectors went to after Saddam resumed allowing inspectors from 2002-the invasion found no traces of WMD.
The Duelfer and Kay reports found that Iraq had indeed destroyed their WMD programs.
 
I recall at least one referance to troops wearing chemical gear in the initial assault. (on CNN).

Could be by the time they got to Baghdad that they had removed them.

If you read In The Company Of Soldiers by Rick Atkinson (whose books are getting better and better, damn him!) that gives you a good idea about how often they had false alarms about WMD attacks. It also has the best quote of the time about the war from General Petraeus - "How is this going to end?"
 
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