WI Saddam Hussein dies pre 9/11?

[deathscompanion1]

I was wondering something earlier some people say that the Bush Administration was always going to invade Iraq post 9/11 mainly because of the hatred of Saddam if this is true what if Saddam died early of more or less natural causes?

What if Saddam Hussein was in a plane crash or had cancer during the 90's?
Would the Bush administration still have wanted war with Iraq?
Would his sons take his place?

 

[DStecks]

Would his sons take his place?

Oh holy god, now imagining Uday Hussein in charge of a country.

 

[Revolutionary Avocado]

Oh holy god, now imagining Uday Hussein in charge of a country.

I guarantee he would be overthrown within months. Saddam was a monster, but at least if you obeyed everything he said you would most likely survive. Uday was Pol Pot waiting to happen.

 

[Whanztastic]

I'd really expect the two brothers and the Uncle Ali to go to war over it.

 

[DStecks]

I guarantee he would be overthrown within months. Saddam was a monster, but at least if you obeyed everything he said you would most likely survive. Uday was Pol Pot waiting to happen.

Uday was Caligula reincarnated. If Saddam dies in a plane crash that also leaves Uday the only heir, that can only end with Uday getting a bullet to the head and a military junta running Iraq.

 

[Whanztastic]

Uday was Caligula reincarnated. If Saddam dies in a plane crash that also leaves Uday the only heir, that can only end with Uday getting a bullet to the head and a military junta running Iraq.

Only heir? He was the heir apparent until the assassination attempt, but Qusay would certainly have something to say about it.

 

[Jinx999]

I imagine the most important factor is what sort of government takes over, what they say/do about America and their response to UN inspections.

If the government combines too much anti-Americanism in it's policy/rhetoric and enough evasiveness about UN inspectors that the American government can convince itself that it's hiding something, then I imagine things will play out as OTL.

 

[PMN1]

Maybe the two brothers and their supporters would agree to split the country 50/50 - East Iraq and West Iraq........

I've heard a few people actually suggest that when i've asked them what they thought would happen if saddam had died of natural causes.

 

[SeanB]

Maybe Uday would have gotten to enjoy the 'respect' he so very craved. For about a month or so, at least. Then somebody puts a bullet between his eyes.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Oh holy god, now imagining Uday Hussein in charge of a country.

He wouldn't last, he had too many enemies.

I guarantee he would be overthrown within months. Saddam was a monster, but at least if you obeyed everything he said you would most likely survive. Uday was Pol Pot waiting to happen.

People knew Uday was crazy long before the PoD posted by the OP, it isn't impossible for Uday to never be president at all. Pretty much everyone of major import didn't want him, and the list of people who would favor the far more stable Qusay over him is enormous.

 

[redlightning]

If there is no Saddam one of his sons takes over and if he remains in power in the wake of assassination attempts, a cou, and what not, then the once 9/11 happens, Iraq will probably cooperate just as much with the UN undertaking its weapons inspections, but will being a new leader, much more fearful that the West will invade if they do not cooperate with disarmament supervision. However the new regime may also cling more desperately to the myth that it has chemical and biological weapons in order to hold off tension from the Iranians and could go down in flames the same way or be ousted through some sort of easier cou because of his lack of popular support much easier than Saddam could have been.

 

[Germania09]

Uda either bites bullet or is pushed aside preferably for Qusay to take charge as the heir

 

[James G]

It's an interesting idea for a TL.
I saw a drama programme on TV several years ago - House of Saddam, IRC - that, from what I read, was pretty accurate. The two sons featured in that, and if Uday was as crazy as he was portrayed... wow.
Either way, whichever one of them would seize power, there would be a bloodbath in Iraq that would make the aftermath of 'Iraqi Freedom' look like a summer's picnic.
Saddam held that country together through fear and guile. Uday could instil the fear and maybe Qusay had the guile, but they couldn't rule together and so apart would be a horrible mess for all those involved.

 

[katchen]

Most likely Qusay would have inherited Iraq but it wouldn't have made any difference. The real reason the US wanted into Iraq was as a replacement for Saudi Arabia, both in terms of oil and in terms of strategic position in the Mideast. The Saudis asked the United States to vacate their country completely after 9/11 and the US was casting around for a replacement for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Qatar were not enough. Iraq had the oil and had few enough people, good infrastructure and was small enough and advanced enough that it looked like a slam dunk for regime change. Little did we know that the Saudis and the Iranians and the Iraqis themselves woudn't let us off that easy.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Most likely Qusay would have inherited Iraq but it wouldn't have made any difference. The real reason the US wanted into Iraq was as a replacement for Saudi Arabia, both in terms of oil and in terms of strategic position in the Mideast. The Saudis asked the United States to vacate their country completely after 9/11 and the US was casting around for a replacement for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Qatar were not enough. Iraq had the oil and had few enough people, good infrastructure and was small enough and advanced enough that it looked like a slam dunk for regime change. Little did we know that the Saudis and the Iranians and the Iraqis themselves woudn't let us off that easy.

Uh, this isn't the most coherent post I've ever read, but this sounds like it's kinda verging into conspiracy land. Do you have any proof of this? Because the United States pretty generally upheld the contracts Iraq already had with France and China for oil extraction rights when they could have rather easily torn them up and taken all that black gold for themselves.

It's an interesting idea for a TL.
I saw a drama programme on TV several years ago - House of Saddam, IRC - that, from what I read, was pretty accurate. The two sons featured in that, and if Uday was as crazy as he was portrayed... wow.
Either way, whichever one of them would seize power, there would be a bloodbath in Iraq that would make the aftermath of 'Iraqi Freedom' look like a summer's picnic.
Saddam held that country together through fear and guile. Uday could instil the fear and maybe Qusay had the guile, but they couldn't rule together and so apart would be a horrible mess for all those involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draining_of_the_Mesopotamian_Marshes

Qusay was perfectly willing and able to kill people to accomplish his political goals. His campaign against the Marsh Arabs which involved the wholesale and widespread devastation of an entire region of southern Iraq that to this day has not recovered from the destruction targeted against it, you will note that Qusay basically destroyed an entire ecosystem for the sole purpose of undermining a people who were resisting the central government.

There is absolutely no question that Qusay would be just as willing as his father to drown even a potential challenge to his authority in its own blood. He doesn't need Uday to do that.

 

[Binky the Clown]

Iraq had the oil and had few enough people, good infrastructure and was small enough and advanced enough that it looked like a slam dunk for regime change.

Iraq was in a state of decay after the first Gulf War. It's infrastructure was ruined, illiteracy and poverty were rising, and was no longer agriculturally self-sufficient. Why the hell would we want to invade a nation with all those problems? Granted, Bush and the Neocons had a vendetta against Iraq, but none of what you suggested makes any sense. It's like selling your brand new house to buy a burned out one next door at twice the price.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Iraq was in a state of decay after the first Gulf War. It's infrastructure was ruined, illiteracy and poverty were rising, and was no longer agriculturally self-sufficient. Why the hell would we want to invade a nation with all those problems? Granted, Bush and the Neocons had a vendetta against Iraq, but none of what you suggested makes any sense. It's like selling your brand new house to buy a burned out one next door at twice the price.

Actually thanks to Saddam's inefficient collectivization policies, Ba'athist Iraq was never self-sufficient in agriculture.

But I entirely agree, for a supposed "war for oil" the United States sure didn't take a lot of opportunities to claim Iraq's oil reserves for American firms or those of her closest supporters in Iraq.

Instead I see it as more of a neocon conflict that perceived Saddam as a threat regardless of the circumstances and took the first chance to take him down.

 

[katchen]

The Iraq war was first and foremost about POSITION in the Middle East and basing and secondarily about access to Iraq's oil reserves. From the start, the US built it's bases and embassy as if it expected to maintain a permanent presence in Iraq. And US policymakers expected Iraq to conclude a status of forces agreement with the US that would give US troops immunity to Iraqi laws right up until the December 2011 deadline ran out and the US had to leave. Neo-conservatives like John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney can quibble that the US should have tried harder to get a government in power that would have been more pliable but even President Bush was forced by circumstances to support democratic elections in Iraq that led to a majority Shiite government that finally eased the US out.

And the same thing happened with Iraq's oil law. I watched the Iraq situation very closely from 2003 until 2011 on NPR and from a variety of online sources on the Right and the Left including later on, OilPrice.com. If the Neo-cons had had their way and Ahmed Chalabi had become the President of Iraq (if Chalabi had been who the Neo-cons thought he was instead of being more pro-Iranian than he let on tha the was) the US would indeed have had the inside track to Iraqi reconstruction. Instead, we all saw how the Bush Administration was forced by an interminable insurgency to accept democratic elecetions as an exit strategy that finally put a government in that used old oil contracts as a way to limit American penetration of Iraq--to the point that some US oil companies felt justified in going behind the Iraq government's back and negotiating with the Kurdish regional government as if it is an independent nation--which may make Kurdestan independent finally. Conspiracy is a part of politics. But conspiracies can and do fail. And that's what makes history, OTL and ATL interesting. and fun

 

[The Kiat]

I thought Saddam wanted his younger son to take his place. He was cold-hearted, but I thought he was suppose to have more of his father's rational (or whatever you want to call it). His older son was the unstable one he didn't trust with the country. Either way, the father was better qualified than any of his sons. He had to claw and knife his way to the top, which requires cunning and other attributes.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

I thought Saddam wanted his younger son to take his place. He was cold-hearted, but I thought he was suppose to have more of his father's rational (or whatever you want to call it). His older son was the unstable one he didn't trust with the country. Either way, the father was better qualified than any of his sons. He had to claw and knife his way to the top, which requires cunning and other attributes.

This became the case after an assassination attempt on Uday which damaged his health and effectively was the final nail in the coffin for his succession prospects.

But honestly the falling-out between him and Saddam started in earnest after he butchered someone at a party, in full view of the party's guests, including Hosni Mubarak's wife. If the possibility of succession had come up at any point after that, I can almost guarantee that Saddam would have strongly debated the merit of Uday as a leader of the country.