WI Saddam's WMD programs were real?

[Adam]

Yeah, what if they were actually real? Say, a US SpecOps team managed to capture a convoy of them choked full of nuclear bomb materials heading towards the Syrian border a few motnhs after the fall of Baghdad. Documents captured from said convoy there was also a joint program with Syria that is going on even as Operation Iraqi Freedom is concluding.

What are the implications of such a discovery? Would the United States still be bogged down in Iraq like in OTL? Would support from the homefront bolster to heights never seen before? Would Syria be invaded too?

 

[fhaessig]

Likely, if there were a WMD program in Iraq, there would have been some proof found before the invasion ( unless you postulate the convoy in question is teleported in place by ASB - or CIA? - ). So the opposition to the War would be much less and the 'coalition of the willing' much bigger. This could turn into enough boots on the ground to avoid the current quagmire.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

This would be interesting because dissent against the war would take longer to materialize. If bush were seen to be right about WMD, then Americans would be willing to stay the course longer. However, I think that events would still play out on the ground the same way. Later protests about the mishandling of the war would be occurring when it became obvious that a civil war had broken out. The Republicans would still have congress after the 2006 elections.

 

[Elidor]

Fewer Political Cartoons from Leftist Hacks....

 

[Derek Jackson]

Such programmes were past tense real up to the early 1990s. It is clear he got rid of them before they could be discovered by the inspectors.

If he had a serious usable chemical biological or nuclear defence he would have used it when fighting for his existence.

I suspect that if he were thought to have had effective WMDs GW Bush would not have attacked his state.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

I don't think most of the facts about the Iraq occupation would change. Perhaps a little less condemnation of the administration's behavior, but not much.

 

[Wozza]

Elements of a WMD programme were certainly real. That is why Dr Obeidi had centriguges buiried in his back garden.

Whether that was a live programme is a different matter of course.But perhaps Saddam could have re-started his programme in late 2002 in an ATL.

 

[Umbral]

If they were real, the Saddam who fired Kuwaits oilwells for spite would certainly have deployed them when the fighting was going poorly. Possibly anything ready for deployment would have been smuggled into the USA before the war.

I don't think the situation in Iraq today would be different. The problem wasn't just "boots on the ground" but gross stupidity in planning for the afterwar phase.

 

[Paul Spring]

Critics of the war in the US and overseas would be embarrassed to a certain degree, and there would be more support for the US occupation at first, apart from islamic radicals and the far left that will automatically hate anything the US does without even thinking.

Over time, as it became clear that the occupation was failing to stop insurgent violence and was not effectively dealing with the country's broken infrastructure, opposition would pick up again. Criticism would focus mainly on how the occupation was handled without nearly as much criticism of the war itself, since the original justification turned out to be accurate.

 

[Fletch]

Likely, if there were a WMD program in Iraq, there would have been some proof found before the invasion ( unless you postulate the convoy in question is teleported in place by ASB - or CIA? - ). So the opposition to the War would be much less and the 'coalition of the willing' much bigger. This could turn into enough boots on the ground to avoid the current quagmire.

It was believed by all the western governments, including the French, who opposed the invasion, that there were WMD in Iraq. The French simply believed that the inspectors would do the job. To state otherwise is a falsehood.

 

[fhaessig]

It was believed by all the western governments, including the French, who opposed the invasion, that there were WMD in Iraq. The French simply believed that the inspectors would do the job. To state otherwise is a falsehood.

Cite for this, from 2003 french government sources?

 

[Kabraloth]

The government may be one thing, the public opinion another.

I personally will never forgive Westerwelle (leader of the Liberal party) for his "Saddam can have weapons of mass destruction pointing and firing at us within 45 minutes" speeches. Entirely different thing if there would have been actual proof.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

Saddam had chemical and possibly biological or radioactive agents back in 1991. Why do you think the 'realists' let him off the hook and even allowed the slaughter of uprisings they had demanded?

 

[Redbeard]

Ask the Kurds who were gassed about how real Saddam's WMD were. Probably he dismantled ongoing programmes prior to the invasion, but was too proud/stupid to admit. But he is one of the few persons in recent times who have largescale used WMD and in this context the hysteria about (not) finding technical proof/smoking guns is ridiculous - the technical parts could easily be (re)obtained - provided that the political will was present. Who really belive that Saddam would feel any serious restraints?

The most important parts of the gadgetry anyway would be easy to hide, if necessary for ever. If I was Saddam I would have put it on a ship sent to open sea when the crisis sharpened. If if passed over it could return quietly, if not it could be sunk and hidden forever.

But back to the thread's question, I doubt it would have made that big a difference if some technical proof was found - a lot of people would still be fanatically opposed to anything USA does - just for different formal reasons.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

 

[fhaessig]

Saddam had chemical and possibly biological or radioactive agents back in 1991. Why do you think the 'realists' let him off the hook and even allowed the slaughter of uprisings they had demanded?

Chemical WMD in 91, there's no doubt he had. That he was trying to get nukes, there's also no doubt. That's OTL.

That he didn't have available WMD in 2003, in OTL, there's also no doubt.

This thread is about what would happen if he had them available in 2003. The questions are :

what would that do to the support for the war ( linked question : would Iraq have been invaded well before 2003 )?

Would Saddam us them, how and what would be the consequences?

What effect would all this have on the occupation and current guerilla ( and AL-Quaida )?


Also ObWI : What if USA had tried to get some WMD into Iraq to prove Saddam had them ( some time after the invasion )..... and got caught at it.

 

[Tyr]

Such programmes were past tense real up to the early 1990s. It is clear he got rid of them before they could be discovered by the inspectors.

If he had a serious usable chemical biological or nuclear defence he would have used it when fighting for his existence.
.

Would he? I'm not so sure.
His only real defence was that the war was illegal and unpopular.
Proving the excuse for the war was true would destroy any protests against the war (international and national0

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Would he? I'm not so sure.
His only real defence was that the war was illegal and unpopular.
Proving the excuse for the war was true would destroy any protests against the war (international and national)

Not to mention that if Saddam uses WMDs against Coalition forces he risks the US responding in kind.

I think that, even if the war's initial Causus Belli were univerally accepted, there would still be plenty of protest about the execution of the invasion and occuption. That is not to mention that there will still be some people who toss out arguements like "The US has WMD, so why can't Iraq?"

 

[talonbear01]

Such programmes were past tense real up to the early 1990s. It is clear he got rid of them before they could be discovered by the inspectors.

If he had a serious usable chemical biological or nuclear defence he would have used it when fighting for his existence.

I suspect that if he were thought to have had effective WMDs GW Bush would not have attacked his state.

Amen. If he'd actually had them, we would be treating Iraq the same way we're treating North Korea. We'd stop selling them plasma TVs.

 

[talonbear01]

Would Saddam use them, how and what would be the consequences?

quote]


I suspect that if, in the unlikely event that Saddam did have operational nukes, that he'd have detonated one of them, claiming it was a test..(just like the North Koreans) This would have sent a message to the US and the rest of the world that he has them and that an attack on Iraq could mean a counter attack with nuclear weapons... whether on an invading force, or smuggled in to an enemy city and detonated.

 

[Wendell]

Such programmes were past tense real up to the early 1990s. It is clear he got rid of them before they could be discovered by the inspectors.

If he had a serious usable chemical biological or nuclear defence he would have used it when fighting for his existence.

I suspect that if he were thought to have had effective WMDs GW Bush would not have attacked his state.

Except that, using said weapons during the war would only strengthen support for the conflict. He may not have had them, but if he did, they would not have been used during the fight.