A
Asimov
Guest
Re: ?
I don't think I can answer your question Marie because I'm not in possesion of all the facts...any more than you or the rest of the world are.
By that I mean - we don't know what kind of negotiating went on behind the scenes. There are rumours that Saddam was communicating directly with the White House through intermediaries in the Middle East.
We also know that Bush offerred Saddam and his family the option to leave the country.
I'm pretty sure that if he'd taken that option he could have found sanctuary somewhere, given the ammounts of money he had embezzled from his people, which was safely salted away abroad no doubt.
Even Idi Amin managed to find someone to take him in (the Saudis...wonderful people).
But that wasn't in Saddams nature.
Maybe he actually thought the Americans would back down, or he could drag things out longer, or even that he could actually WIN a war against them.
Wrong on all counts.
Ultimately I guess the time for talking to Saddam was over. The decision had been made (right or wrong) that he was going down.
He had proved himself to be an able procrastinator up to then and I think the US had had enough of his faffing around.
The UN resolutions were toothless without US backing.
I'm sure Bush's personal animosity came into this too...I've already said so. Saddam laughed at Bush Snr from the safety of Baghdad when the Americans stopped at the Iraqi border in GW1. He even tried to have Bush Snr assasinated.
I guess it was partly personal too!
Thats where I part company from the decision to invade.
The US has been able in the past to 'influence' regime change in other countries. I'm thinking particularily of the way they encouraged a coup in the Chilean army, ousting (and killing) Salvador Allende and replacing him with Pinochet (the coup leader).
Whatever your opinion of that episode I think it would have been a better way to deal with Saddam.
I'm sure they tried. But it seems Saddam had a tighter grip on his army and his people than Allende had. Thats no surprise.
The world of international politics is a dirty one. The actions of the US in many cases (as with Chile) has been completely self centred and often hypocritical. But that is the natural state of nations. All nations act in their own national self interest - ALWAYS.
Anyone who thinks Britain, France, Germany or indeed Ireland always act 'fairly' or 'reasonably' on the international stage is just being sadly naiive. In the case of this country (a nominally neutral state) look at the governments decision to grant US warplanes landing rights at Shannon, against the will of a large part of the population, and arguably in contravention of our so called 'neutral' status.
The future round table talks that will finally smooth the road to democracy in Iraq would never have been possible with Saddam in power. He was a dictator, and had to go before any such outcome could be possible.
My method would have been different, thats all.
I don't think I can answer your question Marie because I'm not in possesion of all the facts...any more than you or the rest of the world are.
By that I mean - we don't know what kind of negotiating went on behind the scenes. There are rumours that Saddam was communicating directly with the White House through intermediaries in the Middle East.
We also know that Bush offerred Saddam and his family the option to leave the country.
I'm pretty sure that if he'd taken that option he could have found sanctuary somewhere, given the ammounts of money he had embezzled from his people, which was safely salted away abroad no doubt.
Even Idi Amin managed to find someone to take him in (the Saudis...wonderful people).
But that wasn't in Saddams nature.
Maybe he actually thought the Americans would back down, or he could drag things out longer, or even that he could actually WIN a war against them.
Wrong on all counts.
Ultimately I guess the time for talking to Saddam was over. The decision had been made (right or wrong) that he was going down.
He had proved himself to be an able procrastinator up to then and I think the US had had enough of his faffing around.
The UN resolutions were toothless without US backing.
I'm sure Bush's personal animosity came into this too...I've already said so. Saddam laughed at Bush Snr from the safety of Baghdad when the Americans stopped at the Iraqi border in GW1. He even tried to have Bush Snr assasinated.
I guess it was partly personal too!
Thats where I part company from the decision to invade.
The US has been able in the past to 'influence' regime change in other countries. I'm thinking particularily of the way they encouraged a coup in the Chilean army, ousting (and killing) Salvador Allende and replacing him with Pinochet (the coup leader).
Whatever your opinion of that episode I think it would have been a better way to deal with Saddam.
I'm sure they tried. But it seems Saddam had a tighter grip on his army and his people than Allende had. Thats no surprise.
The world of international politics is a dirty one. The actions of the US in many cases (as with Chile) has been completely self centred and often hypocritical. But that is the natural state of nations. All nations act in their own national self interest - ALWAYS.
Anyone who thinks Britain, France, Germany or indeed Ireland always act 'fairly' or 'reasonably' on the international stage is just being sadly naiive. In the case of this country (a nominally neutral state) look at the governments decision to grant US warplanes landing rights at Shannon, against the will of a large part of the population, and arguably in contravention of our so called 'neutral' status.
The future round table talks that will finally smooth the road to democracy in Iraq would never have been possible with Saddam in power. He was a dictator, and had to go before any such outcome could be possible.
My method would have been different, thats all.