Saddam's officers will be afraid to carry out his orders, for fear of war crimes trials. Of course, no one wants to be the last man executed by the Baathist regime, either. This is a little like the situation described in the book "Is Paris Burning?" which describes the refusal of German soldiers to carry out Hitler's scorched earth madness. In my opinion, the Iraqi people are less loyal to Saddam than the Afghan people were loyal to Omar. However, all it will take is a few idiot Iraqi loyalists with a (barely) workable battlefield atomic weapon to create a terrible tragedy. We have to take the risk.
As for terrorists timing their attacks on the U.S. with U.S. attacks on Iraq, who knows? Al Quaeda would have loved to attack us domestically when we first attacked Afghanistan, but apparently they were not ready. Iraq or no Iraq. I'm betting that 9/11 was their high water mark, but, of course, complacency is not in order.
Yup. I read a post the other day that FEMA is real busy.
I think that's what we're going to get. Good going, Dubya!