Saddam Hussein plans to strike back hard

If President George W. Bush doesn't have a war plan on his desk to unhorse Saddam Hussein – maybe he doesn't allow The New York Times to touch his desk - the Iraqi dictator most assuredly has one on his own desk.

It will include everything in Iraq's arsenal, according to what Hussein told his inner circle of advisors and two sons during a five-hour meeting last month that was leaked to a Saudi newspaper.

"Everything" in this instance means weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is known to possess both chemical and biological weapons.

Hussein made clear to his acolytes he would wait for the U.S. to throw the first punch – and then hit back with everything he's got, both on the battlefield and "all other fronts." This presumably means the activation of 'sleeper' cells in the United States.

The beneficiary of the Iraqi leak was the Saudi newspaper Al Watan Al Arabi, which quoted sources close to the ruling family in Baghdad.

Present at Hussein's war council were two new officials, "who were recently assigned by [Hussein's son] Qusay to organize intelligence cells abroad."

It's a safe bet that "intelligence cells" in this instance is Iraqi jargon for 'sabotage of U.S. targets of convenience.'

Referring to the green light Bush gave the CIA to "assassinate or arrest me," Hussein, reportedly said, the U.S. president "has left Iraq no room to be tolerant... His war on us is now declared and he is publicly leaking information today that he gave orders to use all means and weapons to violate Iraq's sovereignty and international law by assassinating me in Iraq."

Hussein then told the participants he wanted to hear their views and analysis, "calmly without getting emotional." That is asking the impossible of people whose culture is hyperbole.

So, one after another, they emoted from the same sheet, working up to a crescendo to take the war to America.

The first to speak was Ali Hasan Al Majid, a presidential cousin who is widely known as 'Chemical Ali' and is accused of being responsible for the massacres in the south following the 1991 uprising at the end of the Gulf War.

"Mr. President, the Iraqi people have tolerated the intolerable from these Americans... has the time not come to take the fight to their own homes in America? They wanted this to be a war on all fronts, so let it be a war on all fronts and using all weapons and means."

- "The Americans must know that the heroes of Iraq can become human bombs in the thousands, willing to blow up America in particular."

- "With a simple sign from you, we can make America's people sleepless and frightened to go out in the streets... I swear upon your head, sir, that if I do not turn their night into day and their day into a living hell, I will ask you to chop off my head before the brothers present."

- "I am confident that our entire nation will be set aflame [by the Americans] and they must know that the entire region will turn into rubble with Israel at the forefront."

- "If [Osama] Bin Laden truly did carry out the September attacks as they claim, then, as God is my witness, we will prove to them that what happened in September is a picnic compared to the wrath of Saddam Hussein."

After five hours of "fiery elocution," all agreed "on the need for a strong response to the now public hostile U.S. plan and the importance for Iraq not to wait or hesitate."

All except Hussein, that is. He said the United States is using "all its dominion and tyranny not just to humiliate Iraq, but... every Arab in the land of Arabs and every Muslim in the land of Islam... just as [Bush] rejected [Palestinian Authority President] Yasser Arafat, he will reject Saddam Hussein, and tomorrow [Syrian President] Bashar Al Assad, and after that another Arab leader until U.S. dominion reaches the rights, wealth and destiny of the Arab...

"Bush, his gang and his intelligence bodies should know that as soon as they start this battle or we get wind of its beginning, Iraq will turn from reaction to action...

"At that moment everything will be handed over to Qusay Saddam Hussein to directly oversee the retaliation plans... using all the weapons and fronts available."

Hussein's son Uday, according to the leaked minutes in the Saudi paper, still insisted Iraq should launch preemptive attacks against the United States.

The dictator reminded him, "so far the U.S. has done nothing except take a decision on paper. A number of officials know from experience that implementation will not be easy.

"[The Americans] have taken many decisions over the past 12 years and we have foiled them all. What's important today is to wait for the U.S. to throw the first punch and then we will not just react, but will act and take actions."

At the very least, concluded an anonymous top security official in a large Arab state – widely rumored to be Saudi Prince Turki, the retired chief of Saudi intelligence who held the job for 25 years - what will happen between Bush 43 and Hussein will be larger and more dangerous than what happened between Hussein and Bush 41.

Hopefully the U.S. Senate will get to debate war powers for the commander-in-chief for Gulf War II before the battle of leaks transmogrifies into an alliance between Hussein and Bin Laden – weapons of mass destruction and terrorism in the United States.

It's been sad that the Anthrax's source was Fort Detrick, Maryland. How is that Saddam?

Over the last ten months, a lot have been things have been said by public officials concerning the anthrax. They said it was probably natural in origin, that it likely came from a mountain stream, that it was criminal but not terroristic (e.g. from a disgruntled celebrity), that it might have come from the Wiccans, that the most likely source was a right-wing militia, that they were looking at an ex-government contractor who made anthrax threats following 9-11 (who turned out to be a drunk working in a bowling alley), that they were planning to polygraph everybody in the US government anthrax program (it never happened), that genotyping of the anthrax was expected to point the finger at a specific lab (untrue), etc., etc. If by now you haven't figured out that the government is not particularly interested in the public understanding where the anthrax came from, you haven't been paying attention.

The strain issue is another red herring, as the Washington Post pointed out last October (U.S. Says Anthrax Germ In Mail Is 'Ames' Strain ):

The strain has spread by other routes to countless research labs around the world, making its identification relatively useless as a tool for tracking the perpetrators, experts have said.

As the Post reported last November, Iraq originally tried to acquire the Ames strain back in the eighties: Anthrax Type That Killed May Have Reached Iraq. Indeed, the chances that Iraq does not have the Ames strain is "near zero" (Deadly Anthrax Strain Leaves a Muddy Trail, Washington Post, November 25, 2001).

So why all the blather about the irrelevant strain issue? Because that's the only hook left to spin the letters as being other than what they appeared to be, follow-up threats intimately linked with the destruction of the WTC. There is not one shred of evidence for a domestic source for the anthrax letters, and plenty of evidence that makes it perfectly obvious that the letters were actually part of the 9-11 operation. But somebody doesn't want us to see the obvious. When one individual who lived less than a mile away from Mohammed Atta's favorite airfield came down with the first case of inhalation anthrax in 25 years, they told us it was probably natural in origin. When a second person came down with anthrax at the same tabloid newspaper, edited by the husband of the 9-11 hijackers' realtor, they told us the anthrax was criminal but not necessarily terroristic. After all, pissed-off celebrities kill tabloid photo editors with weaponized anthrax all the time, dontcha know? When anthrax samples accompanied by explicit threats against the US and Israel were subsequently sent to prominent media and government figures, we were told the anthrax probably came from rightwing militiamen. When certain newspapers, such as the New York Times, interviewed independent scientists who debunked the notion that the anthrax could have been made by amateurs, the weapons lab story kicked in. And then nothing happened. People forgot about the whole thing. Which is exactly what was supposed to happen. Why? You figure it out.

The "anthrax letters" of last fall comprised a total of about ten GRAMS, one gram per letter at most, and look at the panic they engendered as they spread through the postal system.

Now instead of one gram letters, imagine hundreds of one KILOGRAM glass jars of the same high grade weaponized anthrax tossed onto subway tracks and into the ventilators of major office buildings and airports and sports arenas all over America on the same day. Hundreds of leaky ten gram of anthrax letters would also be sent through the postal system the same day.

By launching a coordinated one day attack, the "flu-like symptoms" would present at the same time a few days later all across America. Our medical system would be totally swamped, we would not have even a fraction of the cipro available to treat everyone who may have been exposed, which run to millions of people.

Thousands would die, our hospital system would be overwhelmed and frozen, our postal system and subways would be shut down for weeks.

If that's not a WMD attack, I don't know what is. The effects on the US economy as the subways, postal system etc were shut down would be hard to calculate.

Many do believe that the tiny one gram per letter attack last fall was simply a warning, that the nation which produced the high grade anthrax used could just as easily attack with hundreds of kilograms, and not just ten grams. Seen this way, last fall's attack was simply a warning shot.

Anthrax is hardly a doomsday weapon

I suggest you educate yourself about anthrax:

Assessment: An Anthrax Attack on Washington D.C.
A 1993 Report
A 1993 report by the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment outlines a possible biological terrorism attack on Washington D.C. The imaginary perpetrators used a small airplane to deliver 100 kg (about 220 pounds) of anthrax spores upwind of the city. The number of fatalities would, according to the estimates, vary greatly depending on the weather conditions. The best-case scenario calculates the number of deaths to somewhere between 130,000 and 460,000. A medium estimation counts 420,000 to 1,400,000. The worst-case scenario recognizes that between 1 million to 3 million persons could die as the result of the attack. A fatality rate similar to, or even higher than, that of a hydrogen bomb.
Sources: PROLIFERATION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION — Assessing the Risks, a report by the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-ISC-599 — Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, August 1993.
Anthrax Scenarios

Anthrax is hardly a doomsday weapon and it is hardly the sole factor determining the actions of the U.S. or Iraq in 1991 or now.

The truth is, you didn't even hear about it as a factor at all. We were supposed to believe that we let Saddam off the hook because of a lack of UN mandate, or concerns about the arab colition, or logistical problems, or Iraqi civilian casualties, or our military casualties. The one thing we weren't supposed to think is because it was the United States was afraid of what Saddam Hussein had up his sleave. So, after he tries tries to grab Kuwait, sets fire to all the oilfields to create the biggest conflagration in history, and tosses ballistic missiles at the civilian population of Israel, we let him live. Hey, I bought the rationalizations at the time, but I can put two and two together:

During the Persian Gulf war, intelligence officials argued that Saddam Hussein would not use his stockpile of anthrax and other chemicals unless he and his regime were clearly threatened. The administration's recent statements about the need for "regime change" in Iraq, its inclusion of Baghdad in the "axis of evil," and President Bush's articulation of a pre-emption doctrine that would justify American military action against any hostile nation that makes unconventional weapons, however, have increased the threat that Mr. Hussein might use his large arsenal, some officials say.

Source: Pentagon Shifts Anthrax Vaccine to Civilian Uses, New York Times, June 28, 2002

So, Saddam had the capability to to unleash a biological holocaust against Israel in 1991, but we let him off the hook because we were concerned about our UN mandate? I don't think so.

Said K. Aburish, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge, has articulated what we are all not supposed to say in public, for the sake of our own pride and peace of mind:

It is protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex--if you push me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else. Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly.
Source: An Interview with Said K. Aburish, PBS Frontline: The Survival of Saddam

Again, I suggest you educate yourself about anthrax, read the text of the letter sent to Daschle, then re-read the article at the head of this thread. Then maybe you will be able to figure it out.

"Again, I suggest you educate yourself about anthrax, read the text of the letter sent to Daschle, then re-read the article at the head of this thread. Then maybe you will be able to figure it out."

The use of WMD by Saddam Hussein is, of course, one element of the equation as is, for example, the possibility of urban warfare with potentially large numbers of U.S. and Iraqi civilian casualities (both in 1991 and now). The WMD threat is well-known and it is not unique. Nation states have been blackmailing each other for centuries. The same was said about Hitler and the use of nerve gas toward the end of World War II (it wasn't used). In fact, the exact same phrase "Samson" scenario was used then. There is nothing to "figure out" here.

Who said anything about panic? I'm simply suggesting that we start looking at the situation realistically. Last fall, a very ingenious adversary rearranged the New York skyline and came within a hair's breadth of destroying the Capitol and the White House. Said adversary followed up with a credible threat to kill millions of Americans and render our major cities uninhabitable, should we attempt to retaliate by removing him from power. Our President has publicly committed to remove this individual from power, but no plan has emerged to achieve this. That is the bottom-line reality we are faced with. But nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to think. Thinking's too hard. It's much easier to grind our favorite axes and indulge ourselves with feel-good fantasies of Millenium-style CIA conspiracies, and big talk about levelling Mecca or Baghdad. We will pay for this folly, just as we paid on September 11 for the follies of the last eight years. Boneheaded stupidity always has a price.

"Who said anything about panic? I'm simply suggesting that we start looking at the situation realistically. Last fall, a very ingenious adversary rearranged the New York skyline and came within a hair's breadth of destroying the Capitol and the White House. Said adversary followed up with a credible threat to kill millions of Americans and render our major cities uninhabitable, should we attempt to retaliate by removing him from power. Our President has publicly committed to remove this individual from power, but no plan has emerged to achieve this. That is the bottom-line reality we are faced with. But nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to think. Thinking's too hard. It's much easier to grind our favorite axes and indulge ourselves with feel-good fantasies of Millenium-style CIA conspiracies, and big talk about levelling Mecca or Baghdad. We will pay for this folly, just as we paid on September 11 for the follies of the last eight years. Boneheaded stupidity always has a price."

To suggest that nobody is or has been thinking long and hard about the current situation is not, in my opinion, being very realistic.

The "follies of the last eight years" i.e. the Clinton Administrations is a point upon which we can agree.

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