Replies

Bush is going to implicate Saddam in 9-11. That has been already been promised, sotto voce, and the leadership will deliver when the time comes to act -- just as Tony Blair promised last month. Bush will also either expose Saddam's attempted anthrax blackmail, or simply allow the phony "Amerithrax" investigation to die on the vine, and let people draw their own conclusions. He is going to ask the Iraqis to hand over Saddam for trial -- which is going to take everyone by surprise, because we are being set up to expect an attack or an invasion. All possible means will be used to isolate Saddam (just as Arafat has been isolated), including military pressure. However, there will be no direct assualt on Baghdad, either by aerial bombardment or ground invasion. Far too dangerous, given Saddam's WMD threat to US civilians. However, there is nothing to stop us from reprising the Afghanistan strategy and gradually lopping off bits of Iraq over a period of 12-48 months, while we build up our civil defenses. Kurdistan would be one obvious place to start the dismemberment. By the end of this process, with the threat of nuclear-biological war at flash-point, Saddam will no longer be able to intimidate people to stay in Baghdad (they are already sweating bullets and leaving in droves), and Saddam will be a leader without a country. Better hope that imprisonment looks better to him than death.

"All possible means will be used to isolate Saddam (just as Arafat has been isolated), including military pressure."

Not only Arafat, but bin Laden and the Taliban.

Isolating the cancerous cells before conducting the operation has thus far proven a very satisfactory course of treatment.

Better hope that imprisonment looks better to him than death.

We could offer him luxurious confinement on some island, a la Napoleon on Elba (with better guards to prevent a similar escape.) With so much of the U.S. government up in arms against the International Criminal Court, that strikes me as a better solution than a trial before an international tribunal.