Bluff Stuff

Via Josh Marshall I see that a former high level Iraqi officialsays that Saddam destroyed his weapons but wanted the world to be unsure as to whether he had WMD, as a deterrent.

I said this back in June, in response to all these questions asking “why didn’t he fully cooperate?”

Saddam was a strongman dictator who maintained his power, both within the country and in the region, through fear and violence. Kowtowing to the UN and especially to the US would have substantially weakened his reputation as a ruthless tyrant who was willing to do anything to stay in power. If a totalitarian shows weakness, the whole house of cards can come tumbling down. It’s possible that he felt he had to bluff or lose his grip on power from within.

And perhaps he simply made the logical calculation that, as the North Korea situation has shown, the US will not unilaterally invade a nuclear power and will hesitate to put large numbers of troops in the way of lethal unconventional weapons. Anyone in his shoes might have felt it was in his best interests to keep the world guessing about his WMD capabilities and willingness to use them. When it became clear last fall that the US was going to call his bluff, it appears to me that instead of preparing a traditional defense and going down in a blaze of glory, he made plans to go underground or escape (and perhaps live to fight another day.) I doubt very seriously that even crazy Saddam ever entertained the illusion that his army could defeat the US military in a straight up fight. Once that was inevitable, he went to plan B. Plan A was to keep the world guessing as long as he could about what he was really capable of.

I recently read that he thought his troops would fight an urban guerilla war in Baghdad and they didn’t, so the “live to fight another day” theory may be wrong. Nonetheless, I still think it is completely reasonable that Saddam didn’t have the weapons but believed it served his purposes to keep the world guessing and this account gives it some credence.

The big question, however, is whether it is reasonable to believe that the most powerful country in the world bought this 3rd rate dictator’s gamesmanship and if they did, whether it is reasonable that we have a doctrine of preventive war if our top flight, super sophisticated intelligence services are so easily duped.

If the clumsy posturing of a not-too-bright tyrant is now the only evidence we need to launch an invasion then we are in for a very bumpy ride. (And, I would like to propose that we simply start flushing thousand dollar bills down the toilet rather than continue to fund a defense and intelligence apparatus that is incapable of verifying whether or not these claims have any basis in reality.)

In truth, the hyping of the evidence speaks for itself. (And I still think it is thoroughly illogical that the US would have put tens of thousands of troops on the Iraq-Kuwait border in a long term build last winter if we truly believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.)

If Saddam bluffed and we knew he was bluffing (or certainly should have known) then somebody needs to ask what purpose was served for the people of the United States and Britain for their governments to call that bluff.