Liberals Love Saddam's WMD Lies

If Saddam lied about having WMDs, that only proves he was crazy.

Saddam's WMD Lies
by Daniel Pipes
October 7, 2003

(Attn: Liberals, Insert your usual hate-filled personal attacks HERE
if unable to refute the article)

Suppose for an instant that no weapons of mass destruction ever turn
up in Iraq. Of course, they might well still appear, but let's imagine
that Saddam Hussein did not have an advanced program for chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons, as well as the missiles to carry them.

What would that imply?

President Bush's Democratic opponents say it renders the decision to
go to war a "fraud" or "hyped." But they miss the point, for there was
indeed massive and undisputed evidence to indicate that the Iraqi
regime was building WMD.

Defectors and other Iraqi sources nearly all agreed on his WMD
program. The actions of Saddam's government - fending off United
Nations weapons inspectors tooth and nail, hiding evidence, forgoing
opportunities to have the economic sanctions lifted - all confirmed
its existence.

Nor is that all: Rich Lowry of National Review has shown that the
entire Clinton administration leadership - as well as the United
Nations and the French and German governments - believed in the
existence of Iraqi WMD.

If no WMD exist, the real mystery is not how the Bush administration
made the same mistake everyone else did; the mystery is why Saddam
created the false impression that he had them. Why did he put himself
into the bizarre position of simultaneously pretending to build WMD
and pretending to hide his nonexistent weapons?

Presumably, his goal was to enhance his position. As The Washington
Post's Walter Pincus and Dana Priest speculate, he "may have put in
place a double-deception program aimed at convincing the world and his
own people that he was more of a threat than he actually was."

At a certain point, however, Saddam's charade became self-defeating.
Pretending to possess WMD meant continued economic sanctions that
deprived him of billions of dollars a year, debilitated his economic
base and hollowed out his conventional arsenal. Worse (from his point
of view), the fakery spurred his removal from power, the execution of
his sons, and his own likely capture or demise.

Why would a leader who reached the top of a slippery pole through
supreme guile, persist in so counterproductive a policy? His
biographers, Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, describe Saddam Hussein's
characteristics as "obsessive caution, endless patience, tenacious
perseverance, impressive manipulative skills and utter ruthlessness."
How could he not have cut his losses, acknowledged the nonexistence of
his WMD program, and thereby have saved his dictatorship?

This mistake can best be explained as the result of Saddam inhabiting
the uniquely self-indulgent circumstance of the totalitarian autocrat,
with its two key qualities:

a.. Hubris: The absolute ruler can do anything he wants, so he
thinks himself unbounded in his power.
b.. Ignorance: The all-wise ruler brooks no contradiction, so his
aides, fearing for their lives, tell him only what he wants to hear.
Both these incapacities worsen with time and the tyrant becomes
increasingly
removed from reality. His whims, eccentricities and fantasies dominate
state policy. The result is a pattern of monumental mistakes.

Two historical examples make this point. Hitler was winning World War
II until he insisted, against the muted advice of his generals, to
begin a two-front war by attacking the Soviet Union. Stalin responded
to the buildup of Nazi forces along his border by pretending the whole
thing was not taking place.

Hitler's mistake is seen as one of the turning points of World War II
and a key reason for Germany's defeat. Stalin's error caused the
deaths of many millions of his subjects. The Nazi-Soviet war was the
largest, most brutal, and most deadly in human history, and it
resulted primarily from the hubris and ignorance of two dictators.

Saddam Hussein already has a comparable record of mistakes (recall his
disastrous invasions of Iran and Kuwait), so clinging to a nonexistent
WMD program even as it led to his own perdition should come as no
surprise. We on the outside can only imagine the ambitions and
distortions that prompted his faulty decisions.

The propensity of totalitarian demigods to self-inflicted wounds has
direct implications for dealing with North Korea, Libya, and other
rogue states. Their rulers' vanity and isolation can lead toward a
catastrophe that makes no sense to the outside world, but which has a
vast capacity to do harm.

From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at:
www.danielpipes.org/article/1271

Liberals Love Saddam's WMD Lies



If Saddam lied about having WMDs, that only proves he was crazy.

Saddam's WMD Lies
by Daniel Pipes
October 7, 2003

(Attn: Liberals, Insert your usual hate-filled personal attacks HERE
if able to refute the article)

Suppose for an instant that no weapons of mass destruction ever turn
up in Iraq. Of course, they might well still appear, but let's imagine
that Saddam Hussein did not have an advanced program for chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons, as well as the missiles to carry them.

What would that imply?

President Bush's Democratic opponents say it renders the decision to
go to war a "fraud" or "hyped." But they miss the point, for there was
indeed massive and undisputed evidence to indicate that the Iraqi
regime was building WMD.

Defectors and other Iraqi sources nearly all agreed on his WMD
program. The actions of Saddam's government - fending off United
Nations weapons inspectors tooth and nail, hiding evidence, forgoing
opportunities to have the economic sanctions lifted - all confirmed
its existence.

Nor is that all: Rich Lowry of National Review has shown that the
entire Clinton administration leadership - as well as the United
Nations and the French and German governments - believed in the
existence of Iraqi WMD.

If no WMD exist, the real mystery is not how the Bush administration
made the same mistake everyone else did; the mystery is why Saddam
created the false impression that he had them. Why did he put himself
into the bizarre position of simultaneously pretending to build WMD
and pretending to hide his nonexistent weapons?

Presumably, his goal was to enhance his position. As The Washington
Post's Walter Pincus and Dana Priest speculate, he "may have put in
place a double-deception program aimed at convincing the world and his
own people that he was more of a threat than he actually was."

At a certain point, however, Saddam's charade became self-defeating.
Pretending to possess WMD meant continued economic sanctions that
deprived him of billions of dollars a year, debilitated his economic
base and hollowed out his conventional arsenal. Worse (from his point
of view), the fakery spurred his removal from power, the execution of
his sons, and his own likely capture or demise.

Why would a leader who reached the top of a slippery pole through
supreme guile, persist in so counterproductive a policy? His
biographers, Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, describe Saddam Hussein's
characteristics as "obsessive caution, endless patience, tenacious
perseverance, impressive manipulative skills and utter ruthlessness."
How could he not have cut his losses, acknowledged the nonexistence of
his WMD program, and thereby have saved his dictatorship?

This mistake can best be explained as the result of Saddam inhabiting
the uniquely self-indulgent circumstance of the totalitarian autocrat,
with its two key qualities:

a.. Hubris: The absolute ruler can do anything he wants, so he
thinks himself unbounded in his power.
b.. Ignorance: The all-wise ruler brooks no contradiction, so his
aides, fearing for their lives, tell him only what he wants to hear.
Both these incapacities worsen with time and the tyrant becomes
increasingly
removed from reality. His whims, eccentricities and fantasies dominate
state policy. The result is a pattern of monumental mistakes.

Two historical examples make this point. Hitler was winning World War
II until he insisted, against the muted advice of his generals, to
begin a two-front war by attacking the Soviet Union. Stalin responded
to the buildup of Nazi forces along his border by pretending the whole
thing was not taking place.

Hitler's mistake is seen as one of the turning points of World War II
and a key reason for Germany's defeat. Stalin's error caused the
deaths of many millions of his subjects. The Nazi-Soviet war was the
largest, most brutal, and most deadly in human history, and it
resulted primarily from the hubris and ignorance of two dictators.

Saddam Hussein already has a comparable record of mistakes (recall his
disastrous invasions of Iran and Kuwait), so clinging to a nonexistent
WMD program even as it led to his own perdition should come as no
surprise. We on the outside can only imagine the ambitions and
distortions that prompted his faulty decisions.

The propensity of totalitarian demigods to self-inflicted wounds has
direct implications for dealing with North Korea, Libya, and other
rogue states. Their rulers' vanity and isolation can lead toward a
catastrophe that makes no sense to the outside world, but which has a
vast capacity to do harm.

From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at:
www.danielpipes.org/article/1271