On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 07:10:50PM +0530, Ritu wrote: > Remember Saddam's son-in-law? The one who defected and told all about > Saddam's secret weapons programme, the one who later went back to > Iraq and was executed by Saddam Hussein? As far as I recall, the > notion you find so incredible was a part of his official testimony. He > gave the details of all the research and then went on to say that > SH *had* destroyed almost all of his arsenal in the late 1990s. He > also said that it was done in secret and that no records were > maintained. Saddam's reasoning, as told by this guy, was that he had > always denied the existence of WMD and any public destruction of them > [or a record of the destruction] would prove him a liar in front of > his people.
This is quite shaky reasoning. Why would Saddam destroy the weapons at all? He must have perceived some benefit in doing so, something to outweigh the detriment of losing the ability to use or sell them. The only reasonable explanations I can think of why he might destroy the WMD is that he wanted to get the sanctions lifted or was afraid he would be attacked again if he did not destroy them. In either case, after he secretly destroyed them, why didn't he come up with some vague excuse for why he kicked the inspectors out but that they are now welcome back and they will be given full cooperation to verify that there exist no WMD in Iraq? Saddam didn't do this -- the only way the inspectors got in was from extreme pressure and threat, led by the US. > If one is willing to consider as likely the notion that he had already > chosen to destroy his existing stock, it would not require a separate No, not a likely notion. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
