Klaus said:
A_Wanderer
I think one reason for the misscalculation was that we all thought that Saddam had at least some WMDs and, of course, would use them to defend his life.
Or at least would use the WMDs to take as much people with him as he can when he sees no other exit than death
Prior to the American-led invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s regime was not in a defensive situation, nor was it in an offensive situation. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a secular state that only began adopting Islamic teachings shortly before its demise. As a result, middle-eastern countries that held great importance in religious beliefs did not associate with the Saddam regime. Another reason is that Iraq remained a powerful state in the middle-east despite the Gulf War, and power is a known deterrent of outside political challenge.
Internally, Desert Storm only added to Iraq’s relative neutrality. After the war, “no-fly” zones were implemented over Iraqi airspace, which disallowed the movement of military forces by Saddam Hussein in the north and south of Iraq, and was enforced by American and British warplanes. Under the no-fly zones, a Kurdish nation flourished in the north, which later became a major ally in the invasion of Iraq.
Consequently, with no strong allies, no obvious foes, and being restricted to the middle of Iraq, Saddam was forced to adopt a semi-pacifist position. True, Iraqi forces would occasionally fire on American and British planes, but such attacks were not threatening and instead were done symbolically to represent the survival of Saddam’s rule despite international intervention during the Gulf War.
What can be more intriguing are the questions, “How could Saddam Hussein be able to build WMD if tight international sanctions were imposed against his regime, he was surrounded by indifferent neighbours, and his own borders were monitored by western powers?,” and, “If he was unable to build WMD after the Gulf War, and the conviction leading to the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam had these weapons prior to the Gulf War, why didn’t he use them during the Gulf War, or during the invasion of Iraq?” However, I will provide no answers to these complicated questions in fear of making false assumptions that ultimately bring me to tell a few harmful lies.
Propaganda is a simple person’s happiness.
