Now that we have invaded Iraq, my college roommate Robert Waldmann is scared of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. He wasn't scared a week ago: heads of state who wish to die in their beds are, after all, by and large deterrable. But he is scared now. And so am I (although each day that does by without a strike makes me calmer):
Posted by DeLong at March 21, 2003 03:07 PM | TrackBackrobert's random thoughts: ...So if I were in Saddam's shoes I would make sure that any anthrax I had didn't get used by terrorists. Saddam is not me in his shoes, but I don't think he is quite that stupid.
On the other hand I can tell two worrisome stories about Iraqi anthrax and terrorists, each of which requires the assumption that we invade. First, when Saddam knows he is done for (that is when the invasion starts) he decides to take some of us with him and gives anthrax to some terrorist. I think he could manage that. Why isn't that a strong argument against invading?
Second, other people with access to anthrax might hope to avoid death and prison but recognise that they are going to be out of a job soon. They also could get their hands on something (the anthrax) which a certain rich Saudi terrorist would be glad to buy for a ton of money. That seems to be a problem. The point is that, so long as Saddam is in control, hopes to die in bed, and knows that if his anthrax gets in our lungs he is dead, we are relatively safe.
I think invading Iraq because there is anthrax there is roughly like shooting missiles at the old USSR because they had missiles. I think, in this case as in that, first strike won't work, and deterrence has a better chance of working.
Same goes but less so for nerve gas. Mustard gas is horrible but I think not horrible enough for small quantities to kill huge numbers of people. I think mustard in Iraq is not a big threat to us...
Why are you only scared now?
They (as a civilian should I say 'we' instead of 'they'?) never caught the person (or people) who already sent anthrax.
That stuff is out there already and apparently nobody knows who has it.
I'll stop here to avoid another conspiracy theory rant.
However, I agree that the theory we are using for this war could be applied by almost any country to attack another country. Not an exciting prospect at all.
Posted by: amused reader on March 22, 2003 07:51 AMAnd getting less scared day by day isn't wise - if he gives or gave it to terrorists there would probably be a few month gap before it was used. And if he's going to use it against US troops then it'll probably happen during the attack on Bagdad.
Posted by: Ian Welsh on March 22, 2003 07:58 AMAll true, but then again, WMD's was the nearest thing the administration could come up with for a pretext to its real goal of occupying Iraq.
Posted by: andres on March 22, 2003 01:28 PM