A "what if" scenario on Saddam Hussein

[bluestateguy]

What if after 9/11 Saddam Hussein had condemned the attacks, allowed the US to use Iraqi airspace and air bases for US military strikes against Afghanistan, offered to provide troops for the campaign against the Taliban and pledged to help round up Al Qaeda operatives? Even as he continued being a brutal dictator in Iraq, oppressing the Kurds and funding suicide bombings in Israel. Would the Bush Administration really given a rat's ass about Saddam Hussein being an evil man and a human rights abuser? Would we have been told that his regime was an imminent threat and needed to be detroyed?

[La_Serpiente]

1. sounds like Iran

n/t

[OrAnarch]

2. Of course they would of still attacked

a little as kissing isnt going to erase 4-5 years of PNAC manifesto. Iraq was a planned strategic target probably before 9/11 was a notion in anyone's head. How else can we ensure pax americana without a control center in the middle east?

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Nothing would have deterred them.

Whatever Hussein's cooperation, just as with the UNMOVIC inspections, they'd have said too little, too late - time's up.

"While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, Sept 2000.

[FloridaPat]

3. The war has been planned since 1998. Too many oil wells,

[Silverhair]

5. Objection, calls for speculation. Sustained. Gavel bangs. n/t

[Spiderm0n]

6. not likely

Assuming we had bases inside Iraq it's hard to imagine how we could then turn around and attack it without direct provocation. Part of Bush's justification for the war against Iraq was that they were firing on our planes. (I realize it was a small part)