The Risk of Doing Nothing

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Hortlund
Did Hitler use his nerve gas at the end of ww2?

If your answer is "no" then why not? Was he saving it for the next war?

Drop the attitude, get an education, and post smarter stuff Sandman.

Hardly a point there Steve. As a matter of fact Hitler used a lot of gas near the end of the war. He just limited the usage to the most practical delivery system he had at the time... "showers".

[Arlo]

Originally posted by vorticon
only problem is last time you invaded canada we royally kicked your ass...dont make us do it again...

Glory days ... oh .. pass you by ....
glory days ... in the wink of a young girl's eye ...

Glory days ...

Glory daaaaays ...

Oh Canada!

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Hardly a point there Steve. As a matter of fact Hitler used a lot of gas near the end of the war. He just limited the usage to the most practical delivery system he had at the time... "showers".

You cannot possibly be serious. At the time, Germany was the only nation with nerve gas. If they had used it, they would have inflicted enormous losses on the allies. Especially since it is doubtful whether the allied gas masks would have been effective at all. Delivery systems? Ever heard of something called V2? V2 for strategic delivery, or Ar 234 bombers and/or arty for tactical delivery...the allies would not have a chance to stop that.

Fact is, Hitler could have obliterated London, or Paris, or Kiev or any other city within V2 range...but he didnt. Even though he had the opportunity and he sure as hell had the insanity.

The holocaust has got nothing to do with that, nothing whatsoever. Stop trying to score cheap points and focus on the real question. The fact that Saddam did not use his wmds does not mean that he didnt have any. It is as simple as that.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

It's still questionable whether or not Saddam was still alive or in control of Iraq past the first week of the operation.

If he was either dead or not in control anymore, then he couldn't very well order the use of any WMDs he may or may not have.
-SW

[Arlo]

Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
It's still questionable whether or not Saddam was still alive or in control of Iraq past the first week of the operation.

If he was either dead or not in control anymore, then he couldn't very well order the use of any WMDs he may or may not have.
-SW

And neither could anyone else, so there!

[anonymous]

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
If Iraq had any WMD, they would have used it.

it isnt that simple. within hours of start of attack on iraq i doubt if senior leadership could have got order thru to nbc capable troops without using runners. their comms were shot before they even knew it. and no way is a nbc unit commander going to launch without direct orders from the top and even if he got such orders if he thought war was gonna be over soon and hes gonna be pow no way hes gonna fire those weapons hed be hanging himself. the wwii comparison has some merit didnt hitler order flooding of sewers where lots of civilians located and order was ignored? i also read somewhere that hitler not gonna use gas because he was hit by gas attack in wwi. had strong feelings on gas as weapon. screwy i know how hed not gas troops but gas civilians but he didnt consider jews and such to be human right? also for unit to prep for firing of nbc takes some time and there are numerous obvious indicators unit is prepping to fire those weapons. safe bet that if iraqi arty unit looked like it was prepping every jdam in the sky would have been on them inside of an hour. also a safe bet that iraqi gunners knew this. you guys jumping the gun in a big way maybe five years from now people on the outside will have an idea of exactly what went down in terms of the attack on iraq. but for certain if hussein had said "i want them all fired at tel aviv" two hours after start of attack on iraq it not close to a done deal that nbc units actually manage to fire their stuff in efficient manner.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Think about it realistically Arlo, I know it may be difficult- but try it, Saddam was destined to be killed early on in the war... he may have been killed before coalition troops got onto Iraqi soil.

All other high ranking officials were more than likely valued high enough to keep alive, so their death sentence wasn't written in bright neon colors like Saddams were.

If they launched WMDs, I highly doubt many Iraqi army prisoners would of been taken... atleast not alive, and certainly none of the high ranking military officials would have made it out of there.... pretty sure they knew that.
-SW

[GRUNHERZ]

Pongo you have joined the blitz America Haters Premiere (AHP)club! Congratulations, your membership packet and party identity card are in the mail.

[anonymous]

iraqis at offshore oil facilities of al faw had orders to demo the whole deal pump oil into gulf and such. the explosives were there. they delayed execution of demo orders on purpose. if guys going to follow those orders because they know war is gonna be over and hussein is gonna be gone imagine the second guessing a nbc capable arty commander would have been doing.

[straffo]

Originally posted by Hortlund
You cannot possibly be serious. At the time, Germany was the only nation with nerve gas. If they had used it, they would have inflicted enormous losses on the allies. Especially since it is doubtful whether the allied gas masks would have been effective at all. Delivery systems? Ever heard of something called V2? V2 for strategic delivery, or Ar 234 bombers and/or arty for tactical delivery...the allies would not have a chance to stop that.

Fact is, Hitler could have obliterated London, or Paris, or Kiev or any other city within V2 range...but he didnt. Even though he had the opportunity and he sure as hell had the insanity.

The holocaust has got nothing to do with that, nothing whatsoever. Stop trying to score cheap points and focus on the real question. The fact that Saddam did not use his wmds does not mean that he didnt have any. It is as simple as that.

I've read somewhere that being traumatized by the gaz during WWI Hitler explicitly forbid their use dureing WWII

I seriously question this hypothese as the nazi were making research for the A-bomb ...

About the  V2 range I've not the map availlable but if I remember correctly Brussel and Paris got recieved some  V1 and V2 but onlu convetionnal one (don't ask me why I'm writing this sentence at this point I've no idea ...=> going to bed )

[Suave]

Weapons programs are more difficult to remove than weapons, and more important .

Jeeze didn't you guys read The Cardinal in the Kremlin ?

I think everybody knows that Saddam had an active nuclear weapons program for almost two decades right ? Ok then.

So it was a question of containment vs removal.

Bear in mind containment meant the deployment of an armored division and inspection teams on a permanent basis, meanwhile Saddam get's to be a complete maniacal tyrant to his people .

Removal means a short war, and big expensive restablization .

Overall I think we made the most economical decision, both in terms of humanity and money. And I think the removal option yielded the most happiness, for Iraqis, neighbors of Iraq, and most importantly us .

[NUKE]

Who cares what others think at this point, Iraq has been delt with and it's people are free from Saddam.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by anonymous
it isnt that simple. within hours of start of attack on iraq i doubt if senior leadership could have got order thru to nbc capable troops without using runners. their comms were shot before they even knew it. and no way is a nbc unit commander going to launch without direct orders from the top and even if he got such orders if he thought war was gonna be over soon and hes gonna be pow no way hes gonna fire those weapons hed be hanging himself.

So instead... the "nbc unit commander" just hid the weapons so thoroughly that the U.S. can't find them?

[Arlo]

Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
Think about it realistically Arlo, I know it may be difficult- but try it, Saddam was destined to be killed early on in the war... he may have been killed before coalition troops got onto Iraqi soil.

All other high ranking officials were more than likely valued high enough to keep alive, so their death sentence wasn't written in bright neon colors like Saddams were.

If they launched WMDs, I highly doubt many Iraqi army prisoners would of been taken... atleast not alive, and certainly none of the high ranking military officials would have made it out of there.... pretty sure they knew that.
-SW

Relax, Wulfie .... I'm not attacking your stance on WMD in Iraq ... merely your logic that Saddam was the only fanatic capable of giving the green light. I seriously doubt that there were standing orders that if Saddam bought it, that all others in the command structure were to stand down because they "were valuable" (nor did we value sparing them all that much). Chances are there were standing orders that involved as much destruction and death as possible but the C&C structure was in such disarray and the lower ranks in the military so poorly trained and inaccessable to anything more dangerous than Russian anti-tank rockets that it didn't happen. But that's only my theory. Time will tell how firmly based on reality it is.

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by NUKE
Who cares what others think at this point, Iraq has been delt with and it's people are free from Saddam.

BUt its a huge dister, just wait defeat is still most certinly just around the corner. Wait wait you'll see - the evil USA must fail, they have to, how on earth could they be soo succesful when a bunch of idiotic black or white thinking cowboy americans are actually running their own country and much of the world instead of us fine cultured educated gray area nuanced thinking ______   (pick one:  eurostudmuffins,  UN loving - I'm a world citizen first types,  and last and least  (as usual) canadian) superhuman world leaders in perpetual waiting.