NEWS: Saddam Offered To Step Down For Cash

POLITICS: Saddam Offered To Step Down For Cash

If only there had been a way to get rid of Saddam Hussein without going to war. If only that evil dictator had not forced us to invade and send Iraq spiraling into a civil war. But, alas, there was not. That is why our dear President was forced to issue this warning on March 17, 2003.

So, there it was. We had no other choice. Unless, of course, you include Saddam’s offer to go into exile for $1 billion. Turns out that is quite a bit less than the minimum $400 billion the war will cost us. Other estimates have the war costing as much as $2 trillion. $400 billion and $2 trillion are actually a lot more than $1 billion.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported the story of Saddam’s offer this week. Bush told former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar the details at a meeting in Crawford, Texas, just one month before the invasion of Iraq.

Or he could be found a few months later living in an underground cavern.

Bush also spoke of using a potential Free Trade Agreement with Chile to put pressure on the South American country’s president. He called French President Jacques Chirac, “Mr. Arab” and said the US was playing “good cop, bad cop” with Tony Blair.

How’d that work out? Here’s a hint: Terrible cop, horrible cop.

Bush then went on to describe his unrealistic fantasy for the future of Iraq, which involved unicorns, rainbows and pots of gold. But the war didn’t turn out that way. And now we know all of this bloodshed could have been avoided for a measly $1 billion. Is paying off dictators the right thing to do? Depends on the situation. In the case of a nation divided by religious and tribal strife for centuries, that also sits on top of loads of oil, uh yeah.

On Thursday, the White House spewed a non-denial when asked about the Saddam offer.

Thanks for answering a different question, Ms. Perino. I’ll take that as a, “Yes.”

I dunno... somehow I doubt he would've used that money to buy a PS3.

Yeah, because his word that he would go into exile would actually be worth anything. It's entirely possible he would've taken that money and just laughed in Bush's face, probably threw that billion right back at us in war tech.

I don't like this juxtaposition that somehow because the war is a bad idea being executed terribly, that any other means to get rid of Hussein then become somehow acceptable. I mean, paying off a horrible dictator seems pretty atrocious - this is a guy who should be tried for human rights violations, not sipping drinks in the south of France.

In addition, the argument that "pay off = better than the war" seems based on the notion that somehow Iraq would have avoided its current strife in that scenario. I mean, if we had paid off Saddam, I suppose things would be *better* than they are now - for instance, the infrastructure in Iraq would prolly be better off. But that's a far cry from things being good there. I'm pretty sure there still would have been regional tensions, such as conflict with Iran (over regional dominance) and Turkey (re: the autonomous Kurdish region). Also, I think that the various ethnic groups *inside* the country would have still been struggling against each other. Further, things like de-Baathification still probably would have occurred (or the battle over the de-Baathification would have inflamed a lot of these same tensions). This just seems like a really spurious BS argument basically, based more on a pre-conceived conclusion that the president is a moron than any actual consideration of the context

I'm sure Saddam Hussein would have kept his word. He was trustworthy and honourable like that.


I love sarcasm.

Yea, I'm really not buying it.

War was not the right choice. But paying off a tyrant isn't the right choice either. There would be no trusting such a man.

A sniper with a bullet that costs $.50 would have been a better solution. Or, you know, a properly executed UN diplomatic solution. Either way.

You may very well be right about all of that. But the US would still be a lot better off, first in monetary terms (I think a lot could be done with US$300 billion), and second in reputation terms. No Abu Ghraib scandal, for a start. And I'd bet that having a working country around you is a factor in not becoming an insurgent; a lot of the militia members will be there because there's been a breakdown of order. All of that could have been averted.

Saddam was a pretty shallow ass for sure, But I think he would of taken the money and ran off like promised. He seemed to be more worried about money then anything else. This is very obvious from the way he and his sons lived. I've been in a few of the palaces, money was all that man cared about.

Would it have been right to pay him off? Who knows, we never will. I know the way we are going about the war is all wrong. I'm 27 years old and a Vet of a war no one will look back on with warm feelings. I know that sounds funny, but at least people care about WWII Vets.

I am more worried about the cost of American lives then I am the foolish amount of American dollars we are spending on a pointless war. We could of used that money for education or health care and just ignored worthless Saddam. It wasn't like he had Nukes or anything like other evil dictators we know.

But thats just my opinion on it.

Paying off dictators is probably, oh, somehow illegal in international law. So is assassination, though. Not that the US cares too much about things like international law, but I'm just sayin'.

Trust? No. But notice this:

Idi Amin was quiet in the 20 years from his deposition to his death, AFAICT.

Mengistu Haile Mariam, not so sure; he may have Mugabe's ear. But again, for sixteen years he's not been in power anywhere.

I'd bet that neither the Saudis nor Mugabe trusted their guests an inch.

The really awkward part would have been finding someone to take Hussein
in.

Pre-coffee reply but here goes.

For a country 1 Billion isn't all that much money, not saying you couldn't buy some cool shit with it, but meh. Also what if he took it and laughed at us, we could've just invaded then. Whats 1 billion on 2 trillion? What the hell would he of accomplished by lying about this?

Fuck him, I'd rather have him sipping drinks in France than than 4,101 soldiers dead. Those 100,000 civilians too.

We should have paid him to assassinate himself!

He'd probably ask for the cash up front tho.

The reason that we (as a country) didn't do that is because we would be giving money to fund terrorism (Who would most likely use them to combat us in later years) Saddam may have stepped down, but he has terrorist ties, and would just use that money to organize an army.

There is a long history of buying off dictators, and it is usually much preferred over a costly and potentially destabilizing war. The reason that trying to buy off Saddam was never explored is because, the war was never about Saddam. Bush & Co. wanted to invade Iraq. Their vision wasn't simply an Iraq without Saddam, but an Iraq that was friendly and compliant. Framing it old school, they wanted a colony. There are a number of reasons for this, but I would say the big one is China and peak oil.

No matter how many times you say that, it still won't be true. Saddam Hussein never trusted religious extremists, because they symboblized the religious unity that he was never able to realize in his country. You really think if Saddam had "terrorist ties" that Iraq would have stayed silent for so many years? The reason Iraq invaded Kuwait was because they had their own means in the weapons that Reagan had sold them. After those weapons were used up, Iraq got suddenly quiet, militarily speaking. Hussein never trusted religious extremists enough to get terrorists to work with or for him.

Nobody liked Hussein outside of his own political peons. Which means that if he had gone into exile, he would have likely brought them with him, and thinned that government even more. Perhaps the new leadership would be willing to negotiate with the United States without Saddam breathing down their necks the whole time.

Besides, with him in exile, we could easily double-cross his ass and take him in. Then take back his billion dollars. Then stick out our tongues and mock his sorry ass.

These are interesting points, and I don't think wholly wrong, but I still have reservations...

Last things first, the Abu Ghraib thing wouldn't have happened, and that *did* hurt US legitimacy. But we still had fun stuff like Guantanamo Bay going on. And I'm sure a lot of the contractor fuck-ups still would have happened. Plus, the whole issue of getting involved in another state's politics for some pretty iffy reasons (re: Iraq in bed with terrorists). So there still would be bad blood to go around. Not to the same degree -but I don't think we'd be elected prom queen any time soon...

In terms of the money issue - again, I don't think you're exactly wrong. Yes, some of that money would have found its way into health care or education... but a lot of it would have gone for partisan bullshit and tax cuts. I'm pretty sure of that. I just don't buy that if not for the war, we'd have universal health care over here today.

Maybe he would!
The PS2's north American release was supposedly postponed because the video card could be used to guide missiles or some bollocks.

I don't know if that was true at all, I heard it from a couple different places. But the reference seemed relevant.

So, In other words, he's prepared to take himself out of the spotlight, lay low for a while, and build $1 billion worth of WMDs. Seems like a blatant, almost childishly so, attempt at getting the US (Or the UN/ Whichever member of) to fund his construction of said WMDs, while at the same time forgetting about him, because he's supposedly in "exile". Somehow I don't think that would work out favorably for anyone whose name isn't Saddam Hussein. The guy's better off six feet under.

A) You really think we'd give him valuable information?

B) You really think the CIA wouldn't be watching him in exile? You think we wouldn't know if he started brewing shit in his basement?

Hey, they never found Osama, did they? It's not as if the American G-men are omniscient. They obviously fuck up now and again.

Yeah we should have given him 1 billion dollars to do whatever he wants with, because paying off horrible dictators is awesome. Despite the war being over oil or any other such arguments I'm glad the motherfucker is dead.
Also hindsight is 20/20. If Bush had given Saddam a billion dollars before the war everyone would have been pissed and you probably would have been writing an argument about how horrible it was to pay off Saddam.

How Things Should've Happened.

Step 1: Pay Saddam, send him into exile.
Step 2: Watch where he goes.
Step 3: Send someone to kill him and take his wallet.
Step 4: Smoothies all around.

Osama bin Laden has huge amounts of followers in the Middle-East, and many connections to governments in the region. He can get people to do dirty work for him while still remaining incognito. Everyone hates Saddam Hussein, especially considering the crimes he committed against Sunni Muslims, which is what bin Laden is, and which controls the majority of Islamic countries.

So in order for Hussein to actually set out to make WMDs, he'd have to actually settle. He wouldn't be able to move around and crash in his buddies' living rooms like bin Laden, because he doesn't have anyone who would shelter him. Since buying and making WMDs is a time-consuming process, and since he has very few allies who would aid him, he would have to be stationary and essentially do it himself.

Besides, I don't believe for one second that the CIA doesn't know where bin Laden is. bin Laden is the hinge upon which Bush's terrorism policy relies, and if he was dead, which was the original intent of the war on terror, then the Bush Administration would essentially have no policy anymore. He needs to be alive, essentially, in order for things like the Patriot Act to have realism. But that's another debate.

We'd have paid him and shot him as he walked out the door. He wouldn't have lasted at all.