Ok, looking at the headlines for today:

Allies Close In On Baghdad

Saddam Says that His Victory is Near

What if these two were in conjunction? If Saddam does have all these weapons, think about it...He knows that the ultimate target is Baghdad. Its the capital, its where the best chance to find him would be. Coalition forces will most likely mass to occupy the city until order is restored.

What if he booby-trapped the whole city?

If he has a nuke, or chemical weapons, or whatever...what if he buried them below ground, set to explode either at some predetermined time or by remote? It certainly would explain why the entire country has seemed to be capitulating so quickly.

I hope I'm wrong. I probably am, after all, its just speculation. But it would fit with the suicide bombings that seem to be favored so much in that region.

Here's the way I see it.

saddam has been saying he's going to win the war, and he'll probably continue saying that until he's dead.

You're not wrong for speculating. People like you think of of these possibilities and plan for that 'what if' and sometimes saves a lot of lives.

I would not be suprised if he trapped the city. I'm not sure I expect a trap, but I wouldn't be suprised by one. But the headline I think is just saddam talking air.

his armies havent been fighting much, im guessing that hes got most of his army held up within bagdhad and they want to have one massive battle which he thinks they will have all the advantages in.

Thats a very good point, and Ive thought about that too myself. But, I guess we cant do anything but just wait and see and hope for the best outcome possible.

No doubt about it, though, urban warfare is going to be brutal. Especially with the rubble around.

Not to mention the high possibilities of civilian casualities caused by both sides. (though im betting the republican guard will be responsible for most of them seeming that they have a bad habbit of using them as human shields.)

They do know the lay of the land much better than we ever could. We'll win, I'm sure, but it'll be costly. I wish it wouldn't be, I want to get them out of there as fast as possible. Damn 'war.'

It is food for thought... but Saddam's hope of winning this is getting enough soldiers and innocents dead or hurt to produce the Vietnam effect. Cityfighting in Bagdad is pretty much his best bet to achieve this.

Insane though he may be, Saddam is not stupid. He wouldn't have lived this long if he was.

Besides, it's not like most Iraqis have access to much other information than the official channels. Same with every other besieged dictatorship - Heck, for the first day or so of the German invasion of Poland, the messages going out to the Polish people from their government was that the Polish army had beaten Wehrmacht back and was marching into Germany...


Another thing...

If Saddam really has biological weapons... as in communicable diseases...

And he guessed a good number of soldiers would desert...

I'd hope they test those captives good.

Of course, I also hope I'm totally wrong.

Thats another good point. I don't know, sometimes its scary where my mind will go if I let it.

when at war, people should be prepared for anything, i hope those who are controlling the war have taken these ideas into consideration...

They're losing so quickly because they don't have an army. The Gulf Massacre(as it should be called) took over 100,000 Iraqi lives, both military AND civilian. This means that they've been brutally weakened into a state of utter pitifulness.

Also, what's so bad about chemical weapons? hmmm? The main reason they were "forbidden" was due to how easily they're made compared to nuclear weapons, which have close to the same capabilities.

Where did you get that 100,000 figure from?

I think there is something amiss there because that seems so damn high when you consider that even with higher technology sustained bombing thus far has accounted for an estimated 300-500 lives in total.

Neon

All the info I'm throwing around is from Ramsey Clark's little "report" that deals with all of the war crimes committed by the U.S. in, and around, the Gulf War. Ramsey Clark was an attorney general, and now he just deals with these types of things. He made a little group and everything..

Ahhh well.

He was talking about the Gulf War, not the current conflict.

I was talking about the influence the Gulf War had on the military strength, and the mental wellbeing of Saddam, of today.

Ummm... yeah... those numbers are VERY wrong.... the Maximun number of casualties of Iraqis is estimated at as low as 1500 to as high as perhaps 6500.... nowhere near 100000..... your muse Ramsey Clark is fond of dishing out bullshit.....

and I am talking about the Gulf War... not the current conflict....

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/...0167_db052.htm
..Cheney said shortly after the 1991 Gulf War that "we have no way of knowing precisely how many casualties occurred" during the fighting "and may never know,"
Daponte had estimated otherwise: 13,000 civilians were killed directly by American and allied forces, and about 70,000 civilians died subsequently from war-related damage to medical facilities and supplies, the electric power grid, and the water system, she calculated.
In all, 40,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the conflict, she concluded, putting total Iraqi losses from the war and its aftermath at 158,000, including 86,194 men, 39,612 women, and 32,195 children.
The Defense Intelligence Agency eventually estimated 100,000 Iraqi military were killed in the war, plus or minus 50,000

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Its gone from 100,000 to 1,500 to 25,000 etc.

I was saying that when you look at the sheer level of bombing today compared with that of the Gulf War, even with slightly greater precision bombing taken inot account. 100,000 is extremely high a figure. We've already fired more missiles and droppe dmore bombs then the Gulf conflict and yet only taken a maximum of 1000 lives (Civilian and miltary as apparently some 'lost' 500 military kiils were unnaccounted for in my last figure) We've already fired more and more and yet caused less damage, I think 100,000 is way off course.

Neon

The most complete survey of all the different bombs, missiles, shells, and weapons so far appears in Appendix A of On Impact: Modern Warfare and the Environment, a report prepared by William Arkin, Damian Durrant, and Marianne Cherni for Greenpeace. This report was prepared for the "Fifth Geneva Convention on the Protection of the Environment in the Time of Armed Conflict" (London, June 3, 1991). The authors infer the total weapons used from the 1991 fiscal year supplemental budget request to Congress which lists weapons required to replenish U.S. stockpiles. The numbers are revealing and staggering. In part, they include:

2,095 HARM missiles
217 Walleye missiles
5,276 guided anti-tank missiles
44,922 cluster bombs and rockets
136,755 conventional bombs
4,077 guided bombs[1]
The conventional unguided bomb (so-called "dumb bomb") was the most commonly used weapon in the massacre. These come in four types: the Mk 82 (500 lbs), Mk 83 (1,000 lbs), Mk 84 (2,000 lbs), and the M117 (750 lbs). In all some 150,000 to 170,000 of these bombs were dropped during the war.
The U.S. arsenal contains eight kinds of guided bombs:

AGM-130, an electro-optically or infrared-guided 2,000 pound powered bomb,
GBU-10 Paveway II, a 2,000 pound laser-guided bomb based on a Mk 84,
GBU-101 Paveway II, a 2,000 pound laser-guided bomb with I-2000 hard target munition, employed exclusively on the F117A and used in small numbers,
GBU-12 Paveway II, a 500 pound laser-guided bomb, used against tanks,
GBU-24 Paveway III, a 2,000 pound laser-guided, low-level weapon (with BLU-109 bomb and mid-course auto pilot) used against chemical and industrial facilities, bridges, nuclear storage areas, and aircraft shelters,
GBU-27 Paveway III, a 2,000 pound laser-guided bomb with I-2000 hard target munition on the BLU-109/B, a "black program" adapted version of the GBU-24, used exclusively by F- 117A fighters to attack aircraft shelters, bunkers, and other targets in Baghdad, and
GBU-28, a 5,000 pound "bunker busting" laser-guided bomb, fabricated especially for the war against Iraq "in an effort to destroy extremely hardened, deeply buried Iraqi command and control bunkers, kill senior military officials and possible kill Saddam Hussein."[2]