Virginia Postrel -- welcome back! -- strengthens this morning's column on Saddam's idiocy:
Somewhere in my personal archives, I have a certain embarrassing C-SPAN tape that reminds me not to underestimate Saddam's zeal for confronting the U.S. and its allies. Back in 1991 as allied troops were massing, I appeared on Washington Journal and, when asked whether war was inevitable, I said it wasn't. In fact, I predicted that Saddam would back out of Kuwait, holding only the Rumaila oil field bordering Iraq. The world wouldn't go to war just to keep the oil field in Kuwaiti hands. Saddam would call our bluff, exit Kuwait, and gain a rich prize.
Plus, more lame city slogans and a personal report on airport security. As ever, Virginia still doesn't use permalinks, so start at the top and keep reading until you're into re-reruns.
Lots of people were wrong about Desert Storm. Lots of people were even wronger about Enduring Freedom. Let's remember that this time last year, R. Apple of the New York Times wrote about how the word "quagmire" was haunting the corridors of power in DC. [laughtrack]
This year, the words haunting the cognoscenti inside the beltway are "Belligerent Bunny Blog." That's right, I said it.
We'll see who is more accurate. Warbloggers or the NYT!
I don't think that Saddam ever doubted the ability of the US military to destroy him.
He doubted our willingness spill American blood over Kuwait. The Senate vote authorizing the use of force was 52 - 47.
He miscalculated by only three votes.
Yet Saddam refused to be intimidated. He had a plan, which he outlined to Samarai and his other generals in a meeting in Basra weeks before the American offensive started. He proposed capturing U.S. soldiers and tying them up around Iraqi tanks, using them as human shields. "The Americans will never fire on their own soldiers," he said triumphantly, as if such squeamishness was a fatal flaw. It was understood that he would have no such compunction. In the fighting, he vowed, thousands of enemy prisoners would be taken for this purpose. Then his troops would roll unopposed into eastern Saudi Arabia, forcing the allies to back down. This was his plan, anyway.
link
Of course, you can't capture whom you can't kill. Saddam has a wicked knack for self-preservation and can be very calculating, but there's this messianic streak that makes him do very big, stupid things.
