What is Reddit's opinion of Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

His CIA interrogator agrees with you. https://www.amazon.com/Debriefing-President-Interrogation-Saddam-Hussein/dp/0399575812 According to him, Saddam thought 9/11 and the War on Terror would bring the US and Iraq closer together and couldn't understand why the Bush administration was going after him.

Do they have this one?

https://www.amazon.com/Debriefing-President-Interrogation-Saddam-Hussein/dp/0399575812

>The second option the US could have done is basically no sanctions and no intervention. This situation while more beneficial to the Iraqi people would strengthen the Baathist regime and allow them to maintain their dictatorial grip on power.

So just to be clear, calling it a Ba'athist regime isn't really accurate. It was a Saddamist regime, an authoritarian dictatorship without meaningful ideology beyond the specific whims of the dictator.

> This is also a threat for the Kurdish minority, Saddam Hussein actively committed genocide against them in the 90s and we could create a situation similar to the Uighurs now where the West is criticized for not acting against China.

The 80's, actually. And we were giving him military and financial support while he was doing it. He did put down an uprising there in the 90's as well, but that had more to do with the US giving them the nod and then fucking off to leave them to their fate. They weren't likely to make that mistake again.

By the early 2000s Saddam was still absolutely a threat to the Kurds, in that basically every government in the area hates them, but his military capabilities were drastically diminished. Had he made moves to attack the Kurds directly, I think that would have been a fair justification for military intervention. But at that point we're an sort of alt-history territory.

>My personal stance for what the US should have done would be too try to leverage or threaten the Saddam regime with sanctions or invasion, in exchange to avoid this he must enact democratic reforms, probably token at first but that build up towards actual change as well as that an end to persecution against the Kurdish people, maybe limited autonomy. However my stance comes from armchair diplomacy and likely wouldn't work if attempted.

So basically continue doing what we'd been doing since the first Gulf War. The US had a firm foot on the throat of Iraq from a sanctions point of view, with plenty of demands that were going unfulfilled. But at the same time you can't really demand democracy from a dictator unless you're willing to go to war. In which case, Gulf war 2: Electric boogaloo which was exactly as much of a shitshow as it was historically.

>That in general is my main point, there is no real correct option for the US in regards to dealing with Iraq. I agree the invasion was horrific and destroyed the country and destabilized the region and was based on pure selfishness.

The 'right' solution to Iraq was not to enable him, and not to treat him like our personal boogieman in a region filled with shitty behavior.

We didn't need to help him fuck up Iran for the better part of a decade. If we hadn't, there is a real argument he would never have invaded Iran, or that he'd have lost badly. But we wanted someone to punch Iran because we were mad at them.

The war left him in a pile of debt and with a bloated military. He looked at Kuwait and we knew he was looking at them, but rather than do anything, we outright said publicly and repeatedly that we didn't think we had an obligation to defend Kuwait. Then he invaded Kuwait and suddenly, shit I guess we kind of do because it is 1991 and Bush wants to perk up those poll numbers and flex the sole superpower status by dunking on some backwater.

Even after that, we could have just not been colossal assholes. Yes, Saddam was a monster, but the type of Sanctions we put on the country are essentially like putting the whole country under economic siege. It doesn't force him out, but it does make life for the people of Iraq that much worse.

We spend the next decade building him up like he is Hitler, this horrible dictator that everyone can agree is awful and by golly shouldn't we do something about it. 9/11 happens and he even thinks it his chance to get in with the US. After all, he didn't have anything to do with 9/11, and the last time we were mad at Islamic extremists, we encouraged and supported his war with Iran.

If you ever get the chance read debriefing the president. It is the memoir of John Nixon who interrogated Saddam after his capture in 2003. It will shatter your image of Saddam as this brutal strongman. He was a sad, pathetic dictator clinging to power and more interested in writing his trashy romance novels and complaining about money than committing genocide or going to war.

We did not need to invade that country. It did not help. That is not to say Iraq was good, or that Saddam wasn't a piece of shit. But invading and killing him did not help.

Sometimes the best you can do is to do nothing.

And sometimes, you can <a href=https://www.amazon.com/Debriefing-President-Interrogation-Saddam-Hussein/dp/0399575812/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2FNWQEYEVBFOJ&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=debriefing+the+president+the+interrogation+of+saddam+hussein&amp;qid=1617687077&amp;sprefix=debriefing+%2Caps%2C352&amp;sr=8-1&gt;write a book about your Secret Squirrel Shit</a>.