Oopsie! Saddam Hussein Didn't Count on Cowboy Diplomacy

"Interrogator: Invasion Surprised Saddam"

"(CBS) Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture."

(That link includes a video clip.)

In a "60 Minutes" interview, Prio said: "He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack,"

"He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack."

"He didn't believe the U.S. would invade?" the interviewer asked "No, not initially" Piro replied.

So that's why it looked like Iraq had nuclear weapons. Hussein wanted Iran to be afraid of his non-existent nukes, and didn't think America would do more than a repeat of the 1998 bombardment.

Maybe America should have left Saddam and his party-boy sons in charge of Iraq. Okay, the FBI interrogator who interviewed Hussein said that the ex-dictator planned to re-start his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD ... to reconstitute his entire WMD program," was the way Piro put it.

That doesn't mean that Saddam Hussein actually would have.

Despite the embarrassment of

• A surge that worked
• An Iraq in the hands of a relatively representative government
• Iraqi infrastructure being rebuilt after decades of neglect
• Hospitals and schools being repaired, and used for something other than backdrops for video clips and sound bites

... on the whole, I think it's just as well that we'll never find out what Saddam would have done with nukes.

Pakistani Politics, Iranian Nukes, Iranian Dress Code: And it's Only Wednesday!

It's been a busy week, and it's only half over.

Pakistan's ruling President / General has suspended that country's constitution, and, instead of locking up Pakistanis who support the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Pervez Musharraf is having his police round up people who don't agree with him, and have said so publicly.

One-time Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, defied a ban on protests of Musharraf's 'emergency rule. She and her supporters are planning a rally in Rawalpindi, and then marching the 186 miles from Rawalpindi to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, early next week.

Bhutto said, "I request my brothers and sisters to reach Rawalpindi at all costs," preparing for a confrontation with authorities. There's a ban on rallys, and the mayor of Rawalpindi says police would keep everyone away from the park where Bhutto intends to address supporters Friday.

Meanwhile, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran has 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium, all presumably in good working order. That's enough, and more, to make nuclear weapons for Iran. Ahmadinejad says Iran's nuclear program is peaceful.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei encouraged Iranian police to maintain a crackdown on "social vice," which seems to include "un-Islamic dress."

Iranian police started the crackdown on "thugs" in April this year. They're arresting the "thugs," raiding underground parties, and seizing satellite dishes. And, of course, making street checks of improperly dressed individuals.

To keep Iran safe from unislamic clothing, thousands of women have been warned because they wore tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves. They're violating Iran's leaders' notion of the Islamic dress code, where every post-pubescent women must cover hair and body contours.

Back in America, the FBI has made a report, "Terrorism 2002-2005," 68 pages of information and trends in what America could be looking forward to.

No surprise: apparently the terrorists are more likely to go for attacks on civilians that kill a lot of people, and attract a lot of attention.

And, since the international organization of Al Qaeda isn't what it used to be, the report says that there's been a "dispersal of its multi-national trainees to pursue their own regional agendas."

Finally, it looks like ricin and anthrax are front-runners for weapons we're likely to see in the next big attack. This isn't idle speculation. There's been a series of arrests involving ricin in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Well, it could be worse. At least quite a few people in decision-making positions in America and other nations seem to be twigging to the uncomfortable fact that Islamic terrorists aren't safe to have around.