Is Saddam alive?

[Tricky]

An audio tape (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/04/sprj.nilaw.saddam.tape/index.html) purportedly containing a message from Saddam Hussein has further clouded the issue of whether or not the US-led coalition has achieved any of their goals in Iraq. Though the authenticity of the tape has not been verified, it is quite possible that it is Saddam, since no one has ever found any evidence that he was killed. Also, the fact that the US has put out a $25 million reward for his capture (or proof of death), indicating that the US also believes he survived.

Even if the tape is not real, it will probably have the effect of scaring the Iraqi people (as well as the US soldiers) into beleiving that Saddam's brutality is not necessarily over. Of course, the Iraqi people are quite aware that house-to-house searches, sometimes involving killing innocent people are not over, but have merely taken a new face.

Put this one on the side of failed objectives, and it becomes more clear every day that this war was a deadly, useless, expensive macho joyride for Bush. Do we now have soldiers who don't want to be there, Iraqis who don't want us there, and Saddam possibly just waiting in the wings for us to leave?

(Are they even searching for WMDs anymore? We haven't seen any more empty trailers lately.)

[shanek]

Don't you think it's funny, though, that the tape surfaced so soon after the reward was offered? I don't know if Saddam is alive or dead, but given the poor quality of the tape and the fact that it may not be good enough to tell for sure whether it is Saddam, it may just be someone trying to throw off the US.

Put this one on the side of failed objectives, and it becomes more clear every day that this war was a deadly, useless, expensive macho joyride for Bush.

You honestly expected anything else?

(Are they even searching for WMDs anymore? We haven't seen any more empty trailers lately.)

What are you talking about? It was never about WMDs!!! :p

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'm going to say, and this is purely intuition, that he's alive and still in Iraq. Probably not smoking Cohibas and enjoying a nice glass of Johnny Walker Red, but not living in a cave like bin Laden.

I'm figuring he's got safe houses all over the country. $25 million hasn't been enough to get bin Laden yet, there's no reason to suspect that Baathist loyalists would act any differently than Al Quyada.

[corplinx]

The key to demoralizing militant factions in Panama was the capture of Noriega.

We need a large public capture of Saddam Hussein about now to quell the insurgent baathists.

[Tricky]

By all appearance, the tape is authentic (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/07/sprj.irq.tape/index.html).

So our war to remove the murderous scumbag has failed. One slight change, though. Now he is murdering Americans. Was that one of our objectives? I get confused with all these changing stories.:rolleyes:

[Crossbow]

The tape may actually have Saddam's voice on it, however that tape could have been made before the war or put together from splicing snippets in from other speeches made by Saddam. So far, it looks to me that there has been no conclusive evidence that Saddam survived the war. There was a fax sent to a new organization that had Saddams signature, again, that sort of thing could be easily faked. There was another tape a while back, and its voice was judged to be that of Saddam's as well.

However, there is still nothing that clearly shows he is still alive.

Never the less, the impact of this new tape could be quite significant since there is so much bad information floating around Iraq right now. Americans are robbing Iraqis, Americans are killing looters, Americans are raping Iraqi women, and so on.

[JamesM]

There is now a second tape (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3054666.stm)

the other side of the tape contained songs.


It would appear that he is of the Tupac Shakur school of throught regarding whether death should put a full stop to your recording career.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Crossbow
The tape may actually have Saddam's voice on it, however that tape could have been made before the war or put together from splicing snippets in from other speeches made by Saddam. So far, it looks to me that there has been no conclusive evidence that Saddam survived the war. There was a fax sent to a new organization that had Saddams signature, again, that sort of thing could be easily faked. There was another tape a while back, and its voice was judged to be that of Saddam's as well.

However, there is still nothing that clearly shows he is still alive.

Very true, but as the article states:
U.S. officials say they have been operating for months on the assumption Saddam Hussein was probably alive, and the tape tends to reinforce their theory.

Of course, given the record of US intelligence, they could be wrong about that too.