We knew before he was installed as President of the United States back in 2000 that George W. Bush was a screw-up, had never run a business that did not falter, and was only successful at all because he "fell upwards" with the blessing and influence of wealthy family and friends. It was entirely predictable and was predicted by some of us that George W. Bush would do for the U.S. what he did for his various business in which he was put in charge, namely run them into bankruptcy.
We can now see clearly how shrewd Saddam Hussein was and is in comparison with George W. Bush. Saddam Hussein never needed weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) to defeat the U.S. In fact, WMD deployment against the U.S. would be disastrous, as they would invite nuclear warfare against Iraq or some other totally catastrophic response by the U.S. And the reality is that when Saddam Hussein obtained and did possess WMD’s in the past (with the full knowledge, assistance and blessing of the U.S.) it was to defend himself against the Iranians and Kurds and other local threats to his rule.
Hussein obviously knew that he could not use frontal military force to thwart an American invasion, and he certainly knew that the U.S. coveted Iraq’s oil and geo-political posture in geographic and resource-based manifestations. Bush would one day surely want to invade Iraq, and Iraq could not defend itself with conventional tanks, airplanes, artillery and similar weapons of war (though those weapons were entirely appropriate for internal security of the Hussein regime within the Iraqi State). So, for years, Hussein prepared his military and his people to resist an American invasion by means of asymmetrical warfare, or guerilla warfare. Hussein dispersed weapons around the land and devised military tactics and trained personnel to fight effectively without concentrations of force and personnel that would be disadvantageous under U.S. military tactics of concentrated firepower.
There is little doubt that Saddam Hussein intended to lead the fight against the U.S. and did not intend to be captured. Apparently, the Kurds facilitated his capture, and not U.S. forces. But the U.S. military was mistaken when it asserted very publicly that the capture of Saddam Hussein would cause diminishing of Iraqi resistance, as if the only reason Iraqis would oppose the U.S. was fear of reaction by Saddam.
The U.S. was full of mistaken thinking, which President Bush swallowed whole, such as that Iraqis would welcome the U.S. with flowers, grateful for deliverance. Or that the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein would end Iraqi resistance. Or that the fall of Baghdad would end the war. Or that "pacifying" Fallujah would end the insurgency. Or that turning over sovereignty to a bunch of Iraqi expatriate puppets would stop the insurgency.
Saddam Hussein was more shrewd than Bush. Bush was like a blue-tick hound dog smelling a scent and running headlong into a pit because the dumb dog could not sense the danger. Saddam Hussein has not been put on trial by the Americans and their puppets because a fair trial would make the Americans look even worse, as if that is possible!
Unfortunately, the poor Iraqi people have been caught in the crossfire between Saddam Hussein and the Americans. The Iraqis have suffered terribly. But if Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against the Americans, the situation would be even worse. And the reality is that if the American are driven out of Iraq, as they surely will be, the Americans will do everything in their power to enact a scorched earth program to destroy Iraq, its people and its infrastructure for many years to come. Depleted uranium, microwave warfare, instigation of religious hatreds, demolition of cities by high explosives and bombing, use of cluster bombs on civilian populations, and similar tactics will ensure that the American occupation of Iraq will breed catastrophe for decades, centuries and even millennia.
The saddest part of all this is that the Peak Oil scenario driving all of this tells us that all the oil in Iraq will not change the dynamics of the impending world crisis that occurs, not when all oil is pumped out of the ground, but when 1/2 of the world’s supply is consumed, which will happen in the next few years regardless of the Bush debacle in Iraq.