> CBW have considerable deterrence value, if not as much
> as nuclear weapons. The Bushies are not anxious to
> risk losing 10,000 + troops -- or unleashing
> weaponized anthrax on Tel Aviv. And your point about
> Seoul undermines your first suggestion, that only
> nuclear deterrents have real deterrent value,
That wasn't what I was suggesting. Rather, I was arguing that the deterrence value of CBW is so vastly outweighed by the deterrence value of nukes (a difference of orders of magnitude) that any argument treating them as rough equivalents is unsound.
> and supports mine, taht nonnuclear weapons are more than
> enough. The US would prefer _even more_ that Tel Aviv
> and HAifa be left standing, and undamaged my any
> attack that might provoke, e.g., an Isreali nuclear
> response.
Everyone knew that Iraq couldn't destroy Tel Aviv or Haif in the sense that North Korea could (and can) destroy Seoul. Some (including, if my memory serves me correctly, yourself) worried that Iraq might try to hit Israel with CBW, but I think even those of us who thought that Iraq had CBW were reasonably certain that Iraq didn't have missiles capable of effectively delivering them.
> ...and we knew that the US govt knew, that Iraq had no WMD. jks
Intelligence failures seem like a more likely culprit to me.
-- Luke