Does deterrence prevent U.S. invading?
Administration spokesmen make much of the fact that Iraq has used weapons of mass destruction to quell rebellion in the country itself and to attack and coerce neighboring countries. In the 1980s, Saddam used poison gas against Iran and against the enclave of Kurdish people living in the north of Iraq. In each case, however, Saddam s opponents had no retaliatory capability. There was no opposing nuclear power to deter Iraq s attacks. As his troops retreated from Kuwait during the Gulf War, the utility of Saddam s chemical and biological weapons fundamentally changed. Saddam could not use them against the Western coalition in Kuwait for fear of retaliation. At the same time, he probably believed that his ownership of these weapons deterred an invasion of Iraq by the Western coalition. Perhaps as a warning to the Western coalition not to invade Iraq proper, Saddam launched short-range ballistic missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia with warheads armed with conventional explosives. These co
