I get the point lowtech and yourself are making. The trouble is, Saddam is very well protected (if still alive). Another big problem is his sons. They are just as ruthless if not more so and need to be removed from power, as well. And, toss in some very high-up members of the military/government and you have something that would be hard to pull off with a simple assassination attempt.Originally posted by: yowolabi
I edited my first post with some links. We have definitely attempted assassination.
The CIA tried to kill Castro 8 times. As for Noriega, we tried to assassinate him. Just because we call it something else doesn't hide that fact. That's similar to the old trick of smacking somebody on the back of their head and saying you were aiming for the fly.
Link for Castro
Operation Mongoose it was called
Edit: And the whole point of all of this is that there is nothing to stop us from doing what lowtech suggested and using the billions we're spending on an assassination attempt on Saddam. We have tried similar things many times in the past and it's not a break from tradition.
While we could, it would probably be a waste to attempt assassination, since apparently we're just really bad at it. Everyone from Castro to Osama to Noriega to Qadafi seem to be in remarkably good health considering they're supposed to be dead.
Also, having a military force in place will help to subdue any in-fighting that may occur between the various Muslim sects and allow a chance at a stable, organized government in place of Saddam's regime. That last bit will take some doing and will necessitate an international effort to work with the Iraqi people.
Also, the attempts on Castro were before the executive order was created. That was done in 1976 with the Ford administration.