Talk:Iraq (1983: Doomsday)

Where to take this?
Where should we take this article? As I see it, we have three possibilities.

1. Iraq survives the war with Iran and just loses Kurdistan and a few border regions to Iran.

2. Iraq collapses into total anarchy after the war

3. Iraq splits into three states: Kurdistan, a Shi'a state, and a Sunni state/remains of Republic of Iraq

What do you think? Caeruleus 02:00, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

Option 1 is out - it says in the Iran article that a "dirty" bomb was set off in Baghdad by the MLA, killing pretty well the entire Iraqi leadership during a speech by Hussein.

Lordganon 11:15, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

I like Option 2. Fedelede 14:04, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Talk to Fx, he pretty much is the Middle East caretaker. Mitro 14:40, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

Option Two with some surviving states is the most reasonable, however.

Lordganon 14:53, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

Fx and I are jointly writing this article. He's on vacation, but I believe he'll be back soon. I just went ahead and put this up so I wouldn't forget.

About option 2, a dirty bomb wouldn't destroy the state. They have a very limited radius and very limited effects. It would severely cripple them causing them to lose the war, but a collapse is unlikely. The entire Iraqi leadership wouldn't have been present to be able to be killed anyway. So it's possible. Caeruleus 19:08, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

It also states in the Iran article that they have dissolved into several other states. Also says "top-ranked" leaders, and considering all things, this would be the senior ministers and generals. Saddam was like that - all the big guys had to be with him at these things so they wouldn't try anything.

Iraq is one of those states manufactured by a colonial occupier that would never have developed on its own. Collapse isn't too hard to achieve with the strongman dead in these cases.

Mitro added basically that to the article anyway, to make it in line with canon.

Lordganon 19:24, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

Those "several other states" don't have to last more than a few years, or even a few months.

In every government, not every "top ranked" leader attends public events. One always stays behind just in case (like the Secretary of State not attending the US State of the Union address last January). Plus, radiation poisoning kills relatively slowly, over the course of up to a week. And it only kills if you receive more than 30 Gys, and that takes a minimum of two days, which gives plenty of time for a successor to be named since you would know within 6 hours whether you received a fatal dose or not.

Iraq's borders actually aren't manufactured by a colonial occupier. Modern-day Iraq originally took shape under the later years of the Abbasid Caliphate, which had similar borders to modern Iraq. Those borders maintained themselves all the way to the Ottoman Empire, who divided the area into three provinces (Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra). Those three provinces were combined by the British to make Iraq. And, if you want to go further back, Iraq has borders similar to that of the heartland of the Babylonian Empire. It is rather likely that it would have developed on its own. If it hadn't, it would have been controlled by Syria, Turkey, or Iran. Caeruleus 20:21, September 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah basically I went through every article that makes mention of Iraq and filled it in with prior canon material. There isn't much though on the civil war itself or when the GCU intervened.  That can be expanded on.  Mitro 20:22, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the boundaries of those provinces, while making up most of Iraq, are definitely not all of it.

Given things, without interference, either three states, or as part of a very large state are more likely.

Remember, anytime you see a straight line on a map, it likely was arbitrarily drawn up by someone. Africa is the best example of this, but Asia and American States have it too.

A dirty bomb planted in a public square - a large bomb - would take out the square, and likely a fair amount beyond.

Thing is, Hussein was very paranoid about that type of thing. If you have all the senior people with you, they won't off you. And since he was afraid of that......

Lordganon 10:12, September 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * No...that's not how dirty bombs work. The actual explosive in a dirty bomb is minuscule. It's not even enough to destroy a single floor or a building. Dirty bombs work by using a small explosive to disperse radioactive dust (usually uranium) across an area. People breath it in or it lands on their skin, and they develop radiation sickness. Depending on the dose of radiation received, death can occur within 48 hours, or not at all. Either way, you become extremely sick, and sometimes suffer from after effects (organ failure, skin blemishes, etc.). If it was a ground detonated bomb, as this one appears to be, it would only have a radius of a few blocks (perhaps 1-3, maybe up to 5 city blocks possibly less depending on wind patterns). Also, as you moved away from the site of detonation, the amount of radioactive material in the air would drop dramatically, due to the lesser dispersion of a ground detonated bomb. The only people would be assured of dying would be those within 1 block of detonation, and depending on the actual explosive pattern of the bomb, many of them could live (though they would still have severe radiation poisoning and be crippled for life). Everyone else would most likely suffer from severe to moderate radiation poison with few deaths.


 * That 48 hours, which is the assumed time Saddam would have to live, would be plenty of time for him to name a successor, possibly one of his surviving sons or a top general. The death of top leadership would have severe consequences, but it is plausible that the Iraq state would have survived with just the loss of Kurdistan.


 * Saddam's paranoia didn't move into full swing until the First Gulf War, which was because of his fear of America. In this TL, that never happened so his paranoia would have been nearly as elevated. Also, he had always planned for one of his sons to succeed him, so its most likely that one of them would have been the one not attending the ceremony and survived to lead the country.


 * All three scenarios are plausible. Personally, I prefer scenario 3. Caeruleus 18:56, September 2, 2010 (UTC)

I'm well aware of how they work. I'm not some sort of bloody idiot.

What I'm saying is that you increase the casualties by increasing the amount of explosives. Then it is not only a dirty bomb, but also a large conventional one.

Saddam's paranoia merely hit extreme levels after that. He'd always been somewhat like that.

Now, why are we even discussing this? Canon already states that option two is more or less what happened. Deal with it.

Lordganon 22:39, September 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * No. Canon says it broke up into several states. Nothing more. All options remain viable.


 * Also, if you make the explosives in a dirty bomb too large, you reduce its effectiveness because the concentration of radioactive particles will be too low to induce sickness. I don't think you're an idiot, but you don't know how dirty bombs work. Caeruleus 23:18, September 2, 2010 (UTC)