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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tread Carefully On The Path To War

Tom Clancy The New York Times

What’s gone right? Not very much. We return to a familiar place, a familiar situation and a familiar enemy.

First things first: Saddam Hussein is a dictator. That puts him in a line of work in which there is no pension plan and little possibility of peaceful retirement.

Let’s assume, at the outset, that everything Hussein does recognizes this simple fact. His every action is aimed, to a greater or lesser degree, at enhancing his political position in his country. His current intransigence is aimed at making himself look good, tough and indomitable to his own citizenry.

How important is that to him? That is his life, since his ultimate personal security lies in the aura of invincibility. It is a thing of the mind, but no less real for all that. Consider: his intransigence is all that keeps food off the tables of his citizens, all that prevents medical supplies from getting in and all that prevents Iraq’s oil from being sold, which could easily transform his country into a garden.

It is Saddam Hussein who is willing to deny his citizens things that his country can easily afford. It is Saddam Hussein who holds his own country hostage.

He lives in a most eccentric universe, a place with but one human being - himself - and numerous objects to be manipulated for his entertainment and enjoyment. He exercises the power he holds for two reasons: because he enjoys doing so, and because doing so is necessary to keeping himself alive.

By manufacturing chemical and biological weaponry, he maintains himself as a player on the world stage, and doing that makes him seem important and invincible to those in Iraq who have every reason to wish him dead. It also allows him to threaten his neighbors with weapons of a particularly foul nature.

Let it be noted, incidentally, that there are few, if any, “nice” ways of killing people. But, for whatever reason, chemical and biological weapons are considered by the world to be beyond the pale, a view with which I happen to agree.

Termed “weapons of mass destruction,” biological and chemical weapons have more psychological than direct physical effects.

The well-known case of the Japanese extremist group that released nerve poisons on a crowded train illustrates the problem of these weapons: Actually employing them in such a way as to cause great harm is a difficult technical exercise. In the Tokyo subway, though 12 died and thousands were injured, what could have been a devastating disaster was much less than that.

In short, these weapons are overrated in a technical sense, but their psychological nature commands a disproportionate response.

As the Persian Gulf war of 1991 grew more imminent, the United States promised “devastating retaliation” if Hussein were to use such weapons against allied troops. In other words, a biological or chemical attack by Hussein would result in the application of what has been United States policy for a long time: Weapons of mass destruction would be answered with weapons of mass destruction. And the only ones we have are nuclear.

More recently, Hussein almost certainly has been told through channels, and probably knew anyway, that should one anthrax-laden ballistic warhead strike Israel, the Israeli response will be nuclear and immediate. Hussein is probably sensible enough to know that the Israelis are not kidding, and that such a strike would not be a good thing for him personally.

That leaves the region subject to a state of affairs sanctified by the Great Powers from the 1950s to the 1990s - MAD, or Mutual Assured Destruction. And, as a practical matter, Iraq would take the far greater and more immediate damage from Israeli nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, we must understand that the Israelis will not look with favor upon this possibility, however remote the chance and however effective their return stroke would be.

The world would prefer that a person of Hussein’s propensities not have weapons of mass destruction. That is sensible, but how does one achieve the goal?

In 1990 and 1991, when the United States built up for Desert Shield and Desert Storm, President George Bush did a masterful job of preparing the American people and our allies for what had to be.

War is a political act, and therefore the preparation for it must also be political. Part of that is explaining to the American people what is happening, why it is bad and what we might have to do to correct it.

Of no less importance is the need to construct an alliance of other concerned nations that can be made to understand the importance of operating with America. That happened in 1990 and 1991. It is evidently not happening today.

It is similarly distressing to see that little thought is being given to the methods and likely consequence of an attack on Iraq aimed at eliminating these odious weapons.

One term people frequently use is “surgical strike.” But surgery is not done with bombs, is it? Surgery is done with small knives held in the hands of highly trained physicians.

A 2,000-pound bomb will kill people standing in the open hundreds of meters away, and the bomb fragments will not care if that person is male or female, young or old. Before one drops such a bomb, therefore, it is vital to know what the target is and why the target is important enough to risk death or injury to any person whom chance places in harm’s way.

What is the mission here? If the mission is to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction and the facilities for manufacturing them, then one must know where those things are.

Do we? There has not been a great deal of confidence expressed on this issue. With a vast number of aircraft and total air supremacy over Iraq in 1991, we failed signally to take out the Iraqi Scud missiles.

What success was registered in this area was accomplished by the British Special Air Service commandos, on the ground, far behind enemy lines in Iraq, in operations still shrouded in secrecy today. But we have no plans to deploy ground troops into Iraqi territory, do we?

Even if we identify the locations of the targets - no easy feat under the best of circumstances - how do we then strike them?

One revelation of the Persian Gulf war that we have yet to appreciate fully is that while stealth aircraft do indeed work superbly, they can fly only from land bases. Without Saudi or other regional support for the bombing mission - support that has been proving elusive - there is no place to base the stealth aircraft unless B-2 Spirit bombers are deployed, probably from Diego Garcia, the British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean.

Those are reportedly highly effective aircraft, but there are not many of them. If we attack with carrier aircraft alone, the targets will be hit and probably destroyed, but we must face the possibility that some of the aircraft will be lost and some pilots captured.

Is the United States willing to see our naval aviators imprisoned in Iraq, with nothing available to get them back but negotiations with a sociopathic chief of state?

An additional nuisance is Hussein’s willingness to place his own citizens at likely bombing targets, guaranteeing that some innocent people will die, even with an attack on a legitimate target. Who has told us that it is OK to kill women and children?

The groundwork has not been laid for any of this. Who has explained to the American people why it is necessary to send our sons and daughters into harm’s way? Who has forged an alliance with those nations whose assistance we need to apply our national power effectively? Who has determined the location of the targets that must be taken out? Who has prepared us and the world for the unpalatable consequences of even a successful attack?

What exactly would we be trying to accomplish? What constitutes success? How likely is failure, and what would be the consequences?

Have any of these questions been answered at all, much less sufficiently to take human life? If so, it has escaped my notice.

Our sitting president is a gifted political tactician so far as domestic issues are concerned, but he has yet to accomplish anything of consequence in the areas that concern us here.

Applying force in that part of the world without having first prepared the way would be a far greater crime than those of which he now finds himself accused in Washington. xxxx