Why Clinton Can't Risk Being "Soft on Saddam"
By Eric Margolis
The Christmas season is supposed to bring peace on
earth. But not, it seems, for wicked Iraq. `Let's take
out Saddam' echoes across America.
After months of wildly inflated claims about `the threat
to mankind' posed by Iraq's secret weapons programs,
Americans are again calling for Saddam Hussein's head.
An Iraqi opposition group, run by CIA and Israel's
Mossad, is being used as the main conduit to spread
alarmist disinformation about Iraq's alleged weapons of
mass destruction.
A former Pentagon `expert' even recently made the
ludicrous claim that Saddam's anthrax program was
capable of `destroying the world three times over.'
Please. The first public revelation of Iraq's covert
anthrax program was made in this column, in late 1990,
after I secretly interviewed British technicians and
scientists in Baghdad. They had worked on germ warfare
in a hidden lab north of Basra. The breeder stock for
Saddam's anthrax came from Maryland, USA.
My sources say Iraq never subsequently produced the
`huge' quantities of toxins the US claims. Only small
amounts remain. Still, Israel's American supporters
urgently demand US military power be used to destroy
Iraq for good. This week, the Clinton Administration
again joined Israel in threatening Iraq with nuclear
weapons if Baghdad ever used germ or chemical weapons
against them.
But these days, only the US and Israel want to attack
Iraq. The 1991 Gulf War coalition has collapsed. The
Islamic Summit this week in Tehran showed Iraq is
gaining growing international support, and wide sympathy
over the prolonged suffering of its wretched people. So
Iraqophobes have redoubled cries to `take out Saddam.'
Many Americans blame President George Bush for failing
to do just this in 1991. People constantly ask me, `why
didn't we just match into Baghdad and waste Saddam?
(Americans love to use euphemisms when talking of
killing foreigners). I always reply, ``which `we' was
going to march first into Baghdad? You?''
Bush was right not to attack Baghdad. Iraq's main forces
- about 250,000 troops, remained largely intact,
contrary to the lies spread about the Gulf War's
non-existent, `titanic' battles. In fact, there was no
real ground war, just a great deal of bombing and
strafing. Saddam's best troops were dug in around
Baghdad and Basra.
Attacking Iraq's capital would have meant ferocious
urban combat, the ugliest, bloodiest kind of warfare -
as the humiliating American disaster in Somalia clearly
showed. Even the crack Israeli Army avoids
house-to-house fighting. America would have suffered
serious casualties.
The fighting would have been prolonged, and certainly
have turned into a lengthy guerrilla war in built-up
areas, and Iraq's lush river valleys. Equally bad, the
US would have had to garrison hostile Iraq - requiring
at least 100,000 troops - as well as feeding and
financing the entire demolished country of 22 million.
Bush wisely avoided these horrible prospects by
declaring victory and leaving.
Saudi Arabia pleaded with Bush not to overthrow or kill
Saddam. No matter how brutal or stupid Saddam was,
without his iron hand, the Saudis warned, Iraq would
splinter: Iran would occupy the Shia south, and Turkey
the north. Iran would then be on Saudi Arabia's border.
Bush agreed.
Instead, the US turned Iraq into a gigantic prison by
isolating it behind a wall of sanctions. Ironically, by
demonizing Saddam, a former US ally, Bush made it
extremely difficult for his successors to ever lift
sanctions, or have normal relations with Iraq. No
president, particularly not ardently pro-Israel, Bill
Clinton, dared risk being called `soft on Saddam.'
Now, American armchair Rambos want to have another go at
Saddam. Assassinating foreign leaders is against US law,
a fact often ignored when they are Muslim malefactors.
In the American view, delivering a laser-guided bomb on
a Mideast leader's residence or office - as the US did
in an attempt to kill Libya's Col. Khadaffi and Saddam
Hussein - is not assassination, but merely a
`retaliatory airstrike.'
Maybe a lucky cruise missile will catch Saddam in the
open - the way Chechnya's independence leader, Dzhokar
Dudayev, was murdered by a Russian missile that homed in
on his portable telephone. Or maybe one of CIA's
attempts to launch a coup against Saddam will finally
succeed, after so much bungling.
Assassinating Saddam, however, won't end Iraq's weapons
programs. Most of Iraq's military production facilities
and stocks of germs and gas have been destroyed. But
there are also 10,000 Iraqi military technicians and
scientists who could recreate most of the weapons
programs. The only way to totally eradicate Iraq's
military potential is to either deport or kill them all.
Today, Israel has the Mideast's sole nuclear arsenal,
and the largest chemical/biological weapons programs in
the region. Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Iran all have
chemical weapons. Iraq, with the Mideast's second
largest oil reserves, will inevitably acquire such
weapons - as long as its hostile neighbors have them.
Most chemical and biological weapons are relatively easy
to manufacture - though very difficult to deliver
efficiently. Saddam's nasty anthrax germs could be made
in a bathtub in Baghdad's El Mansour Hotel.
Crying wolf about Iraq by wildly exaggerating its threat
is not foreign policy. Nor is trying to brutally starve
Iraq into submission. Washington needs new ideas.
[Eric Margolis is a syndicated foreign affairs columnist
and broadcaster based in Toronto, Canada.]
Copyright © 1997 Eric Margolis - All Rights Reserved
Release Date: December 15, 1997
Eric Margolis, c/o Editorial Department, The Toronto Sun
333 King St. East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5A 3X5
Fax: (416) 960-4803 -- Press Contact: Eric Margolis
