Jewish World Review / Dec. 21, 1998 /2 Teves, 5759
Did it do any good? |
To Beat Saddam,
WELL, HERE WE GO AGAIN! After making the
mistake last month of hesitating, President
Clinton has finally launched long-overdue
air strikes against Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi
war machine.
It's too early to know the definitive results of this new missile rain.
But make no mistake. Even this attack will fail to convince the
Iraqi dictator to live up to his international obligations to allow
United Nations inspectors to freely ferret out Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction.
Unless luck is really with our forces and missiles, Saddam and his
murderous crowd of thugs will crawl out of their posh
underground shelters personally safe and sound. And as is his
wont, the Butcher of Baghdad will continue to make every attempt
he can to build nuclear, biological and chemical weapons — and
to hide those monstrous efforts from the world no matter what lies
his representatives tell the UN.
Still, the attack and continuing the attack is imperative. The Iraqi
dictator cannot simply thumb his nose at the world. Nor is
Saddam going to get off scot-free. Unless every one of the cruise
missiles misses its target — and they won't — we will at the very
least have further weakened both Iraq's arsenal and its already
heavily burdened infrastructure, limiting Saddam's ability to attack
his neighbors.
More important, this latest wave of air strikes will further weaken
Saddam's hold and hopefully strengthen what's left of his
decimated opposition. It may even help persuade someone in his
inner circle to move closer to that moment when they forcibly
remove Saddam and his thieving sons from power. For that
reason, it's imperative that the President and our British allies
continue with this air campaign as long as we can and as long as
our military strategists tell us the missiles are hitting their marks.
The danger comes with breast-beating pressures from France,
Russia, China and others who oppose the attack because it
conflicts with their plans to do big business with Iraq. Submitting to
their cynical whining will merely result in yet another unfinished war
against Saddam.
I wish the people of Iraq no ill will. During times I spent there
before, during and after the Gulf War, I met a long-suffering
people that deserves far better than a bloodthirsty dictator who
has enriched himself even as he drags his oil-rich country to new
ruin.
We are targeting military-related installations (including his
Republican Guard headquarters and some of Saddam's
approximately 80 palaces). But no military action can be surgically
free of civilian, even innocent, victims. It is the tragic but deadly
price of a war that Saddam launched back in 1990, when he first
attacked Kuwait.
In all my years in the Middle East, I heard a frequent refrain from
moderate Arab leaders — albeit an off-the-record one. One
senior minister in a Persian Gulf state put it this way: "The problem
is not that the U.S. takes firm action in the Middle East, the
problem is you don't follow through on your action.
"It's not enough to send ships to the Persian Gulf, you have to use
them and continue using them until the goal is met. Pulling out
prematurely leaves us all in a bind and defeats your purposes."
At the time, he was referring to dangers from Iran. But the point is
just as applicable to our dealings with Iraq and Saddam. We must
stay the course on sanctions and sustained military action, no
matter what our international critics say.
And the White House should pay no attention to self-serving
cynics in Congress who question the President's motives. Despite
the ongoing politicized and, in my opinion, totally unjustified and
constitutionally dangerous attempt to remove him from office, Bill
Clinton has done well not to let Congress wag him — certainly not
on an issue as vital to international security as our overly long, still
unwon war with Saddam
Sustain the Raids
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News.
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