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Jewish World Review March 2, 2001 / 7 Adar, 5761
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SADDAM MUST BE STOPPED -- AGAIN
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THINK we won the Gulf War 10 years ago? Tell that to
Saddam Hussein. While Colin Powell, Daddy George Bush
and a host of others were in Kuwait last weekend
celebrating the oil-rich emirate's Liberation Day, the
Iraqi dictator was back home bragging how he'd defeated
the U.S. He may be more right than wrong.
A decade after his "defeat," Saddam remains harder to
get rid of than sand in the desert. He also may be
winning the ongoing international battle over sanctions
the United Nations imposed in 1991. These days, as
President Bush puts it, the sanctions seem to have more
holes than Swiss cheese.
Air travel to Iraq, once a strict no-no, is now an
almost daily event at Baghdad's once-abandoned airport.
For a price, Syria and even Iraq-hating Iran facilitate
billions of dollars in illegal Iraqi oil exports.
Much of the profits go to Syria, China, North Korea,
Russia and some of Western Europe's private sector to
pay for the know-how and contraband equipment Iraq needs
to rebuild its poison-gas reserves, long-range missiles
and nuclear weapons potential.
The latest intelligence: Iraq is on the edge of having
the bomb, if it doesn't have one already.
That doesn't impress the world's political suckers, not
to mention those profiteers who know that Iraq sits on
what is arguably the world's largest remaining oil
reserve. These people and nations have joined Saddam in
demanding that sanctions be lifted. Their argument:
Sanctions cause misery to the Iraqi people and kill
their children.
Such claims aren't worth a mountain of camel dung.
Strategic supply sanctions yes, but the UN also
established clear guidelines years ago for the free
import of food and medical supplies to Iraq. Any
restrictions are placed by Saddam and his cronies, who
manipulate distribution of food and medicine.
Back in July, I reported that officials of Saddam's
Ministry of Health were withholding enormous quantities
of medical and food supplies from the public, selling
them at inflated prices to black marketeers and using
the profits to line their own pockets and finance
government purchases that bypass the sanctions.
So next time someone shows you a photo of a malnourished
Iraqi child in a Baghdad hospital, remember this: None
of Saddam's grandchildren are going without antibiotics
or food. And judging by the photos, none of the members
of his chubby cabinet has lost any weight since the end
of the Gulf War. To the contrary, while he causes his
people to suffer, Saddam and his clique live ludicrously
luxurious lives.
More recently, Saddam announced he was forming a
volunteer army "to liberate Jerusalem" — another
terrific way to waste his people's money.
The Bush administration talks of a new system of "smart
sanctions." The only smart ones are those that
effectively keep Saddam's military ambitions at bay.
That means insisting on international compliance with
existing sanctions and refusal even to consider changing
the system until Saddam allows UN arms inspectors back
into Iraq.
Powell has pressured Syria into promising to escrow
Saddam's profits from the Iraqi oil flow through Syria's
pipelines. We'll see. In the meantime, let's not lift
any legal stranglehold we have on Saddam Hussein, still
the world's most dangerous
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. His latest book, recently updated, is Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe
Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History.
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