A rchive Date
[ 11-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/stanway.html
It's 1991 all over again for Israel, U.S.
By PAUL STANWAY -- Edmonton Sun
January 11, 2003
Saddam Hussein living in quiet, comfortable exile in one of the former Soviet central Asian republics, or maybe North Africa or Syria?
The idea seems like the longest of long shots, but symbolic of a week of conflicting signals and wobbling resolve in which both the U.S. and Britain softened their hawkish stance on Iraq (a little) and the UN's chief arms inspector reported no "smoking gun" has yet been found.
Maybe not, but the buildup towards a short, sharp conflict continues, with the call-up of 15,000 reservists in Britain, the further deployment of American and British forces to the Middle East - and in Israel the successful testing of a new missile defence system. The international media were on hand at an airbase outside Tel Aviv as the Israeli Defence Force gave the Arrow interceptor missile and the Green Pine radar system a final workout, defending against a computer-simulated salvo of Iraqi Scuds. By all accounts it was very successful.
It needed to be, because against the background of a looming attack on Iraq the importance of the Arrow-Green Pine defence system is critical to U.S. plans. Israel is not an official player in the looming conflict but Arab-Israeli relations provide the inevitable backdrop to events in the Middle East. Keeping Israel out of any war is as important to the Americans as provoking Israeli involvement is to Hussein. It's 1991 all over again.
The Israelis stayed out of the Gulf War, but it was a close thing. Iraq peppered Israel with 39 Scud missiles over a three-week period and, despite government promises that Israel wouldn't react, there was enormous pressure to strike back. Like all democracies, Israel's political system is sensitive to public opinion, and after the first three or four Scuds hit Tel Aviv many Israelis began reminding their politicians of the policy that had ensured their survival for four decades: The best defence is a good offence.
I was in Israel at the time, covering the war for The Sun papers, and I well remember a conversation with a senior Israeli officer after a Scud had taken out several homes in a quiet Tel Aviv suburb.
"We've been very lucky," he said. "If one of these things causes significant loss of life, we must respond. We cannot let our enemies believe that Israelis can be killed with impunity."
As luck would have it, only one person was killed in those early Scud attacks, and before Hussein's missile launchers became more deadly the Americans flew in Patriot missile batteries to bolster Israel's defences. Crowds of cheering Israelis greeted the U.S. troops hastily deploying the Patriots. The cavalry had arrived - and the threat of Israeli military involvement in the war rapidly decreased.
One of the great untold stories of the Gulf War is that the success of the Patriot owed as much to public relations as it did to the weapon itself. At the time the Patriot was portrayed as an effective, high-tech defence against Saddam's Scuds, while, in fact, it was a hastily adapted anti-aircraft weapon and not designed to intercept missiles.
The American troops manning the Patriot batteries had their fingers crossed every time they aimed the weapon at an incoming Scud.
Contrary to some recent reports, the Patriot turned out to be surprisingly effective at hitting the lumbering Iraqi Scuds.
The problem was that rather than completely destroying the incoming missiles, the Patriots broke them into deadly, refrigerator-sized chunks of debris that rained down on the Israeli suburbs. And that wasn't so good.
The result, over the past decade, has been a $2.2-billion US joint Israeli-American program to quietly build something more effective: The world's first "custom-designed" anti-ballistic-missile defence system. And it has arrived just in time to keep the Israelis on the sidelines if the Iraqis once again decide to lob a few Scuds at Tel Aviv.
Compared to 1991, Saddam is thought to have much less capacity to launch a missile attack on Israel - but the Israelis know better than anyone that it pays to be prepared for the worst.
It's certainly more sensible than gambling on the possibility that the Iraqi dictator may be prepared to wander meekly into obscurity, armed with nothing more than some SPF-15 and a few bucks for the local casino.
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@edm.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA]
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