A rchive Date
[ 13-11-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/stanway.html

80 shopping days until Saddam's done

By PAUL STANWAY

-- Edmonton Sun

November 13, 2002

So here we are with 40 shopping days to Christmas - and how many days after that before the U.S. and Britain begin their inevitable assault on the regime of Saddam Hussein?

The smart money would be on any number around 80. The second week of February seems about right, give or take a week. By that time the two allies should have all the necessary troops and equipment in the region and Hussein will have had enough time to convince all but the most cockeyed optimists that he's never going to submit to serious UN weapons inspections.

Of course, any moment now the Iraqi dictator will announce he's going to give the inspectors unrestricted access (as he has done, by my count, 29 times since 1991), and he will invite the international media in to see how co-operative he is.

Result will be confusion

The result will be confusion, disinformation and double-talk - but at the end of the day the UN inspectors won't get to see what they want to see. The inspectors cannot be allowed to find and dismantle a weapons program that is Hussein's only long-term hope for holding on to power, so we must go through several weeks of sham and humbug as he pretends to do something he absolutely won't do.

Hussein's strategy has been clear for years. Having failed to dominate the Middle East with his conventional forces (first in the war with Iran and then in the failed invasion of Kuwait), he concluded that what he really needed were more missiles capable of carrying chemical, biological or nuclear loads, to make him more powerful and more difficult to attack. Then the Arab world would fall in behind his leadership. All he needed was time.

To that end Hussein has worked to convince Iraqis that they are under threat, have no friends and need good ol' Saddam to protect them - and to convince the world that he's a much-misunderstood guy who poses a threat to no one and is the victim of U.S. aggression. All the while he's trying to develop the weapons he needs to ensure continuing power and the survival of his family as Iraq's ruling dynasty.

But behind Saddam's charm offensive the facts are that he has defied 16 UN resolutions since 1990 - although he did recently comply with a UN demand that he return part of the Kuwaiti national archives looted in 1990. He will not, however, reveal the fate of about 500 Kuwaitis who were taken to Iraq and haven't been seen since.

Hussein's forces keep firing almost daily

His forces also continue to fire almost daily on U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the "no-fly zones" Iraq agreed to as part of the Gulf War ceasefire. Over the past two months alone Iraqi air defences have fired on allied planes around 130 times - which makes one wonder about the alleged peace we are urged to preserve by those opposed to military action.

We don't have peace. We have a ceasefire agreement that is constantly being flouted by Iraq. The Gulf War never ended.

Most governments around the world, including Canada's, choose not to see this. They are, as

George W. Bush

suggested last week, in a "state of denial." But that doesn't change reality. The arguments in favour of doing nothing about Iraq don't stand serious scrutiny and, piece by piece, a reluctant consensus for action is coming together.

The UN has now given Iraq another final ultimatum. It's fuzzy, but it's enough. Most of America's allies are slowly but surely dropping their opposition to military action and even the Arab nations are urging Saddam to give it up. To top things off, President Bush and the Republicans won a significant endorsement in last week's mid-term elections.

Far from being mindlessly belligerent, as some claim, it seems to me that the U.S. has been remarkably slow in finishing the Gulf War and dealing with Hussein. In fact, without the attacks of Sept. 11 it's likely Hussein would have developed his strategic weapons and, a year or two down the road, put on a demonstration of his power and invulnerability. Bye-bye Tel Aviv?

Instead, he has perhaps 10 weeks or so to torment us. And even less if the Iraqi military finally decides it doesn't want to fight another short and bloody war it must inevitably lose.

Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@edm.sunpub.com

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Cross-Indexed:

Iraq To Accept Return Of UN Weapons Inspectors

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