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 hile
there is so far no direct evidence (that we know of) that Iraq is
responsible for the attacks against NYC and Washington there are
several reasons to look in Iraq's direction — even if Osama
Bin Ladin played a major role in the attacks. First there is strong
evidence that Ramzi Youssef the mastermind of the first attempt
to destroy the WTC in 1993 is an Iraqi intelligence agent who came
to the U.S. shortly after a series of phone calls to Iraq from one
of the plotters, and who left the U.S. on a passport forged with
the help of Iraqi intelligence. Youssef was caught in the process
of planning multiple simultaneous aircraft attacks. This evidence
is reported in detail in Laurie Mylroie's recent book, Study
of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America,
which has been endorsed by such knowledgeable people as former CIA
Director James Woolsey and Dep. Sec. Of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Saddam's desire for revenge was also expressed by his attempt to
assassinate George Bush in Kuwait shortly after he left office.
If a state,
such as Iraq, turns out to be responsible for directing Tuesday's
attack against the U.S., our job would be not to retaliate but to
defeat and destroy the government of Iraq.
No one who
is familiar with Saddam believes that his desire for revenge is
satisfied. And he is likely to have been encouraged by the failure
of the U.S. to respond to the first WTC bombing, and by our apparent
belief that the terror networks in the U.S. are only "loose
associations" of individual fanatics without connections to
states.
Saddam, who
has megalomaniac visions of himself as a new Saladin leading the
Arab world in battle with a West, is sufficiently isolated from
reality and ignorant of the world to believe that the U.S. is so
decadent and morally weak that we will not fight back. He may also
believe that the U.S. has decided to support the Iraqi opposition
movement, and that attacking U.S. is his best chance to head off
that danger to his regime.
Iraq is an
absolute totalitarian dictatorship completely controlled by one
man and his immediate and extended family and a few close associates
who use murder, torture, and blackmail to suppress all opposition
and disagreement. This will have two critical implications for the
U.S. if and when we become convinced that Saddam was behind Tuesday's
attacks, and others that may come.
First the U.S.
objective must be the removal and punishment of Saddam and his government
— not retaliation against the Iraqi people, for whom
Saddam has demonstrated that he has no concern. Second the U.S.
should not assume that Saddam's large but largely ineffective military
force will fight to protect Saddam's oppressive regime which has
already led more than one out of every ten Iraqis to death or exile.
If Saddam's
army were willing and able to fight, the U.S. would need a large
force to invade Iraq and seize Saddam. But before we decide to wait
months to assemble such a large force we should give the Iraqi people
and the Iraqi military a chance to separate themselves from Saddam's
government. If, as is likely, they take that chance, the U.S. forces
that are already in and near the theatre will be sufficient to take
control of Iraq with little serious combat and without large casualties,
although we might have to put Baghdad under siege for a while to
avoid requiring U.S. forces to undertake extended house to house
fighting.
If Saddam is
able to keep the loyalty of enough troops to require street fighting
in Baghdad before he can be seized, the U.S. might let Iraqis demonstrate
which side they are on by doing that part of the job themselves
under the leadership of Iraq's democratic civilian opposition movement,
the Iraqi National Congress.
The way to
go to war with Saddam is for the U.S. to start by announcing that
it has no quarrel with the Iraqi people and no designs against the
independence and integrity of the State of Iraq and by calling on
the Iraqi people and the Iraqi army to stand clear of Saddam and
not to support him. Second, while we will need to bomb Saddam's
military headquarters and airports and air defenses, we should not
bomb Iraqi army units that have not had a chance to surrender to
our forces. We should approach these units in a way that enables
them to surrender — although obviously if they begin serious
fighting we should use overwhelming firepower against them.
The Iraqi National
Congress is likely to join in calling on the Iraqi public and the
Iraqi army to support U.S. forces and to rise up against Saddam
— as the people did when George Bush called for such an uprising
in 1991. Small U.S. forces combined with a popular uprising by the
Iraqi people can take Iraq away from Saddam in a matter of days.
Against an
enemy like Saddam, who is actively working to obtain nuclear and
biological weapons and ways of using them against enemies or hostages,
any delay is dangerous. A month of unnecessary waiting could multiply
deaths in the U.S. or elsewhere.
If the U.S.
decides that Saddam is responsible, and he does not produce evidence
to the contrary, the U.S. should move ground forces into Iraq almost
immediately. The path of caution is to move quickly, not to wait
to ensure that we have amply large forces for worst-case scenarios.
The Iraqi people were victims of Saddam Hussein before we were;
we should not respond to Saddam's evil deeds against U.S. by bombing
our fellow victims — although unfortunately some of them, who
are unable to get clear of Saddam, will inevitably be killed in
the process of removing Saddam from power.
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