The Case Against Saddam
c
Philadelphia
onsider the paradox: Almost
every government agrees that
Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein is an appalling mon-
ster and shudders at the prospect of his
acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet those
same governments are also furiously
signaling their disapproval of an
American-led military effort to depose
him.
That would be "risky adventurism,"
declares Germany's Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder; Saddam poses no
immediate threat and Washington
lacks a justification to attack him.
Most U.S. allies worldwide agree.
But they are plain wrong. Saddam is
an immediate menace and the U.S.
government has cause to preempt him.
Here's why:
• Record. Saddam has a history of
unrelenting aggression. He invaded
Iran in 1980. He conquered Kuwait in
1990. He assaulted Saudi Arabia and
Israel with missiles in 1991. He's shot
at U.S. and British aircraft in the "no-
fly zone" since 1992. He attacked the
Kurdish regional enclave in 1996.
Saddam also has many links to ter-
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum. His e-mail address is
pipes@MEForum.org. Research fellow
Jonathan Schanzer contributed to this
commentary.
rorism. Iraq harbors Abdul Rahman
Yasin, one of the gang that bombed
the World Trade Center in 1993. It
also hosted the notorious Palestinian
terrorist Abu Nidal, just found dead in
Baghdad. The dictator encourages
Hamas suicide bombers by paying.
$10,000 U.S. to their families.
His terrorists tried to assassinate for-
mer President George H.W. Bush and
the emir of Kuwait. An Iraqi diplomat
met with Al Qaida's Mohammad Atta
before Atta and 18 others launched
their Sept. 11 suicide mission.
• Casus belli (an event used as an
excuse to declare war). Saddam has a
history of violating international law
and developing illegal weapons.
In February 1991, he signed an
agreement accepting all the United
Nations Security Council resolutions
passed after his invasion of Kuwait
seven months earlier. In particular, he
recognized the validity of Resolution
687, which demands that Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
be "destroyed, removed or rendered
harmless," and requires that inspectors
be allowed into Iraq to stymie further
efforts to build WMD.
But Saddam then played "cat and
mouse" with the inspectors by with-
holding information, dissimulating
and hiding materiel. "For example,"
noted a U.S. government report in
1998, "Iraq released detailed records
of how many ball-point pens it
Khidhir Hamza, former chief
ordered in the late 1980s,"
nuclear
scientist for Saddam's
but left out vital information
nuclear
weapons development
about its "missile warheads
program and another Iraqi
capable of delivering biologi-
defector, estimates Iraq now
cal and chemical agents."
has "12 tons of uranium and
Nonetheless, over seven
1.3 tons of low-enriched urani-
years, inspectors did find and
um"
and asserts that Saddam
destroy at least 27,000 chemi-
will
have
"three to five nuclear
DAN TEL
cal bombs, artillery shells and
weapons
by
2005."
PI PES
rockets, 500 tons of mustard
Richard
Butler,
former chief
and nerve agents, and thou-
Spe cial
U.N.
weapons
inspector,
says
sands of tons of precursor
Comm entary
it is "foolish in the extreme" to
chemicals. They also dissem-
believe that Saddam is not
bled much of Iraq's nuclear
hard
at
work
on long-range missiles,
program, which was further along
and
nuclear,
chemical
and biological
than previously thought — and
weaponry.
which had continued in operation
If Saddam does get his hands on
(flagrantly violating Resolution 687)
nuclear weapons, he will exploit them
since 1991.
fully.
Then, in August 1998, Saddam
He is the only ruler in power already
accurately read the Clinton administra-
to
have used WMD — deploying poi-
tion's mood and closed the door to fur-
son
gases against both Iranians and his
ther inspections, correctly figuring he
own
Kurdish population (killing 5,000
would not have to pay a price for this
of the latter in one town on one day in
unilateral abrogation of his promises.
1988). Once equipped with nukes, this
Now, four years later, Saddam con-
megalomaniac will pose an almost
tinues to refuse to allow the inspectors
unfathomable threat.
admission to Iraq, much less to dis-
President George W. Bush is there-
mantle his WMD.
fore
right to state that the United
• Dangers. Saddam unquestionably
States
must "confront the worst threats
has used the past four years to build
before they emerge." With no other
WMD. Adnan Saeed al-Haideri, an
means to dismantle his arsenal and
Iraqi civil engineer and a recent defec-
protect against future aggression, this
tor, informed the Defense Intelligence
leaves a military campaign as the only
Agency that Saddam is building bio-
option — and the sooner it begins, the
logical and chemical weapons in eight
better for us all. ❑
locations throughout Iraq.
Staying The Course In Israel
Ramat Gan, Israel
he depravity with which
Palestinian terrorists
destroyed a cafeteria at
Hebrew University on July
31, killing nine people and leaving
dozens wounded for life, was moral-
ly indistinct from hundreds of other
terror attacks.
Terrorists employing the same type
of brutality have murdered other
teenagers in discos, restaurants, mar-
kets and buses. This was also not the
first time Hebrew U has been target-
ed. More than 30 years ago, "Gener-
al" Yasser Arafat's terrorists bombed
a cafeteria on the university's Givat
Ram campus (built after Mt. Scopus
T
Professor Gerald M. Steinberg
is director of the Program on Conflict
Management and Negotiation Political
Studies at Bar-Ilan University. His
e mail address is gerald@vms.huji.ac.i1
-
was cut off from the rest of
Jerusalem in 1948).
The echoes of that attack were still
reverberating when I came to
Hebrew U in July 1971 — one of a
few thousand overseas students who
The commitment to
Israel and Jewish
survival will be not
shaken by terrorism.
arrive every year to enjoy the treas-
ures of the Hebrew language and
experience life as an Israeli.
It was four years after the 1967
war brought an end to the
Jordanian-Palestinian occupation
threatened from all sides,
and desecration of Jewish
and peace was a very distant
Jerusalem. The campus on
and abstract concept. The
Mt. Scopus, which had
facade of "normalcy" and
remained an island under
wishful thinking that formed
tenuous Israeli control from
the environment in which
1948 to 1967, was being
the illusions of Oslo devel-
restored and expanded. The
• oped 20 years later had yet
campus was a massive con-
struction site, with dozens of GERALD M. to emerge. Mirroring the
new buildings going up to
STEINBERG physical reconstruction out-
side, the new classrooms,
house classrooms and
Special
libraries, student dormitories
research institutes. A system
Commentary
—
architecturally uninspir-
of underground tunnels was
ing
and functionally mini-
also being built to connect
malist
(not
in
a positive sense) —
these new buildings and provide easy
became incubators for the Jewish
access to buses in the summer heat
renaissance.
and winter rain.
At the time, with the experiences
of the 1967 war still fresh, some
Past Influencing Future
overly creative students imagined
Twenty-three years after the restora-
that these massive concrete tunnels
tion of independence in the land of
would be used as military strong-
holds to prevent an Arab effort to
retake Jerusalem. Israel was still
STEINBERG on page 40
8/30
2002
39