-Caveat Lector- CBN.com The Christian Broadcasting Network Print | Back http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/030124a.asp Saturday, January 25, 2003
Home > CBN News ASSESSMENT Saddam Showdown: Has Bush Been Backed into a Corner? By Paul Strand Washington Correspondent January 24, 2003 Two aircraft carrier groups with hundreds of jets and thousands of bombs and missiles already ply the waters near Iraq. Two more will join them soon, and even two more may follow those. CBN.com – WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Bush administration insists Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction. But does it really know for sure? And if it does, why doesn't it show everyone the proof? And has the UN, along with nations like France and Germany, backed the Bush administration into a corner by demanding more inspections? For President Bush, the emphasis has never been on UN inspectors finding Saddam Hussein's most dangerous arms, but the Iraqi leader's wriggling out from under the world's demands that he give up those arms. "He wants to play a game. For the sake of peace we must not let him play a game," Bush said. Is it already too late for the President to turn back? Some 65,000 troops are now in nations surrounding Iraq, and the number is going to quickly rise to 150,000 by February 15th, and eventually up to 250,000. Two aircraft carrier groups with hundreds of jets and thousands of bombs and missiles already ply the waters near Iraq. Two more will join them soon, and even two more may follow those. Conservative defense analyst Jack Spencer thinks Bush could still call off the war and sell it as a triumph, as long as Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction are gone. "I don't think that there's one American or one person in the world who truly thinks that if the United States can achieve its objectives in Iraq without firing a shot, that they wouldn't rather do that," Spencer said. "It's what Ronald Reagan did in the Cold War — by building up weapons, he destroyed the Soviet Union. Never fired a shot." Ivan Eland of the libertarian Cato Institute opposes a war, but worries Bush may be trapping himself into one, unless he listens to the American people. "He's sort of painted himself into a bit of a political corner," Eland said. "He is sort of faced politically with looking weak among his conservative base. Now, of course, he has to get elected by all the American people. And right now 70 percent of the American people are not in a rush to war. They want to let the inspections play out for a few more months." And some nations on the UN's Security Council are insisting America not go to war until the inspectors are given a good chance to ferret out Saddam's worst weapons. But inspectors say that process could take months. Another alternative would be for America to present the proof that Saddam still possesses them. Some who oppose a war against Iraq insist the U.S. does not have that proof. Eland said, "Senior intelligence officials have said there's no smoking gun that Iraq is violating UN resolutions. It's just circumstantial evidence here and there. So I don't think the administration does have solid evidence." But backers of American action against Iraq believe there is proof enough, but it can not be revealed. "I would argue that people saying, 'Show us the evidence, show us the evidence,' well, there's a lot of evidence out there, and for them to say that the President's not showing them a smoking gun if he has such information, it's purely a political motivation," Spencer said. "Because, I believe it is Spying 101 that you don't give up your sources and your methods. And you certainly don't give them up in a region like Iraq where you have very few sources and methods to begin with." Even Eland admits Saddam may still be hiding some weapons of mass destruction from UN inspectors. But he insists that is not the point. "He probably has some chemical and biological weapons that he's still stashing. The problem I have with this is this threat has been over- magnified," Eland said. "Many countries have weapons of mass destruction. We have 10 countries with nuclear programs, 13 with biological weapons, 16 with chemical weapons, and 28 with ballistic missiles." And Eland says, when you stack up the threat of Saddam next to all the others, the U.S. is overreacting. "Saddam Hussein is certainly a monster as far as human rights go. But there are a lot of other monsters out there, too: the Iranian leadership, Kim Jong Il in Korea, etc. And on none of the categories — long-range missiles that could hit the U.S., nuclear weapons, sponsorship of terrorism — does Iraq even bubble up to being number one or two," he said. But Spencer says Saddam is one of very few dictators to ever use weapons of mass destruction, and the last batch of UN inspectors left plenty in his hands. He says it is naive to assume he will not use those weapons again. "There was anywhere from five to 20 percent of the weapons unaccounted for when they left in 1998. So then we're left to believe that since the weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, Saddam Hussein has gone against what he has done his entire life in power, which is to develop these weapons of mass destruction," Spencer explained. So questions still hang over the White House. Will the President meet demands that he reveal secret information about Saddam's weapons? Does he have it? And is the march to war at this point unstoppable? We may know the answers in just the next few weeks. One former UN chief nuclear weapons inspector says the Bush administration has been boxed in by the UN inspection process. David Kay writes, "It is easy, if painful, to see how the United Nations slid back into the fool's game of trying to find a smoking gun inside a totalitarian country such as Iraq." He continued, "What is much harder to understand is why the Bush administration, which so clearly seemed to have understood that this was not a game that they wanted to play or could win, let itself be trapped like this. But trapped it is." The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc. © 2002 Saturday, January 25, 2003 Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. 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