Thursday, Sept. 19, 2002 | 9:39 a.m.
MONDAY OF THIS WEEK, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The most important paragraph of the communication said, "I am pleased to inform you of the decision of the Government of the Republic of Iraq to allow the return of the United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq without conditions."
The almost immediate response by the White House was negative. USA Today wrote, "This is not a matter of inspections. It is about disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi regime's compliance with all other Security Council resolutions." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "This is a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong U.N. Security Council action. As such, it is a tactic that will fail."
We can't blame the people representing President George W. Bush for doubting the sincerity of anything coming from Baghdad. The Iraqis have been lying so much for the past several years that they have come to believe their own lies. In January 1991 it was Iraq's Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz who threw up one smokescreen after another in the United Nations. Lies and more lies come to be accepted from the regimes of several Arab nations. Lies aren't uncommon in diplomacy but Iraq has made it a common practice in business, politics and international relations.
Remember it was Saddam Hussein who called up the late King Hussein of Jordan in August 1990 and told him that he intended to withdraw from Kuwait. Yes, and it was Egypt's Nasser who called up the same king in 1967 and told him now was the time to jump on Israel's back because his forces had destroyed most of Israel's Air Force. The Jordanian leader attacked Israel and lost everything his army had occupied on the West Bank. You would think the king would know better than to believe Hussein, but that isn't so. Believing lies is a way of life in Arab politics.
So there are plenty of reasons for our president to take every statement coming from Iraq with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, we are in a position where we have made demands and Iraq has accepted them on the international scene. Now it's necessary to play the cards we have dealt and maybe, just maybe, the Iraqis have agreed to play. Are they lying again and blowing smoke? Because of past history, that assumption can reasonably be made and require a positive reply of yes. Despite this assumption, the diplomatic dance must continue but at a much faster pace.
If our president believes that this is just another ploy, then he had better get busy and pump another $200 billion into our armed forces. I don't believe that he has made a solid case for attacking Iraq but he may know more than revealed. Of even greater concern to me is our ability to make this a deadly and quick war with as few casualties as possible. Do we have enough combat troops and adequate staging of supplies in that area to conduct an invasion of Iraq? I doubt it very much, and as memory serves me it took us several months of Desert Shield to build up for a successful Desert Storm. Successful that is until we called off the dogs after Saddam was treed.
The president's father, George Bush, had personal military experience and had some advisors with some combat knowledge. I don't mean his vice president, Dan Quayle. It appears to me that the only people urging caution today are W's advisors who have had combat experience other than the war of words in Washington.
Hussein knows he can't fight us successfully in the desert, so the war may be fought door-to-door in his cities. Are we ready to accomplish this dirty task successfully? There are so many questions to be answered and even more potential problems to be solved during the coming months. There's good reason to allow the United Nations the opportunity to wrestle with Hussein's offer as we prepare to do the job right, if it must be done.
archive
