Letter: Saddam won’t attack U.S.

Friday, Feb. 21, 2003 | 9:05 a.m.

Saddam Hussein says he has destroyed all of his weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Bush says Saddam didn't destroy them, he just hid them. Bush is about to wage war to destroy the WMD that can't be found. The question shouldn't be: Does Saddam have WMD? The real question should be: Assuming Saddam has WMD, would he use them?

Saddam had WMD during the Persian Gulf war. He didn't use them because James Baker made it clear to Saddam that if Iraq used chemical weapons, the U.S. would use nuclear weapons.

Saddam was building a nuclear power plant for generating plutonium. Israel's Air Force destroyed this plant during the early 1980s. The U.S. joined all the other nations in condemning Israel for this preemptive strike, which was clearly an act of war.

All of Israel is within range of Saddam's Scud missiles. So why didn't he use his WMD to kill every Jew and become a super hero to the Islamic world? It is generally believed that Israel has developed nuclear weapons and Saddam feared that if he retaliated with WMD, that Baghdad and Tikrit would be destroyed.

It is absurd to claim that a nation that didn't have the moxie to attack tiny Israel is a threat to the U.S., which has a thousand times as many nuclear weapons as Israel has, and some that are a hundred times more powerful. You can be sure that Saddam will never do anything to give that Texas gunslinger in the Oval Office an excuse to go for his nukes.

Watching Bush sell his Iraq war on TV has shown me the difference between him and Clinton. Bill wagged his finger; George points his.

VERNON BOSTICK