There are some things we don’t make jokes about. War is one of
them, unless, of course, it involves in-laws.
In the Second World War there were 50 million people killed —
25 million in the Soviet Union alone — and 300,000 Americans died
in combat. Churchill said that there was never a war in history
easier to avoid than the Second World War. It could have been
avoided perhaps, if we had supported the Weimar Republic, or not
allowed Hitler’s re-arming of Germany, or if the democracies had
stood firm when Hitler marched into the Rhineland, or if
Chamberlain had not surrendered Czechoslovakia, or even going back
to the treaty ending the First World War, if that document were
less of a monument to greed, national selfishness and the
acquisition of empires. And yet, a great many opportunities were
lost and the world was sucked into a six-year conflict begun by an
evil megalomaniac.
Today, the Iraqi situation is much the same, albeit with
different players and involving different stakes. The safest road
for President Bush to take would be to give in to his critics and
do nothing. After all, America is not under national attack by
concerted Iraqi armed forces, we have no empire or land we want to
acquire in the Middle East, we have no American presence in Iraq
that is threatened, we are seemingly not supported by our former
real and purported allies in any Iraqi adventure, and there are
many domestic problems that need to be addressed. However, we would
have to be suffering from myopia unto blindness not to see that in
an interconnected world, a madman armed with deadly modalities is
loose in the Middle East, threatening the stability of the entire
world.
No one in America now opposed to going to war with Iraq would
deny that Iraq possesses catastrophic biological and chemical
weapons of war. We know Saddam has no moral compunction that
inhibit their use. Indeed, he has already used them not only on his
enemies, but also on his own people: witness 100,000 murdered
Kurds.
Iraq has admittedly manufactured mustard gas, botulinum
bacteria, carcinogenic materials and anthrax. To appreciate the
effect of these materials on a Richter scale of devastation, a gram
of anthrax contains 1 trillion spores, enough to kill 100 million
people. When the U.N. inspectors left in 1998 they estimated that
still hidden were 6,000 chemical bombs and 550 shells loaded with
mustard gas. Saddam, whose credibility must be far south of that of
a used car salesman, claims to have destroyed almost 200 bombs,
including 25 missiles filled with poison.
Saddam, characterized as “a murderous dictator” by Vice
President Cheney, is capable on a personal level of unspeakable
cruelties against persons as disparate as a 70-year-old nun,
beheaded on the streets of Baghdad last month, and former President
Bush, whom he attempted to have assassinated.
To believe that if left unfettered Saddam would not acquire
nuclear capability is naive. In the history of the world, there has
never been an instrumentality of war, from the bow and arrow to gun
powder to armed rockets, that once discovered by one nation was in
time not utilized by every nation. It was, in the perverse logic of
terror, lucky that an attack on this nation came on September 11,
2001, rather than at a later time when we would be equally
unprepared, but when those who hate us would have nuclear weapons
at their disposal.
It cannot be disputed that Saddam Hussein would have had an
A-bomb years ago but for Israeli jets that in 1981 bombed into
total destruction — and to almost universal condemnation — Iraq’s
nuclear reactor located in Osiraq. No one disputes that Saddam
Hussein is now actively seeking nuclear weapons — the only dispute
is when he will acquire them (if he has not already done so). The
International Atomic Energy Agency that entered Iraq after the Gulf
War said Saddam was only six months away from developing such a
weapon. Today, Mr. Cheney places the time frame as “fairly soon.”
It is entirely logical to assume that in a world filled with
dishonorable people and rogue states, somewhere, somebody, somehow,
at a price Saddam will pay, will supply him with the 44 lbs. of
enriched uranium or plutonium needed to build an A-bomb. He may be
sitting, as we speak, with some Russian or Chinese or even American
scientist, disenchanted, angry or greedy enough, who is prepared
for a price to turn over the knowledge and material sufficient to
make the world tremble before a nuclear-armed Saddam.
There is much talk about resuming inspections which hopefully,
would prevent Saddam from hiding weapons of mass destruction. Aside
from the fact that Saddam has refused to let even this charade take
place, the efficacy of inspections has to be realistically
viewed.
If you lose a collar stay or an earring in a bedroom, it is
often difficult to find. But with some perseverance, after you turn
the bedroom inside out, it usually can be found. If you lose it
somewhere in the whole house it will be almost impossible to find.
However, if the earring was hidden somewhere in the house, your
grandchildren would be collecting Social Security before you found
it. Now, compare this with the hope of finding something hidden in
an entire country composed of rocky terrain — caves, deserts and
mountains — 166,878 square miles in area. To make matters worse,
these biological and chemical weapons could be developed in
hospital laboratories, garage-size environments, or buildings in or
adjacent to those housing legitimate manufacturing sites.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said: “It does not take a lot of space for some of this work to go
on. It can be done in a very, very small location. And the fact
that you could put it on wheels makes it a lot easier to hide from
people that might be looking for it.”
Some critics acknowledge the reality that on a practical basis,
the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons can be hidden
from inspectors. Satellites cannot see into buildings and President
Bush does not have the luxury, as did President Kennedy, who was
able to show the world satellite photos of Russian missiles in
Cuba. However, say these critics, inspection and satellite imagery
would, at least, prevent the manufacture of nuclear devices. They
point out the fabrication of the necessary radioactive material
requires tremendous amounts of electricity. Satellite photographs
would reveal the electrical lines, poles, generator structures and
so forth necessary to deliver this electricity. However, we harbor
the unworthy thought that if people are smart enough to design and
build atomic bombs, somehow, in some manner, whether they bury the
wires under the ground or build their own generators indoors, or
develop some methodology that is beyond our technical abilities to
envision, they will figure out a way to do it.
It seems to us this country right now is like a fellow who goes
to a dentist, and the dentist tells him he has a cavity that needs
to be attended to immediately. The patient says it doesn’t bother
him, so why should he undergo the drilling and all the attendant
discomfort necessary to fill the cavity? The dentist knows, and
common sense should tell the patient, that unless the cavity is
filled now, he is in for much more grief and pain later, and
ultimately he may lose the tooth. The doctor in our case is the
President, and it makes good common sense for us to listen to the
doctor. Sadly, some people never do — until it is too late.
