- Brigadier General (res.) Levran is the author
- of 'Israeli Strategy after Desert Storm'
-
-
- What are we fighting for? That is a crucial question
when going off to a war - and certainly before initiating one. The Bush
administration has no solid grounds for waging war on Saddam Hussein and
the arguments about the variety of risks Saddam poses are exaggerated.
-
- The interpretation of the threat Saddam poses, and the
way it is being presented are deficient, because the U.S. administration
is attributing the same megalomaniac ideas and ambitions to the Iraqi leader
as he had before the Gulf War.
-
- Despite his bombastic lying declarations, Saddam is well
aware he was defeated. It is clear to him that he cannot take on the might
of America, and it is no accident that he he has folded now on the issue
of the nuclear weapons inspectors. Before the war he had built up hopes
of gaining hegemony in the Gulf vis-a-vis Iran and his Arab "sisters,"
and he was ready even to challenge the United States. This does not seem
to be the sfrom manufacturing a bomb, but this is because it had the use
of the missile material in the reactors transferred to it by the Soviet
Union and France and which were "under the inspection" of the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
-
- This material was taken away from Iraq, and today it
does not have the capability to enrich uranium with centrifuges (which
have been destroyed) or in other ways. Attempts to buy missile material
in the quality and quantity required for a bomb have failed in the past
and it is doubtful whether the could succeed in the future.
-
- It is also doubtful that post-war Saddam is striving
wholeheartedly to build a nuclear bomb, because the moment he approaches
it, this will not go unnoticed in United States and he would be sentencing
himself to an immediate liquidation attempt. This would also be the case
if he transferred nuclear arms of any kind to terrorists.
-
- On the other hand, Saddam probably has chemical and biological
weapons which are easy to manufacture and coner 1998) has many launchers
and missiles, especially in the middle range. Their operational condition,
and that of the war heads - especially the presumably hidden non-conventional
heads - is not at all clear. Judging by the condition of chemical weapons
the inspectors found in the past, such doubts are well placed. There is
also the question of whether they could be operated freely in western Iraq
as they were in 1991 to hit Israel and Saudi Arabia.
-
- It seems one may establish that the risks from Saddam
Hussein are not so bad as they are made to appear. Moreover, certain threats
- and much more acute ones - are presented by others in the region, like
Iran and Hezbollah. But these are not high on the U.S. list of priorities.
-
- It is not desirable that the United States, so important
to the free world, should pitch its power against a danger that is not
first rate.
-
- Brigadier General (res.) Levran is the author of "Israeli
Strategy after Desert Storm," published by Frank Cass.
-
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