Wednesday, October 2, 2002

President Bush stands before us today and asks that we commit our soldiers, treasure, and good name to destroying Saddam Hussein. The political arguments are complex, but seem, in the face of no new evidence, to boil down to his saying: Trust me, it's for the defense of the nation.

Two months ago the papers and television were filled with speculation about Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's past business dealings. Today, most headlines deal with Iraq.

Two months ago a vigorous debate raged about the sagacity of massive tax cuts in the middle of rapidly declining revenues and a war on terrorists. Today it's all Iraq.

Two months ago there was some wonder about this administration's coziness with big business, its apparent determination to strip or decimate environmental protection laws, its callous approach to the looting of public lands by not only our corporations, but foreigners as well, and a seeming lack of direction in the war on terror.

Today, the President has conveniently given us an enemy we can sink our teeth into, not the secretive one that has gone into hiding. He is attempting to draw links between the two to justify our pulverizing the one we can see.

When I attended the Air Force Accident Investigation school, the instructor suggested that as a starting point on arrival at a crash site, we look for something missing or something extra. What seems to be missing in our President's argument is any change in Iraq's status.

We know Saddam is a very bad man who already possesses biological and chemical weapons with the means to deploy and deliver them to the battlefield. We've known it since his war with Iran (when we were giving him material support). We also know he has been trying to develop nukes.

What President Bush hasn't shown us is any compelling reason we need to take the drastic step of going to war with him, perhaps prompting him to use the weapons he has on the invading force or on Israel.

Rightly fearing a world backlash, Mr. Bush has couched part of the argument in terms of U.N. Security Council resolutions, a strange argument from a man who has spent his entire tenure in office ignoring the rest of the world.

The one thing he and I agree on is the theory that we don't need anybody's permission to strike at any country that constitutes a palpable threat to the United States.

So where is the evidence linking Hussein to al Quaeda? Where is the evidence that Saddam would risk complete destruction by using such a weapon on the United States? Why worry about the crude weapons he can bring to bear when thousands of very sophisticated ones exist under degraded controls in Russia? Why does he cozy up to the bloated kleptocratic leaders of the country that spawned 15 of the hijackers that did attack us, and wish to wage war on a people who have not?

It seems our foreign policy now will boil down to an Andy Capp-ish, "I thought he was going to hit me so I hit him back first" philosophy (at least to the midterm elections). This line of reasoning will keep us very busy indeed, and certainly keep the world wondering what we're going to do next.

Would our president use Saddam Hussein in a cynical ploy to increase his and his party's popularity? Look at his past and you'll find ample evidence for cynicism.

If he has evidence linking Saddam to al Quaeda, or evidence that Saddam intends to attack us or our interests (outside of the no-fly zone), Mr. Bush should lay it before the people. This artificial brinksmanship may work until the house-to-house fighting in Baghdad, or gas attack on Israel with her subsequent nuclear response.

But when it's all over, I fear most of us will be saying, Why did Bush start this, and now that we've inflamed the Muslim world, are we any safer?

Timothy J. Parker

Peachtree City