West: Bush's war plan 'absolute disaster'
Posted Monday, February 24, 2003 - 2:09 am
By Dan Hoover
STAFF WRITER
dhoover@greenvillenews.com
Former ambassador to Saudi Arabia John West said this weekend that the Bush administration's plans for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq are "an absolute disaster."
West said the administration risks inflaming the Islamic world and would further destabilize the volatile region with its go-it-alone policy without affecting the root problem there.
Military analysts said Friday that the opening attacks by U.S. and British forces could begin in mid- March. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said there are now enough troops and equipment in place to launch an invasion.
"The evidence does not persuade me" that Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein, are a clear and present danger to the United States," West told The Greenville News. Instead, he would pursue a policy of containment, as is being utilized with another prospective nuclear club member, North Korea.
West, 80, of Hilton Head, was South Carolina's governor from 1971 to 1975 and was envoy to Saudi Arabia under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. He has maintained contact with Saudi friends and officials and others in the region since returning to his private law practice. He is a Democrat.
He said Bush and his advisers don't fully understand the complexities of the Middle East, although "Carter understood it very well, that you'll never have a stable Middle East peace until you resolve the Palestinian-Israeli problem," the root cause of terrorism today.
"If we go into Iraq, particularly without United Nations approval, we're going to create what, in my judgment, will be a chaotic situation. We'll be an occupying power with a tremendous nation-building obligation, and that's where the problem comes," West said.
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