Karen, to quote bb's post,
Just read Khidir Hamza's "Sadam's Bombmaker." Based on his opinion, Saddam will NOT, I repeat, NOT give up his WMD programs under any conditions
All observers of Iraq agree on this point. If it were not true, why didn't Saddam honor the Gulf War armistice, and get the sanctions off his back? To say,
The defectors are people who believe they'll reap rewards at the fall of Hussein. They have no more regard for the truth or the people of this country than does Hussein
is to deny the obvious -- defectors are the best window we have into this one-man autocracy. Their stories can be cross-checked with each other & other sources of information, and I must believe that they have been and have been checked out. To dismiss them is just to be in denial. Everything Saddam has done and said (did you know the Gulf War was a great Iraqi victory? It was if you listen to Saddam) leads to the same conclusion.
How will having nukes protect him. Will he blow up the competition within his borders? Hardly.
No, because deterrence is a two-way street. We won't go after him then, until he nukes us. Which he may, as observers also agree that he lives for revenge. Think about it. If you were Saddam, would you have tried to assassinate President Bush? Was that smart? Was that "rational"? In the meantime, Saddam will be ceded hegemony over the Gulf, another ambition which he has never hidden.
Saddam has said he will allow inspectors back in his country because he doesn't want nuclear war any more than most Americans want it or most Middle Easterners wish for it. If we can act rationally instead of self-destructively, let's do that. It looks as though we are following that course.
And I bet you always believed that this time Lucy would really let Charlie Brown kick that football, didn't you? |
