By: Aaron Lerner Date: 17 September, 1998 (Originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post 17 September, 1998)
Thanks to the incompetence of the Clinton administration, Saddam Hussein may very well be in a position to nuke Israel before the Jewish state's Arrow-2 anti-ballistic missile system is in place.
On September 15th former UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) Inspector Scott Ritter testified before the US House International Relations Committee that if Iraq acquires bomb-grade uranium from an outside source, it could assemble three nuclear weapons in "days or weeks" using pre-fabricated components it has concealed from UN inspectors.
And Ritter said he has little confidence that inspectors could detect such nuclear material if it were smuggled in.
Deliberate UNSCOM inspections backed by responsible American leadership could have uncovered the nuclear weapons, as well as the chemical and biological weapons, now being assembled, or stored by Iraq. But the Clinton administration has abandoned the scene.
The evidence was there for the taking, but US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called off the inspectors.
These aren't rumors from mysterious unknown sources. Scott Ritter sacrificed his career so that he could share his warning call with the world.
His message is clear: The Clinton Administration has backed down from seriously dealing with the threat which Saddam Hussein presents today to the region and the world.
Secretary Albright explains that America called off the inspections because its aggressive monitoring threatened to break up the coalition which backed the UNSCOM program. But what's the point of the program if it isn't allowed to work?
Paradoxically the Clinton Administration could have used the major discoveries, which the canceled inspections promised, to bolster America's ability to insist on Iraqi compliance.
One would think that this stunning news would be a major topic of conversation in Israel, but it isn't. The Israeli media barely touches what may turn out to be the most critical story of this generation.
And the Israeli government? "The question of Iraq concerns us all", Prime Minister Netanyahu told me. "It concerns the United States as well. I don't want to get into the particular question of Mr. Ritter's testimony except to say that in the aggregate I believe that Saddam Hussein poses a challenge to everyone - to Israel, to the United States, to the peace and stability of the Middle East and beyond the Middle East. So I think the need to insure that his violations are not left unchallenged is crucial for everyone."
How about the opposition? Labor MK Ephraim Sneh is in Washington now with three other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee and he has been warning about Iran, but he told me that the Ritter story "doesn't
come up in the conversations. These are his claims against the US government and we aren't getting involved - we didn't come here to oppose the US government."
Sneh is well aware of the seriousness of the situation. "What is clear is that the inspection regime is in danger," he warns. "It has been eroded and is going to be eroded and it means that the danger of Iraqi missiles may becoming in a very, very short time, a real danger again, and this is another reason for us to enhance our countermeasures."
Moledet leader MK Rehavam Ze'evi calls for Israel to openly demand that the Clinton Administration take action before it is too late.
"It can't be that they speak aggressively to us about the percentage of a redeployment," he explained, "and yet when Saddam Hussein overtly threatens the peace in the Middle East he is treated with kid gloves.
"The US got exhausted after 6-7 years of embargo, " Ze'evi says, "and the outcome is that we are the ones who will suffers the results."
A senior member of the American Jewish peace groups explained that the Iraqi threat is important. Important - as a talking point for pushing for Israeli withdrawals. After all, he argued, what do a few percentages in the West Bank matter when Iraq has the bomb? His group has no plans to alert Clinton of its concerns.
The mainline American Jewish community also hesitates to take a conspicuous stand. As one leader explained, they don't want to be seen as Clinton bashers, nor do they want the Iraq issue to be seen as a
Jewish rather than universal issue. Pat Buchannan's charge that Israel's supporters dragged Bush into the Gulf War still has a chilling effect.
If the Iraqi challenge was a matter of decades - or even years - such arguments for restraint might have merit. But from everything that Ritter tells us we are not talking about years but rather the near term.
Israel's supporters won't have to stand alone on this issue. American legislators from both sides of the floor are starting to express concern as have some of the leading American editorial writers. But the story requires momentum. It needs events and activities to move the American public's focus, even momentarily, from
President Clinton's potential impeachment to his administration's dangerous passivity.
Can we meet the challenge? The alternative is beyond comprehension.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis) (mail POB 982 Kfar Sava) Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-9-7411645 INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il pager 03-6750750 subscriber 4811 ARCHIVE/Subscribe: join.virtual.co.il Fax service limited to: American area codes 212, 313, 503, 514 (Montreal), 541, 718, 813 (Tampa) as well as Athens(+30 1), Lisbon (+351-1), Croatia
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