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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William H Huebl who wrote (377)	9/4/2002 10:01:56 PM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8683

I use Word... have the entire storyline fully developed and jot it down... don't worry about the details until later... once you have the storyline set down, all you need to do is fill in the blanks... if your story is solid and well written, we'll see what we can do to get you published... before you attempt to get published, have your manuscript copyright protected... it's just that easy... GZ

To: William H Huebl who wrote (377)	9/5/2002 12:10:49 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8683

Making the Iraq Case A rationale for regime change. URL: opinionjournal.com Thursday, September 5, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT The critics urging President Bush to "make the case" for regime change in Iraq began to get their wish yesterday, perhaps with more vigor than they bargained for. Mr. Bush emerged from a meeting with Congressional leaders to declare that "Saddam is a serious threat," and that "doing nothing about that serious threat is not an option for the United States." The President has also begun to aggressively shape political and diplomatic events. He declared that he will ask Congress for a resolution of support, before the November elections, and he will make his case in person to the United Nations in New York next week. He has invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Camp David on Saturday, a meeting that follows Mr. Blair's pointed support for the U.S. stance on Iraq yesterday. The Prime Minister echoed Mr. Bush's point that "doing nothing . . . is not an option for the United States" and that much European criticism is "just straightforward anti-Americanism." So much for the argument that the U.S. will have to "go it alone." No doubt Mr. Bush's argument in coming days will include Saddam's well known litany of offenses--trying to assassinate a former U.S. President, stockpiling biological and chemical weapons and using the latter against the Kurds, violating multiple U.N. resolutions, and of course trying to accumulate nuclear weapons. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said more details on those weapons will be forthcoming as the Iraq debate unfolds. If the Administration is serious, and it looks to be, then we also hope its case includes some recognition of the story reported by Micah Morrison in The Wall Street Journal today. It distills the facts collected by two dogged investigators about the role Iraq and Saddam may have played both in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. We know both cases are far from proven in the courtroom sense. But the facts are suspicious enough that we thought readers deserved to see them laid out in one place. The two cases also bear on the genuine threat that Saddam represents as long as he remains in power. Opponents of deposing the dictator say he'd be crazy to use any weapons against the U.S. because he'd be destroyed in retaliation. But his motive to avenge his Gulf War humiliation is clear enough. And in the twilight world of modern terrorism, Saddam can always find others to deliver that revenge. All he needs is a single cell from al Qaeda or its successor to smuggle a dirty bomb. His own role could be masked with numerous cutouts, so that the terrorists themselves don't even know where the weapons originated. Keep in mind that it took years of investigation to show that the attempted murder of Pope John Paul II had a Communist provenance. This lesson, or warning, ought to be obvious from the continuing puzzle of last year's anthrax attacks. The FBI persists in pursuing the yellow brick road theory of a lone madman laid out by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists. But the target of that theory, Steven Hatfill, has vigorously denied any role and is threatening legal action in response to the accusations. We'd note that the FAS has since issued a statement on its Web site distancing itself from Ms. Rosenberg and that the journalist who broadcast her theories, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, seems to have dropped the subject. Meanwhile, the FBI has been dilatory in trying to discover if the September 11 hijackers were also behind the anthrax letters. Only recently have G-men returned to the American Media office in Florida that was the site of the first attack, close to where the hijackers also lived for a time. We know that Mohamed Atta asked about renting crop dusters and that one of the hijackers was treated for lesions on his leg that his doctor says were consistent with anthrax infection. None of this is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but it does deserve more serious investigation. Larry Eagleburger, once the last defender of a unified Yugoslavia, now publicly puzzles over the fact that if we think the Iraqi "danger" is so obvious, "why can't we convince our NATO allies?" Well, apparently Mr. Blair is now convinced. But the answer for other Europeans is that, unlike during the Cold War when Europe was on the front-lines, now the U.S. is uniquely threatened. Only America can project power around the globe in a way that threatens regional hegemons like Saddam, and September 11 showed that terrorists now place a special value on striking the U.S. homeland in catastrophic fashion. Facing such a threat, it is virtually impossible to conceive that any plan to reinstate arms inspectors to Iraq will be enough. Nor does one leaked White House proposal--for "coercive inspections," meaning inspectors backed by foreign troops--sound adequate. On this point, we'd disagree with Mr. Bush's argument yesterday that the "issue is not inspectors, the issue is disarmament." The real issue is the nature of Saddam's regime. We hope the leaking of this option doesn't mean that Mr. Bush will settle for something less than the "regime change" he and Vice President Dick Cheney have so clearly called for. As Mr. Bush said yesterday, "today the process starts." It shouldn't stop until Iraq's people and the world are liberated from Saddam's terror threat.