Several years ago, in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky imbroglio, the
Clinton administration decided to bomb a plant in the middle of Sudan.
The Sudanese had described it as a pharmaceutical plant, but the
Clinton administration deemed it to be making nerve gas ---
ultimately, as it emerged, on the basis of one soil sample, containing
a chemical which turned out to have
legitimate commercial
uses (contrary to the Clinton administration's assertions). It
also emerged that the plant, while in operation, had a marked lack of
the safeguards one might have expected from a plant whose products
were
supposed to be deadly to the workers.
Republicans charged that the raid had been launched entirely for
political effect. But hey. Clinton had to come up with something to
compare with the earlier Bush administration's phony tales
of Iraqi baby-killing in Kuwait.
There's a double irony here, of course --- Saddam Hussein's regime
really is genocidal, having gassed its own Kurdish citizens
during the Iran/Iraq war (just like, al-Shifa plant or no, there
really was dangerous terrorist activity in Sudan). And many members
of the Bush administration knew that very well, from service in the
Reagan administration, which effectively sponsored Iraq during that
war. Samantha Power's recent book, "A Problem from Hell", goes into
this in detail, with a particular focus on the American government's
attempts, at the time, to literally blame the victims of the gas
attacks, who were dismissed in American official statements as
terrorist rebels. Some of these were infants --- Power's book has a
picture of a real dead baby on page 192. (I suppose I have to say,
for the benefit of my "anti-idiotarian" readers, that it is not
wearing a bandolier). And according to Tim Judah's article in the
current New York Review, not yet on
line, the Iraqi campaign to evict Kurds from oil producing regions
continues today at a low level, at least as far as anyone can tell,
with a few dozen a day crossing the border.
Saddam Hussein, in short, is the same genocidal bastard he's always
been --- before the Gulf War, when he was our guy against Iran, and
after the Gulf War, when Dick Cheney's Halliburton was selling
him equipment. (And also while, according to another current NYRB
article, by Frances Fitzgerald, Donald Rumsfeld was arguing that an
attack on Iraq was somehow key to resolving the Palestinian problem.
This is the same Rumsfeld who was pressing for an attack on Iraq on
the afternoon of September 11th, not waiting to see if there was
any evidence that Saddam had anything to with it. "Go massive", he
apparently said, "sweep it all up, things related and not." It seems
that an attack on Iraq is his foreign policy version of the Bush tax
cut --- the quick, easy solution to the worst problem we have,
whatever that happens to be).
What does this all add up to? Well first, when the administration
trots out the evidence that Iraq is about to have nukes, it's worth
wondering whether it's another dead baby story, or whether the things
being labeled as nuclear weapons technology actually are. (As Jim
Henley points out, initial signs are not
encouraging).
But the overall history suggests larger questions.
Like why the administration is so sure that Saddam isn't
susceptible to deterrence, when he was in fact deterred from using
chemical weapons against the United States in an actual shooting war
(something he's shown no compunction about when the United States gave
him nods and winks, as Power's book demonstrates in depth). It would
be particularly out of character for the thoroughly secular Saddam to
hand over weapons of mass destruction to fanatical islamists who
regard him as an ally of convenience at best.
Compare that, for example, to the Pakistani military and
intelligence services, which have in fact worked hand in glove with
the fanatics. They created the Taliban. They are rumored to be
succoring its remnants. They haven't given them weapons of mass
destruction. Yet. But they do have nukes. Don't worry though ---
Pervez Musharraf is in charge there, he'll stay in charge now that
he's effectively suspended the constitution, and he's our bastard, the
same way Saddam Hussein used to be. For the moment.
Or compare it to the leaders of North Korea, verging on clinical
insanity, where even the Bush administration is working on a nuclear
weapons control regime which actually has us running a reactor on
their soil.
Or compare it to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, where the population,
lacking a government with enough substance to conduct a weapons
program of its own, seems to be funding Osama bin Laden to do it in
the private sector, while their government covers for them. Dubya's
sucking up to the Saudis seems to disgust even internet hawks.
Or just close your eyes and hope for the best.
(Some links via Unqualified
Offerings).
