UNPRODUCTIVE REPEAT PERFORMANCE
The week after the American-British military operation “Desert Fox” against Iraq was declared ended, our Middle East Desk team met to draw up an interim balance sheet of its results from the Western and Eastern points of view. We asked: Was the bombing of Iraqi military targets effective in terms the planners had intended? We came up with some interim answers. Final ones must await the evaluation by military experts (who say thatthis may take months). Also, it is unlikely that all of them will be published.
As in most such cases of aggression, or patent preparations for future aggression, by rogue government , organizations or conspirators, the international need for such operations is the consequence of preceding failures. In the case of Iraq it is obvious that the failure was that of U.N. operation “Desert Storm” in 1991. It merely hurt Saddam Hussein’s capacity for ongoing aggression, did not irreversibly destroy it and left him in power as if he had done nothing blameworthy. We expect him to use that gift to prepare for another round.
Had someone assassinated Adolf Hitler before the outbreak of world war two, as a penalty for his blood-stained domestic record, for his unilateral abrogation of the Versailles peace treaty, or the invasion of Austria, Europe would have been spared a war that claimed some sixty million lives and caused unprecedented destruction. It seems that the United Nations Organization is as ineffective as the League of Nations was in the thirties. Saddam Hussein has a record of unprovoked aggression against his neighbours Iran and Kuwait, using poison gas against Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians. But the Western powers or the United Nations took no action until Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The declared aim of that campaign was the liberation of Kuwait.
So it had to be repeated now to prevent further aggression. Why was Saddam Hussein not prosecuted as a criminal like those of Serbia now? For using gas against his own citizens? For murder, rape, pillage and wanton destruction perpetrated on peaceful Kuwait? For setting its oil wells on fire and destroying animal life? Our conclusion is: Operation “Desert Fox” was as evitable as “Desert Storm”. In terms of productivity both were failures.
The U.S. State, Britain or the U.N. could have repeatedly and publicly offered, for instance, to repeal all economic sanctions against Iraq in return for Saddam Hussein’s consent to have U.N. inspectors check freely on all his military sites at which he makes or hides arms of mass destruction? Such an offer, if repeated often enough by the media, including the irrepressible Internet, would gradually have filtered past Saddam’s censorship and sent a clear message of such a choice to the people of Iraq. It would have driven an emotional wedge between it and its unscupulous dictator. It would have exposed to public opinion in the Middle East his aggressive intentions and callous indifference to the welfare of his own people. It is at least doubtful if the people of Iraq really back their ruler’s appetite for more power, conquest and unrest. It has under its feet enough oil and gas to assure it a fair standard of living from the country’s natural wealth alone, if its despot would not waste that wealth on arms, underground fortifications, palaces and on manpower rendered unproductive by service in his “Republican Guards” and security services. It is only a question of time until he resumes his mischief, alone or in alliance with other Middle East trouble makers. We may yet see the peace-loving nations driven to a third round against Iraq.