Did you expect more ?
Posted on 08/25/2002 3:22:40 PM PDT by zapiks44
Clinton wants authority to oust Saddam - paper
NEW YORK, July 17 (Reuters) - The Clinton administration is seeking approval from Congress for covert operations to weaken and potentially oust Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
According to the newspaper, the ``broad'' new authority ``would go far beyond past CIA efforts'' to spawn internal resistance and to mount covert operations inside Iraq.
The administration has already sent to Congress a classified notice in asking Congress to sign off on the use of secret contingency funds within the defence and intelligence budget, the paper said.
It quotes unnamed government officials familiar with the consultations between the Congress and administration officials at the State Department and the Pentagon as saying that the scale of the initiative could involve ``the potential use of U.S. military personnel'' and more than a year of organising before fully undertaken.
Relations between the U.S. and Iraq remain chilly since the 1991 Gulf War. The two nations seemed on the brink of new armed hostilities earlier this year over Iraq's unwillingness to allow United Nations weapons inspectors full access to all sites where the U.S. suspects Iraq is secretly storing deadly chemical and biological weapons.
Another Story from Sept. 3, 1996:
US Says Saddam endangers peace, security
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuter) - The United States fired 27 missiles at military targets in Iraq on Tuesday, saying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had re-emerged as a menace to world security and urging him to ``put his tail between his legs and retreat.''
The unilateral missile attack was launched from ships and planes at targets in southern Iraq after Saddam had reportedly ignored demands to cease an assault on Kurds in northern Iraq and withdraw his troops.
Defence Secretary William Perry told PBS's ``Newshour with Jim Lehrer'' on Tuesday night that damage appeared ``very considerable.'' But he dismissed as ``exceedingly unlikely'' Iraqi reports that civilians were among the casualties, noting that the target sites were remote.
``What we hope is that Saddam Hussein will cut his losses, put his tail between his legs and retreat to Baghdad,'' State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said of the strikes that drew howls of defiance from Saddam, opposition from the Arab League and only lukewarm backing from U.S. allies.
U.S. officials made clear Washington had decided to retaliate with or without allied approval. They said Iraq would be hammered again if necessary.
President Bill Clinton and his top aides tried to justify the action in terms of sweeping international security concerns, including the vital flow of Gulf oil to the world.
``Our objectives there are limited but our interests our clear: to demonstrate once again that reckless acts have consequences, to reduce Saddam's ability to strike out again at his neighbours, to increase America's ability to prevent future acts of violence and aggression,'' Clinton told the National Guard Association in a speech on Tuesday night.
Perry said the issue went far beyond the need to stop an Iraqi attack on the Kurds.
``The issue is not simply the Iraqi attack on (the Kurdish town of) Arbil,'' he said. ``It is the clear and present danger that Saddam Hussein poses to his neighbours, the security and stability of the region and the flow of oil to the world.''
Put that way, the U.S. action assumed the same mantle of international cause as the original allied effort to reverse Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Clinton cast the missile strike as a step necessary to avoid more severe military conflict down the road.
``We do not want that to happen, and therefore I did what I did today,'' he told the Guard.
Jitters swept world petroleum markets on Tuesday. Oil prices hit their highest levels since the Kuwait invasion. Japan is the biggest importer of Gulf oil, followed by Europe and then the United States.
Tuesday's action was the biggest U.S. strike against Iraq since 1993, when 23 missiles destroyed an Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad in response to its alleged plot to assassinate former President George Bush.
Allied air and naval forces have kept Iraq under surveillance since the 1991 Gulf War to oust Iraq from Kuwait.
U.S., British and French warplanes police no-fly zones north of the 36th parallel in northern Iraq, to protect Iraq's Kurdish minorities from Saddam, and south of the 32nd parallel in southern Iraq to give similar haven to Shiite Moslems.
Clinton, reading a statement in the White House Oval Office on Tuesday morning, said the United States would follow up the attack by expanding the southern no-fly zone by one degree of latitude to further reduce the Iraqi military's room for movement toward Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
``This will deny Saddam control of Iraqi airspace from the Kuwaiti border to the southern suburbs of Baghdad and significantly restrict Iraq's ability to conduct offensive operations in the region,'' he said.
Saddam responded defiantly, calling the raids ``aggression'' and urging his Air Force and anti-aircraft gunners to attack allied planes policing the air exclusion zones.
Clinton also said a recent U.N. decision to let Iraq sell some of its embargoed oil to raise funds for humanitarian supplies could no longer proceed under current circumstances.
Burns said the oil-sale plan would be shelved for ``some time,'' but he offered no more precise estimate.
Some U.S. allies including Britain, Germany, Canada and Japan expressed general support for the raid. But others including France withheld such backing. The Arab League and Russia opposed the U.S. intervention.
Burns said Washington was satisfied with the support it got but made clear it was determined to act in any case.
``We engaged in two days of diplomacy, consultations with our European allies, partners in the area and the Middle East, about what should be done, where we clearly indicated that the United States was going to do something,'' he told reporters.
The move also intruded into U.S. politics. Clinton's presidential election opponent, Republican Bob Dole, had blamed ``weak'' Clinton policies for the Iraqi situation over the weekend but backed off that criticism on Tuesday.
Did you expect more ?
Which word didn't you understand?
That is so yesterday.
Get real.
Clinton pardoned terrorists, President Bush kills them or they get a one way ticket to GITMO. These two responses are diametrically opposed.
Clinton never responded to terror, he simply launched missiles at janitors to divert attention from his failings. That you see no difference speaks volumes about where you are coming from.
Where in that post did it say that clintoon was even thinking about ousting Saddam? Moving the no'fly zone, or suspending trading is not the same as ousting.
The argument today is about whether we should continue with these wrist-slap maneuvers or go all out and get rid of him for good.
As Clinton's own apologists have admitted, Clinton had zilch credibility on weighty matters like war and peace.
Fundamentally distrusted, he could not effectively employ the bully pulpit toward any controversial end -- indeed, toward anything other than his own political survival.
Dole did not press this even though he had to know.
Today is different and that is what we have to keep in mind.
President George Walker Bush will not falter and he will not fail.
He is the real deal.
Clinton, not even once, gave any indication he was serious about dealing with Iraq. Or Somalia. Or Haiti. There was no buildup, only a steady drawdown and an ever-expanding pizza delivery list, with no guarantees attached. The only thing Clinton ever focused on besides media face time was Kosovo, and even then he took the side of terrorists, and sent us in to work with the KLA, formerly listed as a terrorist group. He may have done so only because he was nearing the end and the Europeans wanted it, and Lord knows he always catered to europe. after all, they would determine if he got the Nobel Peace Prize- he would have lost all hope for that if he moved against Iraq. Indeed, he raised bloody heck when some of his pet terrorists the Balkans, having set up an ambush for their new allies the Americans, were discovered and met an untimely end, according to my sources.
Clinton was the guy who said he "loathed the military." Somehow that doesn't strike me as being very Patton- or McArthur-like. It sure doesn't come across like Stormin' Norman.
Clinton was the guy who let sailors take the blame for the stuff he and his entourage stole from US warships they visited. Not unlike the way he blamed the Rangers for getting themselves killed in Somalia, right in front of their parents in the White House, or the way he kept blaming the military for not getting Aidid when it was Clinton who wouldn't give the order.
Clinton was the one who used US military officers to serve as waiters at white house parties, and his wife was known to toss coffee cups at Marines on guard. Now THERE's a way to win friends and influence people.
Clinton couldn't get the support to oust Hussein because he couldn't even bring himself to hit targets in Iraq in keeping the no-fly zones clear. He had our forces hit empty spots in the desert to avoid the risk of hitting a 'baby milk factories.'
Clinton's idea of a war was to launch our entire arsenal of cruise missiles at targets picked by pizza-chomping kids fresh from college.
Clinton couldn't even bring himself to give the fateful order to kill Aidid. Not once- he had at least two prime opportunities and this I know from my own kin.
Clinton couldn't even bring himself to take out Imad Mugniyah, though he had the opportunity. Imad was a terrorist, Clinton was afraid to mess with them. This is according to the press.
Clinton had the chanc to take Bin Laden in Sudan, but because he'd already pulled our embassy out and wiped out the intel on the ground there completely, Clinton didn't have a clue about how to deal with Sudan, and refused to even meet with a Sudanese businessman to see if his offer of letting the US work within sudan to root out terrorists was legit or not. The Secretary of State's reply was something on the order of "they could have put the information in a box and left it in front of the State Department at any time." (If Maddie Albright was conscious of terrorism, she would know that if they did that, the State Department would have called the bomb squad.)
No, Clinton was too busy kissing Arafat's butt in order to win a Nobel peace prize. It's hard to be taken seriously on terrorism when you invite them to stay in the Lincoln bedroom after a day of cigar-smoking and watching your wife play kissy-face with the terrorist's wife.
It's hard to be taken seriously as the Commander-in-Chief when you command your troops from the phone, sending them into danger while an intern does battle with your zipper.
Clinton had so depleted our arsenal he couldn't take on Iraq if he had wanted to, CYA memos notwithstanding. We can't, even now, put on a show like the Gulf War unless Rumsfeld has been working very, very fast. Clinton used our military airlift command's budget to provide hurricane relief in Central America; his cabinet and anyone he designated used military planes and money to go on campaign trails and for any number of unimportant uses.
Clinton couldn't win the support of the military because he never missed an opportunity to slam them or degrade them, or even to take their votes away; morale fell, the best officers and noncoms left in droves. Recruitment plummetted. He simply couldn't lead because he couldn't get anyone's respect. He never tried to lead them, either. Even in Kosovo, he wouldn't let the people in the know pick the targets. He had to keep some of the perks back for the juveniles he employed.
Clinton couln't even define a case for war against Yugoslavia. No one knows why the heck we ever went there and he couldn't even get the Joint Chief's support, much less ours. He didn't even try to explain what the heck we were doing there, other than the lame and obviously false reason of stopping an 'ethnic cleansing' exodus that hadn't started until AFTER he bombed the country. And the fact that he was totally unprepared for such an exodus spoke volumes.
Clinton's way of dealing with terrorism has ALWAYS been appeasement; he offered the Palestinians help using our energy department and other agencies to provide them with the wireless communications infrastructure they use to plan and order acts of terror. (He even did so in Pakistan when they were tight with the Taliban.) He sent our money over there to print palestinian textbooks and newspapers, none of which was in the slightest pro-American.
Clinton's way of dealing with the rising tide of terrorism, was to just put out occasional CYA memos like the ones about 'getting' Aidid, without ever doing any follow up. All he succeeded in doing was making the terrorist more notable and giving them more publicity to draw supporters.
Heck, even when they were there, Saddam had equipment going out the back of buildings while the inspectors went in the front. UNSCOM (or someone) sent advance notice to Hussein about what was going to be inspected, not unlike the advance notinces we saw elsewhere. After all, if nothing was found, Clinton wouldn't HAVE to do anything. In other cases, the Iraqis simply wouldn't let anyone pass. Morale on the inspection tema was low because they weren't getting any backup and people left. The last thing anyone wanted was to be trapped in Iraq if Hussein got brave with Clinton at the helm.
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