Pat Buchanan is the Hal Lindsey of politics.
Posted on 09/16/2002 5:17:48 AM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
Searching for the Saddam Bomb
© 2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
By most opinion surveys, the majority that supports the president's resolve to invade Iraq has been shrinking. But were Saddam close to getting an atom bomb, four in five Americans would back a pre-emptive war.
Thus, the administration and the Brits last week have trumpeted a report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies on Iraq's progress and got the headline they wanted in the London Evening Standard: "Saddam A-Bomb 'Within Months'"
A look at that IISS report, however, suggests the Evening Standard is dishing up war propaganda as news. What does it say?
Saddam, almost surely, does not have an atom bomb. He lacks the enriched uranium or plutonium necessary to build one and would have to acquire fissile material from some other country. He is like a fellow who wants to cook rabbit stew in a country where there are no rabbits. And there is no evidence Saddam is in the market for enriched uranium or plutonium, or is even at work on a bomb.
However, if Saddam could acquire 40 pounds of enriched uranium, he could probably build a bomb of the explosive power of the "Big Boy" we dropped on Hiroshima. But even that is not certain. IISS conclusion: Saddam was closer to an atom bomb in 1991 than he is today. As for his chemical and biological weapons, Saddam's arsenal was largely destroyed by 1998, though a five-year absence of U.N. inspectors has given him time to rebuild his stockpile.
Yet, even if Saddam has these dread weapons, can he deliver them? His decimated air force consists of a few hundred Russian and French planes, generations older than the latest U.S. models. Most of his missile force was shot off in the Gulf War or destroyed by U.S. bombs or U.N. inspectors. Iraq may retain a dozen al-Hussein missiles of 400-mile range. But America now has drones that can spot flaring rockets at lift-off and fire missiles to kill them in the boost phase.
In every military category, then, Saddam is weaker than when he invaded Kuwait. IISS's conclusion: "Wait and the threat will grow. Strike and the threat may be used."
What the International Institute of Strategic Studies is saying is: Saddam is probably beavering away on weapons of mass destruction. But a pre-emptive war could trigger the firing, upon U.S. troops, of the very weapons of mass destruction from which President Bush is trying to protect us.
How did we get here? In 1998, Clinton, anxious to distract our attention from a lady named Monica, ordered air strikes on Iraq. U.N. inspectors were pulled out. Thus, we know less now than we did in 1998 about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
And Bush's bellicosity has probably convinced Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq that their only safety from a U.S. "pre-emptive war" lies in a nuclear deterrent. If the "axis-of-evil" regimes we have been daily threatening are trolling petrodollars in desperation in front of the Russian Mafia to buy some second-hand Soviet nukes, would anyone be surprised?
Which begs the question: Has the Bush-Cheney shift in policy – asserting a U.S. right to launch pre-emptive war to deny weapons of mass destruction to U.S.-designated rogue regimes – created the most compelling of incentives for rogue regimes to acquire those weapons? Is the Bush-Cheney anti-proliferation policy the principal propellant of Islamic nuclear proliferation?
From hard evidence, what may we reasonably conclude? A) Saddam does not have an atom bomb or the critical component to build one, and is not known to be in the market for the uranium he would need. B) While he has chemical and biological weapons, his delivery systems have been degraded. C) He has had these toxins for 15 years and never once used them on U.S. forces, though we smashed his country, tried to kill him half a dozen times and have a CIA contract out on his head.
Why, if Saddam is a madman, has he not used gas or anthrax on us? Osama would – in a heartbeat. Probable answer: Saddam does not want himself, his sons, his legacy, his monuments, his dynasty, his army and his country obliterated and occupied by Americans, and himself entering the history books as the dumbest Arab of them all. Rational fear has deterred this supposedly irrational man. Has it not?
Why, then, is the United States, having lost 3,000 people in a terrorist atrocity by an al-Qaida network that is alive and anxious to kill thousands more, about to launch a new war on a country that even its neighbors – Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia – believe to be contained?
What is this obsession with Saddam Hussein?
Some rather distinguished Jews that disagree with you on Pat's anti-semitism leap to mind, Dr. Kissinger, for instance.
Take 2 aspirin and try to avoid CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN as much as you can.
That would be a pretty wild guess since Pat was a kid, as was I at that time, and I would venture to say you weren't even a gleam in your old-man's eye. What we do know about Pat is that he was a virulent anti-communist and war hawk till that threat evaporated.
We do not suffer fools gladly here
Sadly, we do (at times I think the forum would dry up if we didn't).
I like your name and your first and last are appropriate, though your middle pains me as I am mostly of Irish extraction.
I always considered him a great American, this kind of thing makes his detractors more believable.
Dang. The very first sentence in the article has a blatant factual misstatement -- A new world’s record.
Bad premise = bad logic, but that’s all 1% Pat has delivered for a few years now.
Ah, another of my previously noted pungent posts.
Keep 'em coming you thoughtful analysts!
To Die for Taiwan? ................. Mr. Bush now wants to walk the cat back. He has warned China the U.S. will do "whatever it took to help Taiwan defend itself." But what exactly does this mean? U.S. ground troops, cruise missile strikes on the mainland, tactical atomic weapons? We have a right to know. ... And before we get into a shooting war, Congress should tell us where the president got his authority to commit America to war over an island-province of China we have no diplomatic relations with, and no defense treaty with. If Taiwan is "part of China," U.S. intervention to block its reunification with China would seem to be tantamount to Queen Victoria threatening Mr. Lincoln with war if he should use force to bring South Carolina back into the Union. ... On Capitol Hill are many hawks willing to send U.S. pilots and carriers into a war to the death in the Taiwan Strait, but who would not dare antagonize their corporate contributors who have grown fat in the China trade. America must decide if she is going to fight this tiger, or feed it. Threatening China with war, while handing her $84 billion trade surpluses, as we did in 2000, is not only an incoherent policy, it is an immoral one. The Shane Osbo rns and sailors of the U.S. Pacific fleet should not die for such a policy.... While the Beijing regime is crude, brutal and arrogant, China represents no threat to us. And before we declare it our duty to "contain" China, and defend free Asia in a new Cold War, we ought to find out why free Asia cannot provide the ships, planes, guns and men to defend itself. As Lyndon Johnson said in 1964, "We are not about to send American boys 9,000 or 10,000 miles away to do what Asian boys ought to be doing to protect themselves." America is a republic, not an empire. Mr. Bush has no right to take us to war with China, unless so authorized by Congress. Where is Congress? Having stumbled our way into three Asian wars in one lifetime is enough. This time, tell us the truth, before the war.
by Patrick J. Buchanan
May, 2001
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Pat is right, of course. One of the hired guns for war, Frank Gaffney, debated Ritter on Blitzer Sunday. Gaffney has a chance to present evidence that Saddam had nukes to treaten the USA to justify our troops and blood. Gaffney was fact-challenged, all he could do was give a Lanny Davis performance on how to kill-the-messenger.
Are you ever right, buddy!
But most Pat-people don't even try on here anymore. I just didn't have anything better to do this afternoon. ;o)
Can't quit though without stating the opinion that Pat is a true, if rare right-wing intellectual of the Bob Taft school and has more intellect and knowledge of history in his little finger than the sum of the entire Bush clan. (Gads, they reproduce like rabbits!)
Pat Buchanan is the Hal Lindsey of politics.
LOL - that's about right. And his friends here will agree with him.
As usual, you don't know the difference between hard evidence and heresay.
Like the OJ jury, you're willing to swallow any cock & bull story that reinforces your biased evaluation.
The problem is that the "hard evidence" may very well be a blinding white flash in an American city.
No, by wooden crate to the uninspected american seaport of your choice.
Why does that concern you?
You're the wimp who won't deploy our military to defend our southern border.
I guess you are willing to swallow Pat's line- "By most opinion surveys, the majority that supports the president's resolve to invade Iraq has been shrinking." [Pat obviously hasn't read any papers since Bush's UN speech.]
Pat is just as wrong here as he was about 'the 10,000 American bodybags.'
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