Posted on 12/19/2001 8:44:12 PM PST by StoneColdGOP
WASHINGTON -- President Bush and his top advisers have decided, for now, against launching a war to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the next phase of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, according to senior U.S. officials and Western diplomats.
With the al-Qaeda terrorist network all but vanquished in Afghanistan, speculation has been growing that Bush would turn his sights on Hussein, a longtime U.S. nemesis who is known to have chemical and biological weapons. Iraq also is believed to be working on obtaining nuclear weapons.
But the officials and diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Bush's top advisers are nearing a consensus that there is insufficient international backing for a war in Iraq and uncertain prospects of military success.
Without evidence tying Iraq to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "it would just look like it's our excuse" to finish off Hussein, said a senior Bush administration official.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who has been a leading advocate of trying to oust the Iraqi leader, said yesterday that after Afghanistan, the U.S. military will target "places where we think senior al-Qaeda might be trying to escape to or those places where we have tentatively identified possible al-Qaeda people hanging out."
Those countries are thought to include Somalia, Yemen and Sudan.
"Although there's a lot of discussion going on within the administration, there's no serious military planning being done for some kind of campaign against Iraq," a European diplomat in Washington said. Removing Hussein from power remains U.S. policy, a point Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated Sunday in a television interview. Powell was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a decade ago when American troops, under Bush's father, waged war against Iraq after it had invaded Kuwait. Hussein's troops were punished badly and pushed back into Iraq, but he was left in power.
But the current Bush team, despite its aggressive rhetoric, appears to have concluded there is no quick way to remove him.
Instead, officials, led by Powell, are crafting a longer-term strategy that involves forcing Iraq to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors and cooperate with a streamlined set of economic sanctions. If Iraq refuses, "other options have got to be looked at," including military force, a U.S. official said.
But any confrontation over the sanctions and the inspectors, who have not been to Iraq in three years, is not expected before the spring.
The United States also is trying to boost the capabilities of anti-Hussein groups in northern Iraq. They "are certainly not on the order of the Northern Alliance," which helped defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, said a senior State Department official.
A State Department team led by Ryan Crocker, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, was in northern Iraq last week meeting with the two principal Kurdish parties. The visit was intended to make Baghdad nervous, to encourage the two often-feuding parties to work with one another and to demonstrate U.S. backing in the face of Hussein's threats to the autonomous northern region, the official said.
The mission was part of an effort by the United States to broaden its contacts with Iraqi opposition groups beyond the Iraqi National Congress, a fractious coalition that is believed to have little real support inside Iraq.
Senior Pentagon officials, led by Wolfowitz, and a group of outsiders have been pressing for military action to oust Hussein since shortly after Sept. 11. They have been opposed by Powell and others at the State Department.
That course of action is off the table for now, senior officials said. But an option still being discussed is using airstrikes against facilities where Hussein is known or suspected to be developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
"It may be that's a more limited objective that does not cause as much resentment in the (international) coalition," the senior administration official said.
But Bush could let himself in for criticism by authorizing such a strike, since President Clinton pursued much the same policy, only to watch Iraq rebuild its weapons programs. Biological weapons, in particular, are easily hidden. There also is concern that such attacks would risk exposing civilians to the weapons being destroyed.
Bush's advisers believe the rapid and overwhelming military success in Afghanistan has put him in a position to galvanize U.S. and international support for further strikes against terrorism. "I can't think of a time when the president has been stronger since Sept. 11," the senior official said. "We're in good shape to continue into the next phase."
But the officials also acknowledge there is little international support for making Iraq the next target.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in a newspaper interview this week against expanding the war to Iraq and made it clear he expects Bush to consult with him over the next steps.
U.S. allies in Europe are also opposed, including Britain, which has been Bush's staunchest ally in Afghanistan. They prefer an international containment policy to a U.S. attack.
Hussein's neighbors in the Arab world worry about the effect another U.S. war against a Muslim country would have on their public opinion. At the very least, they want assurances that if Washington goes after Hussein again, this time it will finish him off.
Come on, let's just toast 'em all.
No need to deploy those Patriot missile batteries in Saudi, save 'em for our own boys and the Isrealies.
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