U.S. Military Questions Impending Iraq Strike
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Is the impending U.S. strike on Iraq a matter of national security, or is it domestic U.S. politics? |
WASHINGTON,
July 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. President George W.
Bush underscored his determination Monday, July 29, to crush threats
posed by the “world’s worst leaders,” on a fundraising
engagement in Charleston, South Carolina, as top U.S. military
officers Sunday, July 28, questioned assertions by the administration
that a war against Iraq is necessary.
“We
are going to respond in a determined, focused, effective way by
defending freedom no matter what the cost, and that includes
understanding we cannot let the world’s worst leaders blackmail the
United States or our friends and allies with the world’s worst
weapons,” Bush said.
“We
owe it to our children and grandchildren to do everything we can to
disrupt known terrorists groups to find folks who think they want to
team up with terrorists groups,” Bush added. “We owe it to our
future to use our standing and our might and our wealth to define the
21st century as one which will be peaceful hopeful and most
importantly, free.”
U.S.
daily newspaper, the New York Times reported Monday the Bush
administration is considering a pre-emptive military strike against
Iraq
that would start with an attack on
Baghdad
and one or two key command centers and weapons depots.
Quoting
senior administration and Pentagon officials, the newspaper said
U.S.
military planners hoped the strategy would cut off
Iraq
’s leadership and lead to quick collapse of the government.
The
Times reported that no formal plan has yet been presented to
Bush or the senior members of his national security team, and that
officials emphasized several military alternatives were still under
consideration.
White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer downplayed the report saying “it’s
one of many stories that seem to be running, that has somebody,
somewhere very deep thinking they know something.
“It
seems to be very contradictory to the last story they wrote where
someone, somewhere, very deep thought they knew something about
something,” Fleischer added.
But
despite Fleischer’s assertions, top
U.S.
military officers contend that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein poses no
immediate threat and that the
United States
should continue its policy of containment rather than invade
Iraq
to force a change of leadership in
Baghdad
, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The
conclusion is based in part on intelligence assessments of Hussein’s
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and his missile
delivery capabilities, which the Bush administration may be
overstating.
Scott
Ritter, a former UNSCOM weapons inspector in
Iraq
, has repeatedly made the same point: that
Iraq
no longer possesses the capability to wage war with weapons of mass
destruction, and does not have threatening ties to international
terrorism, specifically Al-Qaeda - as the Bush administration asserts.
Several
U.S.
military officers interviewed by the Post questioned Bush’s
motivation for repeatedly calling for the ouster of Hussein. “I’m
not aware of any linkage to Al-Qaeda or terrorism,” one general
involved in the Afghanistan war said, “so I have to wonder if this
has something to do with his father being targeted by Saddam,” a
reference to the U.S. government’s belief that Iraqi agents plotted
to assassinate former president George H. W. Bush with a car bomb
during a 1993 visit to Kuwait, reports the paper.
Speaking
in
Boston
,
Massachusetts
, last week, Ritter stated that the coming war is not about
Saddam Hussein
,
Iraq
or weapons of mass destruction, but is about domestic American
politics.
“There
has been nothing in the way of substantive fact presented that makes
the case that
Iraq
possesses these weapons or has links to international terror, that
Iraq
poses a threat to the
United States of America
worthy of war.”
According
to Ritter, there is no justification - national security,
international law or basic morality - to justify a war with
Iraq
, but that the mid-October scheduling of this conflict has to do with
the midterm
U.S.
Congressional elections following a few weeks later.
“This
is not about the security of the
United States
,” he said. “This is about domestic American politics.
“The
national security of the
United States of America
has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using
their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven
political ambitions.
“The
day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed
collectively as a nation,” Ritter commented.
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