Getting Out From Under a Suicidal U.S. Policy - How to back down on Iraq

How to Back Down on Iraq Gracefully
by Mac MacArthur

Friday, November 28th, 1997 -- New York (APJP) -- About the same time the Clintons awoke yesterday , Seiichi Tanigashira, 40, a deputy section chief at brokerage Taiheiyo Securities Co. Ltd. leapt off the top of a 300 foot tall building in Osaka to his death. Taiheyo is 40% owned by now defunct Yamaichi Securities which was Japan's 4th largest brokerage before it collapsed earlier this week under the strain of Japan's increasingly weak economy. The President is doing something about that.

But while the Iraq "situation" festered and Attorney General Janet Reno returned home to Miami after a brief stint in a Mexico hospital after fainting at a conference (probably the food), President Clinton spent Thanksgiving day golfing, eating and visiting with First Daughter Chelsea, home to Camp David from Stanford. Other family roughing it for the holiday included the President's brothers in law Tony and Hugh Rodham and brother Roger and kin. The President did not dine on a turkey presented to him at the White House Wednesday -- Nope, he gave that turkey a presidential pardon and the gobbler will live out his life peacefully on a Virginia farm. -- An American tradition.

He ought to think about doing the same for Saddam.

The President is reported to have been mired in details of emerging events in Iraq and spent some time yesterday watching CNN reporting it's latest hypester version of the UN/US/Iraq confrontation -- "Showdown With Iraq" -- a title sure to engorge the male ego and enhance the possibility that the US will send more troops to the Gulf.

Don't do it Bill.

Saddam Hussein, not feasting on traditional turkey yesterday, instead accelerated his new slick PR machine calling US officials "liars" who were saying he was hiding chemical weapons at his palaces.

"The American Secretary of Defence William Cohen is not different from his president or the current U.S. Secretary of State... They are all liars," read Iraq's most influential newspaper -- "Babel" -- which went on to say "The American administration is using all its media means to mislead world public opinion by alleging that Iraq is storing chemical weapons inside presidential palaces."

"When they say that Iraq has produced 200 tons of nerve gas, it is an embarrassing lie," said Babel, which is , (coincidently) owned by President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday.

Boy! And you wonder if Saddam's afraid of us?

Saddam suggests that the US is upping the war ante to distract public attention from the suffering in Iraq caused by the 7 year old "UN" sanctions in place since the end of Desert Storm, and at noon yesterday, the Iraqi parliament called for an end to those sanctions followed by an offer to allow Saddam's palaces to be "searched" by selected diplomats.

The Iraqi Parliament said sanctions must be lifted within 6 months. At an extraordinary session of parliament yesterday, a veritable house of horrors, due to the sanctions, was paraded in front of the world media including the deaths of thousands of children who supposedly succumbed to disease because of lack of medicines unavailable for years because of the UN sanctions.

Last week Russia cut a self-serving deal that also helped contain aggression between the US and Iraq.

In short, this is how it went.

Iraq owes Moscow billions. Moscow wants and needs that money. So the Russians, spying an opening, promised Saddam to step up a Russian campaign to have the UN lift the sanctions. Russia, as a member of the UN Security Council holds some sway at the UN. The Russians launched their promised pressure this week with its foreign minister flak, Valery Nesterushkin, saying Iraq was taking "a constructive approach" to reducing tensions with the United Nations over arms inspections. "This shows Iraq's desire to cooperate with the international community to solve this question," he said at a briefing.

Then Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz followed up with letters to the U.N. Secretary-General and everyone else he could think of informing them that Iraq would allow visits to Saddam's palaces to see if they contained weapons of mass destruction.

The only problem is that after the announcement the US learned that members of the UNSCOM team would not be allowed in the palaces and that only "diplomatic representatives" of other nations would be invited in to take a gander at the Presidential Digs in Iraq.

We have not dropped our threats to bomb or invade Iraq and hundreds of volunteer Iraqi Commandos are parading around "Saddam Township" and elsewhere in Iraq as I write, carrying machine guns and dressed in foreboding black. They're chanting anti-American slogans and charging about like wild men. The US continues is own PR campaign, trotting out our military command to claim that regional Arab states are "appalled" that Iraq is using civilians as "human shields" against US attack of hard targets.

But they aren't. Arab tradition falls right in step with voluntary shielding of sites important to Arab nations. It's been done before - against the British.

But Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, told a packed Pentagon briefing that he feels "strongly we will get the support we need when the time comes," Zinni said. "They see the threat the way we do, and they've been fully co-operative with what we've needed, to be able to respond and to protect ourselves in this region." But his statement, by its content, admits he doesn't have that support yet, and my bet is that he'll never get it.

Oddly enough though, the president of the United Arab Emirates said enough is enough, and made it clear he thinks it's time to forgive Saddam. France popped up and said it wanted the Security Council to tell Baghdad when it could expect an end to the seven-year-old Gulf War sanctions. And of course Russia is not with us on this one, although she might be convinced.

Protect ourselves, or protect our oil?

Perhaps the administration would be wise to tell the truth about the region -- that we and our allies need the oil, and we want it cheap. Period.

Added to this mix today is a US claim that Iraqi spies have infiltrated our military training programs in Bosnia - supposedly to stop integration of Muslim and non-Muslim personnel.

More US fuel on the fire.

To make matters more absurd, Baghdad now says it doesn't want to renew the current food-for-oil program with the UN. It seems, they claim, that UN relief coordinators may have been purposely mucking up the works with slow contract approvals and banking delays. The UN responds " . . .we can discuss it . . "

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the Administration is showing signs its nerves are wearing thin. Secretly, they've told UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to step up aid to Iraq under the food for oil program to $3 billion from the current $2 billion cap. This, as a cover for a perhaps too-stringent program dictated by US desires for the past several years.

The US is acting as if Kofi Annan holds that decision, but without US urging, the increase couldn't take place, and no other member of the security council would oppose the increase except Britain whose become the mistress of America. The deal is supposed to be renewed, and the increase could take place, as early as December 5th when the UN takes up the matter.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference in Baghdad that only diplomats will be allowed to tour presidential palaces. The United States responded demanding "complete and unfettered access."

"As we have said before, and as the (U.N.) Security Council has said unambiguously and unanimously through its resolutions, the UNSCOM inspectors must be permitted to do their jobs and must have unconditional and unfettered access," a senior White House official said.

But the Iraqis countered, "The Iraqi initiative is completely outside the framework of the Special Commission and its inspection teams. It has nothing to do with that," Sahaf said.

So, what's going on here?

It seems that the Iraqi's have learned how to "spin" better than we.

During the past two weeks, Iraq has landed on top of almost every mini-confrontation we've flung at them. First, world attention began to drift away from the US viewpoint and toward Iraq's. Our insistence that sanctions, which are clearly hurting Iraqis, looks childish and almost hoodlum-esque as Iraq hammers the world media with reports of dead an dying women and children -- now seen as a victims of US stubbornness, meanness and inhumanness in not abandoning the sanctions which never worked in the first place. You see, these sanctions were imposed for a not-too-secret reason -- A US hope that an attempt to discourage Iraqi citizens would foment a coup that would end up ousting or killing Saddam. In the process -- US intelligence hoped -- a new more moderate leadership would emerge.

Guess what -- It didn't happen.

Now, Iraq -- fresh from the "Edelman School of World Public Relations" -- says "Go ahead. Bomb the heck out of us. Kill our civilians, women and children as you're bound to do. Make the world hate and fear you even more than they quietly do now. Go ahead -we dare you!"

And you know what, they've taken exactly the correct course. If the US moves against Iraq now, inert world jealousy and anger over US economic and social success (as compared to most other nations) will begin to boil. As the world's only "super power" we are a target for distrust and worse.

If we use our muscle as bullies we can't win.

Like a rebellious teenager who's just learned the laws on child abuse, Iraq is thumbing its nose at the United States and daring it to strike. Saddam knows that world opinion has turned against us and now, begrudgingly, supports him as the underdog to an overreaching America. He knows it's only a matter of time before the tables turn openly and the US is forced to eat crow.

Our mistake? Too quickly choosing off Saddam over inspections that can prevent nothing.

So what if we find "weapons of mass destruction" and destroy them. How long before they'll rebuild them and worse? A year at most.

When the White House, US intelligence and the military saw that our end game wasn't working, we should have urged that the sanctions be lifted, integrated Saddam into the "New World Order" and bought his oil -- making him at least somewhat dependent on us. If he rebuilt his armies and weapons then so be it. If he renewed his attacks on Kuwait - so be it. Because, in the end, that's the only rational excuse we have to go to war with him again.

And that's the only way to pursue him now.

No longer can we stride across the globe pretending to fight for democracy without first seeing a real and substantial threat to our own freedom. The world is getting tired of it. France, a God-parent of our own civil war, is getting tired it. Our Arab allies and trading partners are fed up and afraid that they'll be next and they aren't democracies either.

We have a new and :"adult" responsibility. We have to make peace through discussion, cajoling, manipulation and even concession to what makes sense to the world, not just to us.

We can't stop everyone on earth from mixing Anthrax or mad cow disease in their bath tubs. But we can stop them from wanting to.

That's the key now President Clinton.

And that's the road we'll have to follow no matter what that crone Margaret Thatcher says.

Remember, she's a has-been - a relic from a time past, no matter how close, in history.

There IS a new world order, and we are at it's helm. But like a fairy tail ogre, we can be felled by even the weakest opponent if blinded by our own sense of power.

I realize that my opinion on this issue is very cynical. But as Lily Tomlin once said, "No matter how cynical you get, you just can't catch up!"

HERE IS A SMILE (AT LEAST FOR ME)

Los Angeles Restaurant Closed for Filth! Guess What? Hizzoner the Mayor Owns It!

Right wing Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan looked like an idiot when his own restaurant " The Original Pantry" diner was shut down in the heart of downtown LA for nearly 40 code violations -- mostly to do with filth.

I know the place. 20 years ago I was dragged there for lunch with a gaggle of City Hall groupies who said it was the "in" place to eat a quick lunch.

What is turned out to be was a squalid filthy eatery, worse than any soup kitchen, where one was tempted to retch from the stench of rodent droppings and unbathed personnel and patrons alike.

Noelia Rodriguez, token spokeswoman for Riordan who actually eats breakfast in the diner weekly and must have known what a sty it was , said he was "extremely disappointed" by the closure. If you plan to date her, think again.

Health inspectors gave the diner a score of 55 out of a possible 100.

The magically diner reopened Thursday in time to serve Thanksgiving dinner.

Can you imagine for whom?