OK, Saddam must go – but let’s be wary of Baby Bush and the Gang
There were grounds for such an assessment when the British abandoned their efforts to get the UN Security Council to adopt a further resolution with a final ultimatum to Saddam to comply fully with Resolution 1441. At that point the British proposal would not have got the necessary majority, so it was withdrawn.
One of the first American representatives interviewed declared that the counting of votes was only a secondary consideration.
Nobody should be surprised that Bush supporters would say such a thing, in view of the Florida fiasco in 2000. At a fundraising dinner in the United States last year Bush explained his hostility to Saddam on the grounds that "he tried to kill my daddy." There has been an element of child-like candour in depicting this as an issue of personal revenge, or blurting out the truth about not wishing to count the votes. Such simplicity may be admirable in a child, but in these people this behaviour reflects more arrogance than candour.
What the Americans were really saying was that they have no time for the views of anybody who disagrees with their opinion. Bush has finally got his way and is now doing what he wished to do last autumn, before he was compelled by Colin Powell and others to seek legitimisation from the UN. This was not done out of respect for the UN, but due to internal pressure within his administration, and maybe even a little pressure from his daddy who is on record emphasising the need for as broad a coalition as possible.
A young Jewish man from New York told RTÉ's 'Prime Time' on Thursday that Israel would like to be involved in the conflict. "If you live in a tough neighbourhood you have to act like a bully," he explained. "Because we are living in the Middle East we have to show the Arabs that we're tough."
That has been one of the main problems. The Israelis have been playing the part of the bully and they have antagonised the whole Arab world, and the Americans have supported them to a degree that is scary.
Bush has been behaving like a gang leader, backed up by a bunch of bullyboys. Many see them as the greatest threat to world peace, because their mouths are unsafe at any speed. Tony Blair told parliament that he has never insisted on regime change in Baghdad because that was not part of Resolution 1441. But Bush has been insisting on Saddam's removal all along.
Even though he has been complaining about Saddam's violations of UN resolutions, this has obviously only been an excuse. For instance, on Monday night he issued an ultimatum giving Saddam 48 hours to get out of Iraq. It was pure Bush-speak. He is the man who didn't care about counting the votes in Florida or New York, but he wants to impose democracy abroad.
Even though he justifies the war on the grounds that Saddam has been violating UN resolutions, Bush acted unilaterally when he insisted on Saddam's removal, but even that would not have been enough. Without waiting for the 48-hour ultimatum to expire, he stated that the US would invade Iraq even if Saddam and company fled the country.
Surely we have learned from history that war should be a last resort, but Bush has been anxious for war with Iraq. All the usual anti-American voices have been at full throttle in recent days.
The usual bleeding heart liberals have been rallying in defence of Saddam in the guise of concern for the Iraqi people. Yet they were mute while Saddam was practising his butchery on those people over the years.
In addition to the usual critical voices, however, there are many this time who have been staunch supporters of the United States, such as the former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who went out on a limb to support Daddy Bush during the first Gulf War.
He describes American policy now as "stupid and immoral."
Others have spoken about Bush as a moron, but he is not in the clinical sense, at any rate. He is from Texas, where they have a rather broad, vulgar term to describe his likes he's an asshole! This brings us back to Tony Blair. His speech in the House of Commons on Tuesday was a magnificent political performance. With his political career on the line, he outlined his policy and the alternatives concisely and, save for sidestepping one question, with candour.
He argued that an ultimatum was clearly implicit in Resolution 1441, which was Saddam's last chance to come clean, having repeatedly made false and incomplete declarations in response to UN resolutions stretching over a dozen years.
The British wished to give him another chance by outlining specific tests, such as requiring that he allow 30 scientists to be interviewed outside the country, and that he provide documentation about what happened to the missing deadly material. Every step towards disarmament that Saddam has taken has been under duress, yet he was asking people to believe that he voluntarily destroyed such material when there was no compunction on him. This was not credible, but the British were prepared to give him another chance to come clean.
"We very nearly had majority agreement," Blair told parliament. Chile was needed to provide a crucial vote, but the French announced that they would veto any new resolution containing an ultimatum. With more reason that any country in the western world to despise the Americans, Chile could hardly be seen to back them in a futile gesture. The British therefore withdrew the final resolution.
French President Jacque Chirac played the most inept role of all in gambling with international security.
His veto threat amounted to a licence for Iraq to ignore the world. He has since had the 'gaul' to say that if Saddam uses weapons of mass destruction, France will fight him. Chirac obviously suspects that Iraq has such weapons, but he undermined a final UN effort to get them peacefully.
Saddam should be removed because he is a tyrant who has been butchering his own people and poses a real threat to international peace. If it is right to get rid of him, it is also right to facilitate those who are doing so. Thus, allowing the Americans to land at Shannon and selling them fuel is the least we should do. But we should be doing it because it is right, rather than appearing to prostitute ourselves because it is economically expedient.
Blair should be supported now because before long somebody with influence is going to have to tell the Americans that the Bush bunch have no licence to re-organise the world, or 'carry the war' to the other components of the so-called Axis of Evil Iran and North Korea.
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