Imagine that the two planes that hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 were filled with chemical or biological weapons, or worse yet, with a nuclear warhead. Instead of 3,000 dead in New York City that day, we as a country may have mourned the deaths of 300,000 or even a million people. Does anyone doubt that Al Qaeda would have used such weapons of mass destruction had Saddam Hussein made those weapons available?
According to U.N. Chief Arms Inspector Hans Blix, Iraq not only still has biological and chemical weapons that are not accounted for, but Hussein also has the means to deliver them with short-range missiles capable of reaching Kuwait, Israel or Turkey. U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iraq is also attempting (or may already have succeeded) to smuggle unmanned aircrafts into the United States with global positioning systems capable of hitting major American cities. These unmanned aircrafts, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell, will be loaded with biological and/or chemical weapons to be dropped specifically in New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., and other parts of the heavily populated Northeastern corridor of the United States. Imagine the destruction caused by such weaponry in the hands of that madman Hussein.
For this reason alone, Hussein must be totally disarmed - and disarmed now. U.N. inspectors have not succeeded, according to Blix, and cannot succeed without the cooperation of Iraq, an outcome on which we cannot count. The reality, in fact, is just the opposite. Iraq has lied to, deceived and conned many members of the United Nations, including France, Germany and Russia, who for their own economic reasons are unwilling to follow through with the U.N. resolution to disarm Iraq (with force if needed) that they originally supported. One ally, France, has another motive for opposing an immediate invasion of Iraq. France, an original member of the European Union, is attempting to assert itself as the unofficial leader of this union in an effort to reclaim some of its lost glory from its days as a leader of "Old Europe."
Germany's opposition stems from the fact that Gerhard Schroeder, the country's leader, recently won a close reelection battle while campaigning on a strong anti-American, anti-war campaign promise. Russia's unwillingness to support the United States is more tied to its fears of losing access to Iraq's vast oil reserves than any concern for the Iraqi people. In short, our allies have many motives contrary to ours, and those motives interfere with a clear judgment that must point toward an invasion of Iraq being the only possibility for the future of world stability.
If the United States and its allies are to retain any credibility within the world, they must act with force now to disarm the very dangerous and unpredictable Hussein. Those opposing the use of force believe the United States economy and that Middle East stability will suffer. They further claim that an invasion of Iraq will heighten the risk of terrorist strikes in the United States, but the opposite is true. Recent history has shown that after a successful military outcome in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the United States and all world markets dramatically improved. Furthermore, defectors from Iraq have told U.S. intelligence sources that the Iraqi army will quickly surrender to U.S. forces, and the Iraqi people, long brutalized by Hussein, will greet our troops as liberators, as did the French people did after we liberated them in World War II, ironically.
As for the economy, the enemy of financial markets is uncertainty - the very condition we face today. The markets decline because investors are unsure of our actions and the potential outcome. A swift and successful invasion by the United States will remove this cloud of uncertainty and bring stability to the marketplace.
Finally, if we do nothing, terrorist groups will all too soon have access to Hussein's arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, creating a scenario where terrorist acts will become emboldened, rather than diminished, as war opponents have predicted.
Now is the time for the United States and its allies to act. The world will be safer as a result of our action. The bigger danger for the world, including even our recalcitrant allies, is non-action.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
