The war rhetoric has reached a climax. After two weeks of incessantly urging members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives to give him broad military options with Iraq and constantly goading the United Nations to go along with American wishes, President Bush last night reiterated his case for attacking Iraq, saying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has both the desire and ability to inflict widespread damage on American targets.
While the speech showed a clear need to think seriously about military action against Iraq, the American public should not yet be sold on going to war to remove the Middle East dictator. Bush’s speech lacked a clear blueprint for rebuilding Iraq after war, making his current plan for war irresponsible and problematic in the eyes of countries in the Middle East and the rest of the global community.
Americans have known since his invasion of Kuwait in 1991 that Hussein is a threat to American interests with a clear distaste for the United States. Hussein has reminded the world repeatedly over the last 11 years of his delinquency, refusing to comply with multiple UN resolutions calling for weapons inspections. Iraqi missiles have taken aim at American and British fighter planes patrolling the UN-created no-fly zone over Iraq, established to keep the Iraqi air force at bay.
American and British intelligence sources have confirmed that Hussein has at very least created a veritable arsenal of biological and chemical agents. Though no one is exactly sure how far along Iraq’s nuclear weapons program is, the CIA and other Bush administration officials have speculated that if they haven’t constructed a nuclear bomb yet, they will soon. The Iraqi threat is clear, and danger from the Hussein regime is imminent.
Bush did a good job of making that message clear in his speech last night, detailing Iraq’s history of deception, outlining the contents of Iraq’s deadly arsenal and reiterating to the American public that Hussein is thirsty for American blood. By combining warnings about Hussein’s capabilities with reminders of the pain and destruction of Sept. 11, Bush may have unfortunately succeeded in scaring the American public into immediate action.
But Americans should still be wary of Bush’s war plans. Though Iraq’s danger to the rest of the world may be, as Bush alleged in his speech, growing more serious by the day, America should be more deliberate in its approach to eliminating the threat. As members of both the House and Senate and leaders from around the world have said, the decision to go to war is a serious one. It should be accordingly thought and planned out and effort should be put into adequately preparing the American public for the possibility of bloody conflict.
Iraqi armed forces are a much different adversary from those which American forces vanquished easily in Afghanistan last fall and winter. America will not be able to defeat Hussein by simply launching missiles from a distance. Hussein, who will undoubtedly apply lessons learned during his army’s fight with American forces during the Gulf War, will not be afraid to take the fighting into Iraq’s large cities, likely introducing large numbers of unwanted civilian casualties into the equation. Though the fighting may be over relatively quickly, it will be intense and will involve American deaths. It is Bush’s responsibility to take time and make sure Americans are aware of that likelihood.
Most importantly, Bush’s war plans will not be acceptable until he includes a comprehensive plan for a post-war Iraq. Bush’s speech was void of any specific strategy for rebuilding Iraq into a prosperous democratic state after the threatened war. Besides a general sentence about rebuilding the Iraqi economy and creating “the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq at peace with its neighbors,” Bush showed no evidence that administration officials have thought seriously about cleaning up the mess American action will likely create in the region, which is the international community’s most serious concern with Bush’s latest display of American hubris.
The international community will need Bush’s specific plans for building an economically solvent Iraq with strong democratic institutions to trust any war plan. Because of America’s half-commitment to nation-building in Afghanistan, words will no longer do the trick. Bush and his advisors must take time to develop and reveal a plan for Iraqi revitalization similar in scope and sentiment to General George Marshall’s post-World War II plan to rebuild Europe. Post-war plans could buy Bush relative worldwide tolerance of war with Iraq, if not support. Without such plans, the international community will continue to be outspoken in objection to any American war against Iraq.
The Bush team has done an effective job of turning the nation’s attention back to Bush’s and Republicans’ seeming fortes — terrorism and war — after conditions looked favorable for a Democratic Congressional takeover in the midterm elections. Conveniently, they have crowded out important domestic issues favoring Democrats as time winds down to early November and have distracted American citizens from more important national concerns — a weak economy, struggling social services and more immediate security concerns.
As long as war is being seriously considered, though, Congressional and public approval of Bush’s war plans should be contingent on his strategy for rebuilding Iraq after the war. Bush has made clear the danger Hussein and his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons present to American interests at home and abroad. Americans and the rest of the international community should not allow Bush to go to war until his plans have been made more comprehensive.