By JONATHAN POWER

LONDON-- The war hero Antoine de St. Exupery, better known to most of us as the author of the children's classic, Le Petit Prince, wrote in his autobiographical novel, "Flight to Arras", about the rigours of air combat, some lines that President Bill Clinton could usefully reflect on: "Orders are given for the sacrifice of the air arm because war must be made to look like war. And nobody admits meanwhile that this war looks like nothing at all. That no part of it makes sense. That not a single blueprint fits the circumstances".

Mr. Clinton's profound mistake is that he has acted all along as if he were back in 1990, in George Bush's shoes at the time of the Gulf War, threatened by a military monster armed with weapons of mass destruction. And now that he's raised the flag, the momentum of superpower ego is pushing him into a war that at best cannot offer a clear-cut victory and at worst might careen badly off the rails.

Saddam Hussein is not being confrontational because he is strong, as he was eight years ago. He is being difficult and provocative because he is weak. Saddam Hussein no longer has the power to invade Kuwait or threaten Saudi Arabia. The most dangerous thing he can do to the outside world is to make life unpleasant for a few hundred unarmed UN inspectors.

His military machine is cut in half. He no longer has a navy to speak of. He has lost half his planes. A large number of his tanks are inoperable and 50% of all his military equipment lacks spares. His nuclear weapons program has been totally dismantled and most of his rockets destroyed. His economy is in the most terrible straits. As for his biological and chemical weapons we have not had an honest debate about exactly what he has got and what he could do with them.

Chemical weapons have been attributed a potency out of all proportion to their military value. In the Middle East they have earned their macabre reputation only because their victims were defenceless Kurds in Iraqi villages and unprotected soldiers during Iraq's long war with Iran--Iranian soldiers refused to shave their beards and their masks didn't seal tightly.

It is a misnomer to describe chemical weapons as a "poor man's nuclear weapon". Even for an unprotected population a large-scale chemical attack would have less impact than a small atomic bomb. Moreover, while there is no defence against a nuclear device a city population can be given masks. And since a major chemical weapons bombardment of a sizeable city would have to be staggered it should be possible to evacuate much of the population before the casualties are overwhelming.

Biological weapons ARE something to worry about, but in the future more than today. Present day ones as developed by Iraqi scientists are quite primative, deadly though they can be if used against unprotected civilians. But if they were used on a large scale with present means of delivery in a battlefield situation they would be nothing less than suicidal, rebounding on Iraq's own army and people. Doubtless one day Iraq could overcome the problem of weaponising pathogens and toxins and inserting them into effective delivery vehicles that would have a devastating effect against an opposing army. But this is to demand a level of expertise of the highest order and, even without the pressures of the world embargo, must be some years away.

This is why dealing with Saddam today is a question of opinion and judgment. Not of hyping up the danger and invoking the right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter as if America was about to be invaded.

Saddam is no longer an imminent threat as he was in 1990, but at the same time his wings need to remain clipped. On this there is a concensus in the Security Council and this concensus is America's best ally. To break it unilaterally would be foolhardy. The Security Council is not like a rubber band that will bounce back into shape once it has been pulled in a distorted direction. It may just not function the next time America needs it.

On legal grounds Washington simply doesn't have a case. Resolution 687 of the Security Council that confirmed the cease-fire deal with Iraq at the end of the Gulf War gives no authority for one Security Council member unilaterally to start up hostilities again. That would require as it did last time a fresh resolution similar to 678 passed in 1990 that authorized "all necessary means" to roll back the invasion of Kuwait.

Saddam can't be outmanoeuvred by some White House blueprint borrowed from the very different circumstances of 1990. But he can be by diplomatic guile as long as the Security Council remains united and the economic and military boycott remains firmly in place. And one important ingredient in maintaining that concensus is for Washington once and for all, without the ambiguity of previous occasions, to make plain that sanctions on Iraq will be lifted if the work of the UN inspectors is allowed to procede until they've completed their task. This Bill Clinton has conspicuously failed to pledge. And that is at least half of the present problem.

February 18, 1998, LONDON

Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER

 

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