Aiming for Iraq

One false step on the nuclear-weapons front and it’s bombs away, Saddam. President Francois Mitterrand of France agreed with President George Bush on Sunday that unless Iraq released a more thorough list of its nuclear facilities, the allies would again open fire. This is the new world order?

The Iraqis working in these plants who President Bush is threatening to kill may have a greater hatred for Saddam Hussein than the president himself. With the Iraqi economy in free fall because of international sanctions, these civilians may have had the choice of working at the nuclear facilities or starving, or worse. The president hasn’t specifically slated these human targets for bombing, but doesn’t seem particularly concerned if they become casualties of a renewed slaughter.

What will the bombing mean? Without the facilities, Saddam will remain in power, less able to threaten the world, but still thumbing his nose at the United States, an act that is generating a lengthy list of excuses to resume the bombing and remove him from power.

Congress has yet to get fully involved in the president’s latest bombing promises, but its voice should be heard. More deaths on top of the 70,000, 80,000 or 100,000 already inflicted on a group of people whose lives continue at the whim of a madman is neither humane nor just. Saddam has proved he doesn’t care how many Iraqis die as long as he remains in power. Killing more civilians won’t change that.

What victory the United States and its allies achieved in the Persian Gulf war came when Iraqi troops retreated from Kuwait. That victory does not give the president license to order attacks when the mood strikes him, even with the United Nations’ Resolution 687, which empowered member nations to force Iraq to meet the all U.N. requirements.

Congress must reassert itself to balance the president’s threats with deliberation and a clearer sense of the long-term goals that the United States holds for the Persian Gulf region.