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Jewish World Review August 14, 2002 / 6 Elul, 5762

Diana West

Diana West
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War with Iraq won't harm war on terror

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Brent Scowcroft, who served the first President Bush as National Security Adviser during the Gulf War, says there's no doubt about it: A U.S. military campaign against Iraq would eject Saddam Hussein from power. However, during a recent interview with the BBC in which he argued against such a campaign, he noted, "I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a cauldron and destroy the war on terror."

Destroy the war on terror? Pardon me for failing to catch up to this train of thought. Even if the Middle East were turned into a "cauldron" by an "explosion" ignited by an American move on Iraq (and that's a big "if" given how unexplosive the Islamic world was last fall after U.S. war planes began pounding Taliban positions in Afghanistan), it's not easy to see how this would "destroy" the war effort against Islamist terrorism.

Military action against Iraq might not bode well for the less-than-musketeer-tight international coalition, but even that's up for debate. What would most likely be destroyed, or at least transformed, in a wider war that Scowcroft envisions, are the most wretched dictatorships of the region, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, all of which amount to a cartel -- the Organization of Terrorism-Exporting and Supporting Countries (OTESC) -- that must be broken.

This, of course, is not what Scowcroft sees in his crystal ball, although the former national security adviser isn't exactly known for either the clearest foresight (he told former President Bush it was a good idea to allow Hussein to retain power in 1991) or savviest hindsight (he still thinks it was). Even more myopically, he can't seem to picture Hussein in the terrorism business. "Saddam is a problem," he told the BBC. "But he's not a problem because of terrorism." Since President Bush's top priority is dismantling jihadist terror networks, Scowcroft has urged Bush to get back to the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and stay out of nonterrorist (says he) Iraq.

Scowcroft may not be privy to secret cables anymore, but presumably he has sufficient security clearance to read newspapers and magazines, some of which paint a very different picture of the dictator and his links to international terrorism. In this week's Weekly Standard, for example, Fred Barnes reports from Prague that Czech officials say they have a photograph of an April 2001 meeting between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi agent later expelled from the Czech Republic for espionage. While this same meeting has been pooh-poohed by some in the government and the media, Barnes cites the testimony of Martin Palous, the Czech ambassador to the United States, and public statements by both Czech prime minister Milos Zeman and interior minister Stanislav Gross, which all attest to the meeting. "While the meeting might not tie Saddam directly to [the Sept. 11] attacks," Barnes writes, "it does link Iraq to the Al Qaeda terrorist network."

And there's more. The Atta-friendly Iraqi agent, Ahmed al-Ani, was also spotted (and photographed) last year hanging around outside an American landmark in Prague -- the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty facility. This building, by the way, is regarded as one of the top four U.S. targets for Islamist terrorists in Europe. "At the very least," Barnes writes, "al-Ani's presence outside RFE/RL's headquarters and an [intercepted] Iraqi message saying RFE/RL broadcasts into Iraq must be stopped implicate Iraq in a scheme to disable an American facility."

It may be circumstantial, but evidence like this should help convince the average, non-former national security adviser to believe that, far from destroying the war on terror, a military campaign against Iraq is what it will take to get the next phase started.

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JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Up

08/06/02: Clinton snaps over Somalia
08/01/02: 9-11 anniversary shouldn't come with apology
07/27/02: An unstable common ground
07/25/02: Hillary fights hard for soft money
07/12/02: Goretheus unbound
07/10/02: Rosie takes a shine to Republicans
07/08/02: Are you still shocked, Sami?
07/02/02: Can Britney win hearts of the Middle East?
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06/25/02: Blame the murderer, and the messenger
06/21/02: Up front and personal with Atta
06/18/02: Terrorism at the United Nations
06/11/02: Who's policing the INS?
06/07/02: Spa Gitmo
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05/31/02: Hillary's war
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05/24/02: An antiquated luxury of the past
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05/07/02: Western self-loathing numbs us to violence
05/03/02: Pioneering television
05/01/02: Western self-loathing numbs us to violence
04/29/02: It's the misconduct, stupid
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02/06/02: Understanding arrogance
02/04/02: The professor's war
01/29/02: Disconnected dialogue
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01/15/02: Oh brothers, where art thou?
01/10/02: Air on the side of caution
01/04/02: Blacks seeing red at Harvard
01/02/02: Clinton's campaign continues
12/26/01: A tale of two exhibitions
12/24/01: Taliban Idyll
12/19/01: Right is right
12/17/01: Hillary strikes out
12/13/01: Lost files, lost presidency
12/10/01: Revolutionaries never grow up
12/05/01: Immigration reform talk is not just for 'haters' anymore
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11/09/01: A beef with bin Laden's Beef Noodles
11/07/01: Facing up to the FBI's past mistakes
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10/26/01: The ties that bind (and gag)
10/24/01: This war is more than Afghanistan
10/22/01: The fatuous fatwa
10/19/01: Left out
10/16/01: Whose definition of terrorism?
10/11/01: Post-stress disorder
10/08/01: How the West has won
10/01/01: Good, bad or ... diplomacy
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09/21/01: Prejudice or prudence?
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07/13/01: Justice has not been served in the Loiuma police brutality case
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06/15/01: Lieberman flaunts mantle of perpetual aggrievement
06/07/01: Is graciousness the culprit?
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05/29/01: Campus liberals should be more careful
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05/04/01: Foot in mouth disease and little lost Tories
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03/23/01: America's magazines and the 'ick-factor'
03/09/01: Felony neglect
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02/23/01: 'Ecumenical niceness' and other latter-day American gifts to the world
02/16/01: Elton and Eminem: Royal dirge-icist meets violent fantasist
02/12/01: If only ...

© 2001, Diana West