Iraq--a Familiar Conundrum

It need not be a “Familiar Conundrum for the White House” (front page, Sept. 19). We now all know that the U.S.-led United Nations forces should have gone farther. Even the President, although he has justified stopping when and where we did, has not disputed that, in retrospect, it may have been better to have continued one more day, 125 miles.

But why is it that it is permitted to venture into Iraq to outflank Saddam Hussein’s army but not permissible to seek out and neutralize Hussein? Why is it tolerable to speak of isolating and destroying an army only to become selectively “civilized” when the question of ultimate responsibility is brought into focus? We arrested Manuel Noriega in Panama on lesser crimes; we have reordered priorities when renowned criminals attempted to hide behind the loopholes of civil rights. What would history have said had we the chance to bring Hitler to account and blew it? What will history say when we let Hussein scoot off to exile, thumb his nose at the civilized world or rebuild his arsenal--content with knowing that he got away with murder on a scale seldom heard of?

It is time to indict Hussein and to send in the marshals to bring him personally to stand before the international bar of justice.

LAWRENCE R. GORDON

Los Angeles