Did Saddam Plot to Kill Bush? : Retaliation would be in order only if proof is clear and convincing

The Clinton Administration is now viewing as “very serious” the possibility that Iraq plotted to murder former President George Bush when he was on a visit to Kuwait last month. High U.S. officials had earlier shrugged off Kuwait’s claim that it had foiled such a conspiracy.

Agents of the Secret Service, the FBI and the CIA have been sent to Kuwait to examine the explosives and other physical evidence seized when 16 members of an alleged assassination squad were arrested. The White House, while indicating it gives credence to the report of the plot, continues to be properly cautious in its public statements. But a number of responsible and influential members of Congress--among them House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), Sen. Patrick H. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.)--haven’t hesitated to raise the possibility of military retaliation if the case against Baghdad is proven.

Military strikes against Iraq are probably the last thing President Clinton wants to think about right now. Bosnia remains the uppermost problem on his foreign policy agenda, and trying to persuade the European allies to join with the United States in using force if necessary to halt the fighting in Bosnia remains his top objective. At the same time the military option against Iraq can’t be ruled out.

Iraq is an old hand at state-sponsored terrorism. If indeed the evidence shows that it conspired to kill Bush then it has invited severe retribution, for a plot against the life of the man who led the international coalition to repel Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait can only be interpreted as a plot against the United States itself. Later this month the U.N. Security Council is scheduled to review the status of the economic sanctions lodged against Iraq after its aggression. Information about the alleged plot against Bush almost certainly will figure in the council’s discussions.

That would not, of course, necessarily preclude unilateral U.S. action. First and vitally, however, the U.S. government must take care to independently satisfy itself that the evidence pointing to Iraq’s murderous intention is concrete, unambiguous and convincing.