A Strike on Terror

No American officials involved in the air attacks on Iraq expect them to eliminate the covert chemical and biological weapons programs that Saddam Hussein has pursued at such great cost to his country over the seven years since the Gulf War. Many of the sites where these weapons are hidden remain unknown and can be expected to survive this week’s bombing campaign.

The realistic aim of the bombing is twofold. One is to diminish Iraq’s terror weapons capability, in part by going after the missiles, planes and bombs needed to deliver them. The other is to make Hussein pay for his intransigence by attacking the military and security apparatus that props up his dictatorship. President Clinton and his national security aides have suggested that this could become an ongoing effort, perhaps suspended during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins Sunday, but one that could be reactivated to weaken Hussein and contain Iraq’s power to intimidate its neighbors.

This is a credible strategy, especially since it now appears that the long-stymied U.N. weapons inspection program is at an end. The question is whether it is a sustainable strategy. For now, most foreign reaction to the U.S.-British air operations has been supportive or neutral, with the predictable exceptions of China, France and Russia.

Support at home is critical too and likely to be damaged by remarks like Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s reckless suggestion Wednesday--one that he later hedged--that the timing of the raids might be related to scheduled commencement of impeachment hearings in the House. Maintaining broad backing if airstrikes are resumed after Ramadan will be harder, since in many quarters the underlying provocation--Iraq’s interference with the arms inspectors--will have shrunk in significance.

That’s why it becomes more important than ever to keep before world leaders the magnitude of the threat inherent in Iraq’s terror weapons program. Thanks to documentation uncovered earlier by the U.N. inspectors, Iraq has had to admit it had produced a spectrum of chemical and biological agents of indiscriminately murderous potential. The inspectors have also found great discrepancies between the volume of chemical and germ weapons that Iraq has conceded making and what the huge amounts of raw materials it imported show it was capable of producing. The fearsome evidence is that Iraq produced enough toxic agents to potentially wipe out all human life.

Only a portion of these materials has been found and destroyed. The United Nations inspectors apparently will have no further chance to find more. Iraq, in short, remains an international menace of fearsome proportions, with a record of using terror weapons both on the battlefield, against Iran, and against its domestic foes. That justifies the use of force to contain Saddam Hussein’s legions and to try to compel a change in its leadership and behavior.