We’re Trying to Make War Halfway, and It Won’t Work

The United States has attacked Iraq. Leaving aside politically charged skepticism as to the timing of our strike, the basic question is: Will our military action make a meaningful and constructive difference in the Persian Gulf? Or is America just throwing a strategic tantrum?

I served in uniform for more than two decades. I believe that there are times when we have no choice but to use our military. But I also believe that our armed forces should be employed soberly and reluctantly. When we must make war, we need to do it resolutely, with clear goals and a firm commitment to achieve them. Half-measures guarantee failure.

The intolerable situation in Iraq has long called for a military response. Diplomacy does not work with today’s dictators any more than it did with Hitler at Munich. I have long favored attacking Saddam Hussein with the full weight of our military. But I fear that the current strike is the wrong action at the wrong time--too small an effort, with vague goals, launched in a fit of pique and without a serious commitment to force strategic change.

Our cruise missile attacks and air strikes create impressive video footage. With Iraq’s incompetent defenders firing wildly into the night sky over Baghdad, it appears as though a major conflict is underway. And our own forces, well-trained and courageous, are hitting their assigned targets. Yet appearances are deceiving. We are attacking Iraq with barely one-tenth of the aircraft we used in Desert Storm, when we hammered Saddam’s forces for six weeks without forcing him out. Now we are embarked upon a mini-campaign, likely of three to four days duration, under restrictions we did not face during the Gulf War. We are seeing at once the advantages--and real limits--of air power and technological solutions.

At the end of the day, it often takes boots on the ground and bare knuckles to force a strategic decision. We are trying to wage a safe, sanitary war. That is a contradiction in terms.

It is difficult to write about war and the taking of life at any time; especially hard in this holiday season. Yet the brutal truth--and it is a truth--is that warfare means killing human beings. Our forces clearly have been ordered to minimize enemy casualties and to concentrate their attacks on infrastructure targets: factories that might produce weapons of mass destruction, headquarters, air defense systems, military complexes and Saddam’s palaces. But the real problem in Iraq is not the enemy’s hardware but human will and human knowledge, from Saddam himself down to the scientists and program officers who have the knowledge to build monstrous weapons and on to the soldiers, secret police and bureaucrats who operate Iraq’s tyrannical regime. To imagine that we can achieve a decisive result without inflicting significant casualties on our opponent may be an appealing dream but it remains a dream. War means killing, and there is no getting around it.

From what we know as of this writing, our forces have struck a few targets within the Baghdad city limits, but only a few. We do not want to risk “collateral damage,” which means film clips of suffering or dead civilians. Yet Saddam, who understands us very well on a practical level, has purposely moved many of his key facilities into populated areas. Our failure to attack these facilities only reinforces the trend. It will be an even more difficult military challenge next time--and there will be a next time.

Further, a close listen to the administration’s leading figures, from the president to the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, makes it clear that, despite claims to the contrary, we do not have clearly defined, measurable goals for our military action. Instead, we have a Charles Dickens military policy, hoping, like Mr. Micawber, that “something will turn up.” We deny it, but we hope a fortunate bomb will kill Saddam. We hope he will back down. We hope he will change. We hope . . .

Our fighting men and women are doing their best, and their best is very good indeed. While we complete our holiday shopping, they are risking their lives far from home, under incredible stress. They deserve to be used more wisely. Our country owes them clear missions, unstinting support and a strategy worth the risks they undergo. Although our current attack will wound Saddam’s military and police-state capabilities--and we may get lucky, after all--I fear that the result, after the bomb fragments cool and the news teams come home, will be a great deal of sound and fury, signifying . . . not much.

You cannot make war halfway.