A Clear Case Against Iraq

If President Clinton said little new about the looming military confrontation with Iraq in his remarks at the Pentagon on Monday, it’s because the facts behind the crisis are well known and the basic case for American policy has long since been made. There is little need for novel embellishments. Saddam Hussein continues to deny U.N. inspectors unrestricted access to sites where he is believed to be hiding prohibited weapons of mass destruction and the means for making them.

If he prevails in that defiance, Iraq will again become an unequivocal danger to international security, able to threaten not only its neighbors but countries far distant with the deadliest of chemical and biological agents. It is to forestall this danger that the United States, along with Britain and a few other allies, is prepared to use military force.

A preferable course, Clinton has said repeatedly, is a diplomatic solution: “Iraq must agree, and soon, to free, full and unfettered access to these sites anywhere in the country.” This is what Iraq committed itself to after the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Had its promised cooperation been given, economic sanctions would long ago have been eased or ended, the Iraqi people’s sufferings would have been alleviated and U.S. ships and planes would not today be awaiting a possible order to attack.

But Hussein did not keep his word. As U.N. inspectors have reported for years, at virtually every step he has sought to obstruct their work. Those who call for still more patience and delay should review that record and try to find in it any hint that Iraq may yet choose to cooperate unequivocally with the inspection process.

If force is used, its realistic and achievable goal would be to weaken the security underpinnings of his regime and at least set back further development of his terror weapons. Even this limited objective is resisted by some who see economic profit or political value in opposing U.S. policy, including countries that would be among the first victims of a rearmed Iraq. That others refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of the threat should not inhibit Washington from taking what measures American interests require.

U.S. readiness to use air strikes is not risk-free, and the contemplated assault will not definitively resolve the weapons problem. But an implacable Iraq has made readiness to turn to the military option necessary, even inescapable.