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 * Originally By: Scott Hansen
 * Originally To: All
 * Originally Re: C-NEWS: VANGUARD:  Why Ir
 * Original Date: 02-21-98  22:38
 * Original Area: GOP POLITICS
 * Forwarded by : Blue Wave/DOS v2.30
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 03:47:17 -0500 (EST)
 
 
                        WHY IRAQ, MR. CLINTON?
                          17 February 1998
 
                    Copyright 1998, Rod D. Martin
 
                    "Vanguard of the Revolution"
 
CROSSPOST:
 
 
As the President rushes headlong into war, and as Republican leaders fall
 all over themselves to ignore his reason for doing so, one question
bears  asking, and seems to have been asked by no one:  Why Iraq?  Ask
this  question at the coffee shop tomorrow morning and you'll get a room
of  blank stares.
 
In 1991 it was a question to which there was a clear answer:  Iraq had
invaded and conquered Kuwait and appeared to be on its way to Mecca, by
way of Ras Tanura of course.  Saddam had brutalized his new subject
people in unspeakable ways, and sought to create a new pan-Arab kingdom
that would hold the world's economy by the throat.  He had the fourth
largest army in the world, and he had just used it.  No one had to ask
"Why Iraq?" then.
 
Today, however, it is rather harder to envision the Butcher of Baghdad as
 a modern-day Hitler.  The President warns of the threat of Iraqi
"weapons  of mass destruction."  Never mind the fact that Iraq has very
little  effective means to deliver such weapons; what Iraq has is by now
very  limited indeed.  Its primitive nuclear program has been dismantled.
 Most  of its chemical and biological stores have been destroyed.
There's  simply not much left to bomb.
 
A brief look at Saddam's neighbors brings the question into stark relief.
  If Saddam is threat enough to send us to war, these countries ought to
have us on full nuclear alert.  A summary follows, statistics courtesy of
 the Toronto Sun's Eric Margolis:
 
* Syria:  One of the chief sponsors of terrorism in the region, Syria has
 200 Scud-B missiles with 985kg VX nerve gas warheads, as well as sixty
longer-range Scud-C's with cluster warhead bomblets packed with deadly VX
 nerve agent. These are primarily a counter-threat to Israel's nuclear
arsenal, but obviously have all the same uses attributed to Saddam's
drastically lesser force.
 
* Iran:  The other major terrorist state, Iran has a stockpile of 2,000
tons of blistering, choking, blood and some nerve agents, as well as
limited bio-weapons research.  Iran has no long-range missile system at
present, but is developing a significant missile capability with help
from Russia and China.  Iran is also rumored to have successfully
recruited a large number of former Soviet nuclear scientists and obtained
 a quantity of plutonium.
 
* Egypt:  Israel's less-than-stable southern neighbor presently deploys
chemical weaponry delivered by fighters and short-range missiles.
Margolis has reported on a small, top-secret biowarfare project begun in
the early 1960's in response to Israel's nuclear program, including
plague and warheads packed with highly radioactive Strontium-90 and
Cesium.
 
* Turkey:  Our military coup-prone NATO ally fields a limited air and
artillery based chemical weapons system, including mustard gas it appears
 to have used (like Saddam) against Kurdish rebels.
 
* Libya:  One of the major terrorist states in the '80s, Col. Khadaffi
has a limited chemical/biological warfare capability, as well as a
significant effort to produce highly-deadly anthrax weapons. Libya still
has no long-range missiles, but has repeatedly proved an ability to
smuggle bombs wherever it wants.
 
* Pakistan:  This occasional U.S. ally has 20 air-delivered nuclear
weapons and is working on nuclear warheads for its new Al-Hatf missiles.
 Also in the arsenal:  blistering, choking and V-series nerve agents VX
and VS.
 
* India: The regional superpower wannabe has at minimum 60 nuclear
weapons and capacity to make 50 more per year.  India can deliver these
by air, artillery, soon `Prithvi' missile and, later, `Agni' intermediate
 range ballistic missile. It has a chemical arsenal of many thousand tons
 of mustard and nerve gas, as well as some advanced germ warfare research.
 
* Israel:  The Mideast's sole nuclear power has 200-400 nuclear air and
missile-delivered warheads (not counting nuclear mines), reportedly
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