Cheney’s ‘Compassion’ Ploy and the Democrats

By Ed Offley

Vice President Dick Cheney has a longstanding reputation as a firm, no-nonsense political leader whose style can best be described as bloodless but blunt, cool and anti-charismatic. So his speech on Monday on the need to topple Saddam Hussein was surprising for its compassion.

Not compassion against the Iraqi dictator, whom Cheney correctly identified as the embodiment of “a mortal threat” confronting the United States, the western world  and especially the nations of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Rather, the vice president showed compassionate restraint in avoiding explicit criticism of the Clinton administration for its deliberate inattention over eight years to the growing threat from both Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program and the al Qaeda terrorist network – a pattern of political denial and nonfeasance that did much to create the world crisis we now must confront.

This is what Cheney said to the Veterans of Foreign Wars:

“What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness. We will not simply look away, hope for the best, and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve.”

That is a masterfully concise description of the Clinton administration’s eight-year foreign policy record toward Iraq and the new “terrorist underworld” infesting more than five dozen countries around the world. And despite the intense “spin” by many former Clinton administration officials in recent weeks to portray the former president as a stalwart anti-terrorist warrior, the facts starkly dictate otherwise.

One convert to candor was former Clinton pollster Dick Morris, who last January wrote a scathing column based on his direct observation of the former president’s reactions to the growing terrorism threat: “For all of his willingness to act courageously and decisively - against the advice of his liberal staff - on issues like deficit reduction and welfare reform, [Clinton] was passive and almost inert on terrorism in his first term. … Everything was more important than fighting terrorism. Political correctness, civil liberties concerns, fear of offending the administration's supporters, [Attorney General] Janet Reno's objections, considerations of cost, worries about racial profiling and, in the second term, surviving impeachment, all came before fighting terrorism.”

Why is this relevant as the Bush administration moves to win support for a campaign against Iraq from the American people, Congress and our allies?

Because there are so few new facts at hand. Consider Cheney’s articulation of the threat in his speech on Monday:

* We face a network of al Qaeda terrorist cells spread over more than 60 countries, with growing albeit indirect evidence they have received support from both Iraq and hard-line elements in Iran.

* Despite Iraq’s agreement to abide by United Nations Resolution 687 after the 1991 Gulf War requiring that it cease all efforts to develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, Saddam Hussein “systematically” broke all agreements, hindered U.N. weapons inspectors and continued a “cheat and retreat” policy to develop WMD capabilities.

* In the past 22 years, Iraq has invaded two countries (Iran and Kuwait), fired ballistic missiles at three countries (Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran), and has used WMD weapons against both Iran and its Kurdish opponents within Iraq itself.

* Saddam continuously challenged the allied “no fly” patrols over northern and southern Iraq from the day they started until now.

* Saddam dispatched a team of assassins to Kuwait in an unsuccessful attempt to murder former President George H.W. Bush during a visit there.

(Excerpts of Cheney’s speech appear below in this Special Report.)

Apart from the 9/11 terrorist attacks themselves, all of the events cited by Cheney were already known or took place on Bill Clinton’s watch (and the terrorist preparations for 9/11 did begin during Clinton’s last term).

That is what makes the Bush administration’s effort to marshal support for taking out Saddam Hussein both simple and challenging at the same time.

It should be relatively simple because the nation and the world have had ample time to study and digest Iraq’s pattern of deliberate aggression and its growing threat as a supporter of terrorism and developer of WMD weapons. Years and years.

But building a bipartisan consensus will still take great tact because of the difficulty in articulating the facts of the Iraqi threat when those very facts so clearly indict the Clinton administration and its liberal Democratic allies for their colossal failure to identify and take effective action as this threat emerged and continued to grow.

It is revealing that the loud political debate that has recently erupted over taking military action against Iraq is being conducted primarily within the Republican Party, with GOP hawks (Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Henry Kissinger) exchanging op-ed and news-leak broadsides with GOP doves (Brent Scowcroft, Colin Powell). With the rare exceptions of Democratic Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Joseph Biden, who both support U.S. military action, the Democrats are collectively biting their tongues.

Given the facts – 45 of 55 Senate Democrats and 179 of 265 House Democrats voted against authorizing military force against Iraq in 1991, and the Clinton administration’s dismal performance during its eight years in power – the Democrats’ silence is deafening.

Cheney’s restraint on Monday regarding the facts of the Democratic Party’s track record therefore suggests a shrewd ploy: Offering them a last chance, after 12 years of nonfeasance, to do the right thing – join the administration in a bipartisan campaign to rid the world of the Iraqi threat.

We’ll see.

Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.

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The Terror King is Dead - Long Live the King!

By Robert G. Williscroft

Last Wednesday evening in Baghdad, Sabri al-Bana put a Smith & Wesson into his mouth and blew off the back of his head. Then, just to be sure, he put another three bullets into his brain.

Al-Bana was nothing, if not thorough.

According to local Iraqi authorities, al-Bana, known to the world as Abu Nidal, notorious terrorist, had been on the lam for at least three years after he illegally entered Iraq using a fake Yemeni passport. Apparently he crossed the Iran-Iraq border in 1999 at the al-Munziriya station under an assumed name, and then disappeared into the rabbit warrens of old Baghdad where he lived and functioned for three years before the authorities accidentally stumbled upon his lair.

In the ensuing gun battle, according to Iraqi authorities, several of his supporters (read bodyguards) were killed before al-Bana took his own life.

So, who was this guy, the terrorist who founded the Fatah-Revolutionary Council and captured the attention of a significant part of Iraq's intelligence service?

According to Atef Abu Bakr, who was a senior member of the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, al-Bana masterminded the destruction of New York-bound Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing 259 passengers and crew and 11 residents of the Scottish village.

Bakr quoted al-Bana speaking to an inner-circle meeting of the leadership of the Fatah-Revolutionary Council: "I will tell you something very important and serious, the reports which link the Lockerbie act to others are false reports. We are behind what happened." And then he promised that if anybody leaked what he had said, "I will kill him, even if he is in the arms of his wife."

Al-Bana was one of 13 children, born in 1937 to a wealthy citrus planter. He grew up in Nablus on the West Bank, and joined Arafat's Fatah movement in 1960. Al-Bana was a rising star in the PLO, and became its Khartoum and later Baghdad representative. Somewhere along the way he assumed the nom de guerre Abu Nidal, which means 'father of the struggle.' Eventually, Nidal split with Arafat and set up his rival group: the Fatah-Revolutionary Council.

Nidal unleashed a reign of terror across the region against anyone, Arab, Jew or otherwise, who disagreed with him. His Black June operation killed PLO representatives in London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Kuwait, and bombed the Islamabad PLO office.

In 1982, he attempted to assassinate Israel's ambassador to England. The aftermath of this bumbled operation was Israel's invasion of Lebanon to root out Palestinian guerrilla groups, and Nidal moved to Iraq. He launched a rocket attack against a Jordanian airliner in 1984 while it was taking off from Athens. Nidal assassinated the British cultural attaché in Athens, the British deputy high commissioner in Bombay, and a Jordanian diplomat in Ankara.

In 1983, Iraq expelled Nidal to curry U.S. support for its war against Iran. He moved to Damascus and cozied up Syrian intelligence.

In 1985, Nidal attacked Israeli airline check-in desks at Rome and Vienna, killing 19 people. In September 1986, he attempted to hijack a Pan Am jumbo jet at Karachi, killing 22 and wounding 100. Later, he slaughtered 22 Jews at an Istanbul synagogue. In July 1988, he killed nine more Jews on a Greek ferry.

Nidal financed his operations as an international arms dealer, and from his lucrative international extortion schemes. For additional pay, he and his people performed the dirty work for his Arab backers and even Iraqi intelligence.

By the early 1990s, Nidal developed heart disease and cancer. His last attack was in 1994, the assassination of Jordanian diplomat Naeb Imran Maaytah, first secretary at the Jordanian Embassy in Beirut.

Nidal and the Fatah-Revolutionary Council were no longer welcome in the region. He became the target of the CIA, Jordanian secret services, and Mossad, often working in concert.

Former CIA agent Duane 'Dewey' Clarridge writes in his memoirs that the CIA tried to turn his operatives by offering them large rewards. The CIA never penetrated the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, but those who told Nidal of the operation were tortured and killed, with some buried alive.

Seymour Hersh, veteran intelligence writer, reports that Jordanian agents seized the mothers and brothers of Fatah-Revolutionary Council members, and used them to force the terrorists into the open.

A Jordanian military court sentenced Abu Nidal and four other defendants to death for masterminding the 1994 assassination of Maaytah.

Nidal's closest associates say that he never would have committed suicide, and - as President Bush noted - four bullets in the head is rather difficult to do without help. In his final days, Nidal appears to have been cooperating with anti-Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Tahhir Jalil Haboush, the head of Iraqi Intelligence, told reporters on Aug. 21 that Nidal was found with documents of a planned U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The truth is elusive. There is no doubt that Nidal (ne al-Bana) is dead, but the who, how, and why probably never will be resolved. One less terrorist murderer, however, is still good news.

Robert G. Williscroft is DefenseWatch Navy Editor. He can be reached at dwnavyeditor@argee.net.

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Saddam Has His Own Problems

By Andrea West

Several years before the 1991 Gulf War, while attending Basic Training at Lackland AFB, Tex., I was walking with two fellow female recruits one day when we came upon three men in odd-looking military uniforms. Instead of acknowledging us, they turned up their noses and ignored us. 

One of my friends noted that Iraqi Air Force enlisted members were said to be studying at Lackland. Studying what, she did not know, but you may be sure that it did not stand America in good stead in 1991.

That small but vivid personal encounter came back to me recently as I was reviewing current information on the Iraqi military.

Saddam, having sent his troops abroad to be educated by the very enemy whom he would face in 1991 (and is likely to face again, and soon), has a number of domestic problems that – having simmered for the last ten years or more – may make his life difficult and create advantages for the United States when it decides to attack.

To start with, Iraq has a slight surplus male population. As with the United States, the sex ratio at birth is 1.05 males to each female. In the age ranges of 15-64 years, however, the ratio of males to females drops in the United States to 0.98 males to each female. In Iraq, a ratio of 1.03 males to each female holds true until the age cohort of 65 and older. 

What this means is that there is a sizeable population of unattached males in Iraq, kicking around with lots of energy that needs to be channeled.

As in the case of Saudi Arabia, the men are quite educated compared with women. About  71 percent of men are literate, as opposed to 45 percent of women. But these men have fewer opportunities to put their literacy and skills to use than they would in a freer society, even in the Third World. This constitutes a recipe for unrest, as literate people see opportunities in the outside world that are denied to them in their own country.

Naturally, Saddam has provided for just such a contingency, in the form of compulsory military service. According to The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, the Iraqi armed forces consist of 429,000 active duty, 650,000 reserve, and 45,000-50,000 paramilitary troops.

The compulsory recruitment age is 18 (although some instances of younger children in the Iraqi forces were reported during the Gulf War). In practice, all men between the ages of 18 and 45 are liable for military service. The usual term is for two years, with 1.5 years for university students and college graduates. College students can postpone their term of service until completing their studies, except during times of war.  Whether or not these Iraqis are happy with the exchange, of course, is up to question.

Recalling the reports of ragged, starving troops surrendering en masse to allied forces during the Gulf War, it is pertinent to wonder: exactly how well does Iraq take care of its troops nowadays? Granted, the Gulf War took place almost on the heels of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, before Iraq had time to adequately resupply or come up with fresh troops.  But Iraq has had ten years of relative stability in which to rearm, courtesy of Syria, China and North Korea. In addition, ten years’ worth of fresh troops are on the scene.

Some reports indicate that even elements of the Republican Guard are on the verge of mutiny, and that Saddam has ringed his bunker with only his most loyal and best-armed troops. It is probably not wise, however, to rely on these assessments. While there are undoubtedly resentments against Saddam, most of these come from people whom the regime has oppressed for years. Still, while these groups lack firepower and clout, even their passive assistance to the Allies would be of great benefit.

Principal among the regime’s opponents are the ethnic populations he has displaced. From 1998-2000 the Iraqi government undertook the expulsion of Kurds and other non-Arab peoples from the area of Kirkuk and Mosul. Saddam placed Baath party members in charge of this directive, and granted them immunity in carrying it out. The Norwegian Refugee Council recently reported that the motivation for this displacement had a lot to do with oil in a region held by the Kurds. The regime has actively settled Arab families from the South in the evacuated areas, in an effort to make the population “Arabized” and presumably more loyal to Saddam.

To prevent returns to the region, the Iraqi government mined the area (allied forces take note), set up checkpoints, and demolished Kurdish structures. To ensure compliance with the deportation order, the local Baath party members took children hostage from the families scheduled for eviction. Some Kurdish families went north, despite a government decree that if they did so they would forfeit both their property and their ration cards.

In the southern “no-fly” zone, the Iraqi regime has drained the marshlands in an effort to deny shelter to Shi'a dissidents who fled there after the failed 1991 uprising. Since then, the Iraqis have burned and shelled villages and conducted armed raids into the Marshlands.  People who live in the area have the option to accept forced resettlement or to turn refugee and flee the country.

In sum, Saddam has many enemies, most of whom are within his own borders. With the Bush administration working with exiled dissident groups, and with his borders surrounded by U.S. and British troops, Saddam is slowly being caught in a trap partly of his own making. It remains to be seen, however, whether the rat will escape again.

Andrea West is DefenseWatch Veterans' Editor.  She can be reached at defensewatchvet@yahoo.com.

For the Record: The Case Against Saddam Hussein

Editor’s Note: The following are excerpts from Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd National Convention on Monday, Aug. 26, 2002.

By Dick Cheney

The danger to America requires action on many fronts all at once. We are reorganizing the federal government to protect the nation against further attack. The new Department of Homeland Security will gather under one roof the capability to identify threats, to check them against our vulnerabilities, and to move swiftly to protect the nation.

At the same time, we realize that wars are never won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy. We will take every step necessary to make sure our country is secure, and we will prevail.

Much has happened since the attacks of 9/11. But as Secretary [of Defense Donald H.] Rumsfeld has put it, we are still closer to the beginning of this war than we are to its end. The United States has entered a struggle of years – a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy. The terrorists who struck America are ruthless, they are resourceful, and they hide in many countries. They came into our country to murder thousands of innocent men, women and children. There is no doubt they wish to strike again, and that they are working to acquire the deadliest of all weapons.

Against such enemies, America and the civilized world have only one option: wherever terrorists operate, we must find them where they dwell, stop them in their planning, and one by one bring them to justice.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban regime and al Qaeda terrorists have met the fate they chose for themselves. And they saw, up-close and personal, the new methods and capabilities of America's armed services.  May I say, as a former Secretary of Defense, that I have never been more proud of the America's military. 

The combination of advantages already seen in this conflict – precision power from the air, real-time intelligence, special forces, the long reach of naval task forces, and close coordination with local forces, represents a dramatic advance in our ability to engage and defeat the enemy. These advantages will only become more vital in future campaigns. President Bush has often spoken of how America can keep the peace by redefining war on our terms. That means that our armed services must have every tool to answer any threat that forms against us. It means that any enemy conspiring to harm America or our friends must face a swift, a certain and a devastating response. 

As always in America's armed forces, the single most important asset we have is the man or woman who steps forward and puts on the uniform of this great nation. Much has been asked of our military this past year, and more will be asked in the months and the years ahead. Those who serve are entitled to expect many things from us in return. They deserve the very best weapons, the best equipment, the best support, and the best training we can possibly provide them. And under President Bush they will have them all. …

Under the Bush Doctrine, a regime that harbors or supports terrorists will be regarded as hostile to the United States.

The Taliban has already learned that lesson, but Afghanistan was only the beginning of a lengthy campaign. Were we to stop now, any sense of security we might have would be false and temporary. There is a terrorist underworld out there, spread among more than 60 countries. The job we have will require every tool at our means of diplomacy, of finance, of intelligence, of law enforcement, and of military power. But we will, over time, find and defeat the enemies of the United States. …

But the challenges to our country involve more than just tracking down a single person or one small group. Nine-eleven and its aftermath awakened this nation to danger, to the true ambitions of the global terror network, and to the reality that weapons of mass destruction are being sought by determined enemies who would not hesitate to use them against us.

It is a certainty that the al Qaeda network is pursuing such weapons, and has succeeded in acquiring at least a crude capability to use them. We found evidence of their efforts in the ruins of al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. And we've seen in recent days additional confirmation in videos recently shown on CNN – pictures of al Qaeda members training to commit acts of terror, and testing chemical weapons on dogs. Those terrorists who remain at large are determined to use these capabilities against the United States and our friends and allies around the world.

As we face this prospect, old doctrines of security do not apply. In the days of the Cold War, we were able to manage the threat with strategies of deterrence and containment. But it's a lot tougher to deter enemies who have no country to defend. And containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction, and are prepared to share them with terrorists who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States.

The case of Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires a candid appraisal of the facts. After his defeat in the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam agreed under to U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 to cease all development of weapons of mass destruction. He agreed to end his nuclear weapons program. He agreed to destroy his chemical and his biological weapons. He further agreed to admit U.N. inspection teams into his country to ensure that he was in fact complying with these terms.

In the past decade, Saddam has systematically broken each of these agreements. The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents. And they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago. These are not weapons for the purpose of defending Iraq; these are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam can hold the threat over the head of anyone he chooses, in his own region or beyond.

On the nuclear question, many of you will recall that Saddam's nuclear ambitions suffered a severe setback in 1981 when the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor. They suffered another major blow in Desert Storm and its aftermath.

But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we've gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors – including Saddam's own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction. Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.

Just how soon, we cannot really gauge. Intelligence is an uncertain business, even in the best of circumstances. This is especially the case when you are dealing with a totalitarian regime that has made a science out of deceiving the international community. Let me give you just one example of what I mean.

Prior to the Gulf War, America's top intelligence analysts would come to my office in the Defense Department and tell me that Saddam Hussein was at least five or perhaps even 10 years away from having a nuclear weapon. After the war we learned that he had been much closer than that, perhaps within a year of acquiring such a weapon.

Saddam also devised an elaborate program to conceal his active efforts to build chemical and biological weapons. And one must keep in mind the history of U.N. inspection teams in Iraq. Even as they were conducting the most intrusive system of arms control in history, the inspectors missed a great deal. Before being barred from the country, the inspectors found and destroyed thousands of chemical weapons, and hundreds of tons of mustard gas and other nerve agents.

Yet Saddam Hussein had sought to frustrate and deceive them at every turn, and was often successful in doing so. I'll cite one instance. During the spring of 1995, the inspectors were actually on the verge of declaring that Saddam's programs to develop chemical weapons and longer-range ballistic missiles had been fully accounted for and shut down.

Then Saddam's son-in-law suddenly defected and began sharing information. Within days the inspectors were led to an Iraqi chicken farm. Hidden there were boxes of documents and lots of evidence regarding Iraq's most secret weapons programs. That should serve as a reminder to all that we often learned more as the result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself.

To the dismay of the inspectors, they in time discovered that Saddam had kept them largely in the dark about the extent of his program to mass produce VX, one of the deadliest chemicals known to man. And far from having shut down Iraq's prohibited missile programs, the inspectors found that Saddam had continued to test such missiles, almost literally under the noses of the U.N. inspectors.

Against that background, a person would be right to question any suggestion that we should just get inspectors back into Iraq, and then our worries will be over. Saddam has perfected the game of cheat and retreat, and is very skilled in the art of denial and deception. A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow “back in his box.”

Meanwhile, he would continue to plot. Nothing in the last dozen years has stopped him – not his agreements; not the discoveries of the inspectors; not the revelations by defectors; not criticism or ostracism by the international community; and not four days of bombings by the U.S. in 1998. What he wants is time and more time to husband his resources, to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons programs, and to gain possession of nuclear arms.

Should all his ambitions be realized, the implications would be enormous for the Middle East, for the United States, and for the peace of the world. The whole range of weapons of mass destruction then would rest in the hands of a dictator who has already shown his willingness to use such weapons, and has done so, both in his war with Iran and against his own people.

Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors – confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is no basis in Saddam Hussein's conduct or history to discount any of the concerns that I am raising this morning. We are, after all, dealing with the same dictator who shoots at American and British pilots in the no-fly zone, on a regular basis, the same dictator who dispatched a team of assassins to murder former President Bush as he traveled abroad, the same dictator who invaded Iran and Kuwait, and has fired ballistic missiles at Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, the same dictator who has been on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism for the better part of two decades.

In the face of such a threat, we must proceed with care, deliberation, and consultation with our allies. I know our president very well. I've worked beside him as he directed our response to the events of 9/11. I know that he will proceed cautiously and deliberately to consider all possible options to deal with the threat that an Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein represents. And I am confident that he will, as he has said he would, consult widely with the Congress and with our friends and allies before deciding upon a course of action. He welcomes the debate that has now been joined here at home, and he has made it clear to his national security team that he wants us to participate fully in the hearings that will be held in Congress next month on this vitally important issue. …

America in the year 2002 must ask careful questions, not merely about our past, but also about our future. The elected leaders of this country have a responsibility to consider all of the available options. And we are doing so. What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness. We will not simply look away, hope for the best, and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve.

As President Bush has said, time is not on our side. Deliverable weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terror network, or a murderous dictator, or the two working together, constitutes as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.

Now and in the future, the United States will work closely with the global coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. And the entire world must know that we will take whatever action is necessary to defend our freedom and our security.

As former Secretary of State Kissinger recently stated: “The imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system, and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combine to produce an imperative for preemptive action.” If the United States could have preempted 9/11, we would have, no question. Should we be able to prevent another, much more devastating attack, we will, no question. This nation will not live at the mercy of terrorists or terror regimes. 

I am familiar with the arguments against taking action in the case of Saddam Hussein. Some concede that Saddam is evil, power-hungry, and a menace – but that, until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons, we should rule out any preemptive action. That logic seems to me to be deeply flawed. The argument comes down to this: yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is, we just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it.

Yet if we did wait until that moment, Saddam would simply be emboldened, and it would become even harder for us to gather friends and allies to oppose him. As one of those who worked to assemble the Gulf War coalition, I can tell you that our job then would have been infinitely more difficult in the face of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein. And many of those who now argue that we should act only if he gets a nuclear weapon, would then turn around and say that we cannot act because he has a nuclear weapon. At bottom, that argument counsels a course of inaction that itself could have devastating consequences for many countries, including our own.

Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace.

As for the reaction of the Arab “street,” the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are “sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.” Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.

The reality is that these times bring not only dangers but also opportunities. In the Middle East, where so many have known only poverty and oppression, terror and tyranny, we look to the day when people can live in freedom and dignity and the young can grow up free of the conditions that breed despair, hatred, and violence.

In other times the world saw how the United States defeated fierce enemies, then helped rebuild their countries, forming strong bonds between our peoples and our governments. Today in Afghanistan, the world is seeing that America acts not to conquer but to liberate, and remains in friendship to help the people build a future of stability, self-determination, and peace.

We would act in that same spirit after a regime change in Iraq. With our help, a liberated Iraq can be a great nation once again. Iraq is rich in natural resources and human talent, and has unlimited potential for a peaceful, prosperous future. Our goal would be an Iraq that has territorial integrity, a government that is democratic and pluralistic, a nation where the human rights of every ethnic and religious group are recognized and protected. In that troubled land all who seek justice, and dignity, and the chance to live their own lives, can know they have a friend and ally in the United States of America.

Great decisions and challenges lie ahead of us. Yet we can and we will build a safer and better world beyond the war on terror.

Emails to Vice President Cheney can be sent to vice.president@whitehouse.gov.

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By Matthew Dodd

The U.S. military is currently under siege. This threat is not from foreign religious fundamentalist fanatics, nor any conventional military force such as Iraq.

Yet this threat is potentially more destructive and tougher to fight than the war against terrorism: a domestic alliance of environmental activists whose philosophy is, “The environment first at all costs, military readiness a distant second.”

These are not Americans with treasonous beliefs, but rather people with good intentions. But environmental activists and their vast network of like-minded supporters demonstrate a distorted perspective of overall national security.

They are skilled in “swarming attrition tactics” with their primary weapons being their legal and legislative expertise, and public media access and influence. They fight their battles in the air, on land, at sea and even in the land. Tactics often include multiple, simultaneous assaults on active and inactive live-fire training ranges, maneuver areas and supporting facilities that can – if executed synergistically – effectively halt current training and discourage future training.

According to a General Accounting Office (GAO) report published in June 2002 (“Military Training: DOD Lacks a Comprehensive Plan to Manage Encroachment on Training Ranges,”), environmental activism is taking a toll on U.S. military readiness:

“Senior Department of Defense and military service officials have testified before Congress that they face increasing difficulties in carrying out realistic training at military installations, the GAO report stated. “According to the officials, there are eight so-called “encroachment” issues that affect or have the potential to affect military training and readiness.”

The eight encroachment issues listed by the GAO are: endangered species habitat on military installations, unexploded ordnance and munitions constituents, competition for radio frequency spectrum, protected marine resources, competition for airspace, air pollution, noise pollution, and urban growth around military installations.

“Whenever possible, the services work around these issues by modifying the timing, tempo, and location of training, as well as the equipment used,” the report continued. “However, defense officials have expressed concern that these workarounds are becoming increasingly difficult and costly and that they compromise the realism essential to effective training.”

The Pentagon defines encroachment as “the cumulative result of any and all outside influences that inhibit normal military training and testing.”

What does all the bureaucratic language mean to the average warrior who wants to hone his or her warfighting skills? Let me share with you some of the results of some “outside influences that inhibit normal military training and testing” from some of our military bases and training areas:

* No digging, no tree or brush cutting, and no “habitat destruction” throughout the year in designated endangered species’ areas.

* Vehicle and dismounted maneuver training is restricted to established trails and roads, and halts are limited to two hours in designated endangered species areas.

* Artillery firing, smoke generation, and chemical (riot control) grenades are prohibited within 100 meters of the boundaries of the designated areas.

* Air quality restrictions prohibit training with graphite smoke. Particulate matter standards could restrict the amount of fog oil used for smoke training and dust from maneuver during unit rotation training.

* At one installation, 72 percent of its land area is defined as critical habitat. No endangered species are currently located on the installation. The forests must be managed for habitat vice training.

* Use of all smoke is limited to certain atmospheric conditions and/or for a limited period. Due to close proximity to civilian areas, use of smoke prohibited in 3 km. area within/along the installation boundary.

* Certain range areas are off limits during the species’ nesting season.

* Preferred naval bombing range is off limits since it is located in a marine sanctuary resulting in concerns about turtle nesting and marine mammals.

* Occasional disruptions to test activities related to pressure from the Federal Aviation Administration to give up or curtail use of restricted airspace.

* No night firing of artillery or mortars beyond certain times due to civilian noise standards.

* Civilian concerns over cleanup of former military sites lead to increased public scrutiny (restrictions and prohibitions) of activities on current active ranges.

* Vieques, Puerto Rico is now limited to only 90 training days per year with no live ordnance.

The GAO report concluded, “Over time, the impact of encroachment on training ranges has gradually increased. While the effect varies by service and individual installation, in general encroachment has limited the extent to which training ranges are available or the types of training that can be conducted. This limits units’ ability to train as they would expect to fight and/or requires units to work around the problem.”

On the other hand, the report also noted that the services do a poor job of documenting training readiness deficiencies resulting from encroachment, and the costs associated with using “work-around” solutions to encroachment problems. GAO’s research into service readiness reporting showed that training readiness remains high, and when training readiness was reported at lower levels, service analysts rarely cited a lack of adequate training areas or excessive encroachment training restrictions. Also, no comprehensive system or process exists to adequately capture the costs of being forced to legally find ways to work around environmental restrictions to accomplish the realistic training needed to maintain warfighting readiness.

As a result, numerous questions remain unanswered.

How do you measure the cost of altering your unit’s normal planning process so as to not disturb the habitat of sensitive or endangered species? How do you explain to grieving parents that their son or daughter was killed or injured in combat by a weapon or piece of ordnance that they were not allowed to train with properly during peacetime because of overly-restrictive environmental regulations? What is the real cost of hiring, training, and supporting a growing number of personnel to manage the increasing “swarming attrition tactics” of the environmental activists and to defend and litigate against their legal and legislative weapons?   

The following reported comment from a senior DoD official and a rebuttal from an environmental activist show how deeply divided the Pentagon and the activists are over this issue.

John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant deputy undersecretary of defense (environment), wrote in The Washington Post on Aug. 7, 2002, “The Defense Department is not asking for a blanket release from environmental laws. It is asking for the ability to manage military training lands so that both realistic training and good environmental stewardship can prevail .… The Defense Department is committed to the protection of America's environmental treasures as well as those who must train and fight to preserve them. But in the final analysis, our troops' first realistic, live-fire combat experience ought not be on a foreign, hostile shore. We have no greater obligation than that of providing air, land and sea training spaces to that end.”

In response, Dan Meyer, general counsel for Washington’s Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, wrote a rebuttal in the Post on Aug. 26, 2002, saying that he was appalled when “Mr. Woodley said the Pentagon is ‘not asking for a blanket release from environmental laws,’ yet its legislative proposals would allow the wholesale slaughter of migratory birds, needless destruction of habitat critical to the survival of endangered species and deployment of sonar arrays linked to the mass beaching of whales …. Our military does not need to despoil our shores in order to defend them.”

The issue appears stalemated. The General Accounting Office report found the Pentagon unable to show that “environmental encroachments” measurably harmed military readiness. The GAO recommended better range coordination, an end to inter-service rivalries and stronger anti-sprawl policies as ways to expand opportunities for live-fire combat training.

The Defense Department is not a perfect steward of its environmental assets.

But thanks to environmental advocates who are working with – not against – the Defense Department, the services are improving their environmental stewardship. With all the real and potential threats to our homeland and military today, we cannot afford to have another entry added to our list of “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Contributing Editor Lt. Col. Matthew Dodd is the pen name of an active-duty Marine Corps officer stationed at the Pentagon. He can be reached at mattdodd1775@hotmail.com.

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Travel-Card Program Abuses Soldiers and Families

By J. David Galland

Why are the U.S. Army and Defense Department forcing soldiers to enter into private financial contracts that all too frequently inflict serious hardship on service members and their families?

With the justification that this requirement is necessary to perform military duties, our soldiers have been ordered to apply for, and accept the terms of, the government Travel Card (GTC), or else! This requirement is creating career and financial disasters for scores of thousands of American soldiers who are using the card, legally and properly, to cover military work-related expenses.

The excuse offered for this dictatorial policy is to insure that soldiers will have the financial wherewithal to perform their duties. Specifically, the card comes into use when soldiers are ordered by their superiors to perform such duties that are likely to create expenses for the soldier that require cash advances or a high-limit credit card that is universally accepted.

The reason that the DoD created the GTC and coerced military members to use it was to privatize the accounting of federal travel expenses. Supporters touted the plan as a method of saving the American taxpayer money, but it has had a shameful and destructive impact on military service members instead.

For those fortunate enough to have had no contact with the GTC card program, a brief explanation is in order:

Soldiers are ordered to apply for GTC cards, which are interest-free credit cards issued exclusively by the Bank of America. The card system replaced the old-school travel reimbursement program where soldiers requested vouchers, or obtained cash in the form of an advanced travel payment prior to incurring the expenses. With the new system, soldiers now pay for their travel expenses up-front with their own GTC.

So far so good.

The Catch-22 in the GTC program that afflicts soldiers and their families is not hard to identify. The balance on each GTC card comes due and is supposed to be paid in full at the end of each month, whether or not the government has actually reimbursed the soldier for those expenses.

In a perfect world, the soldier will have completed his or her travel, returned to home base, correctly submitted the travel voucher and received an equitable settlement from the government in the form of an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) to the soldier's checking account, before the monthly GTC bill arrives.

The real world is different: When a soldier is traveling on official business, he or she does not submit travel vouchers and the government does not issue a reimbursement until the travel is complete. This can frequently mean that a soldier may have to live off the card during extended travel.

These days, individual soldier assignments lasting for months have become commonplace. Rather than assigning units for spot deployments or temporary duty, the Army prefers to deploy individual soldiers based on their rank, military occupational specialty (MOS) and security clearance, among other factors.

It is also important to understand the types of military travel in which soldiers most likely will be forced to live off their GTC cards.

The most common situation involves Temporary Duty (TDY) assignments, which may range from one to 179 days in length, one day short of six months. The second most common official travel is for Permanent Change of Station (PCS), which normally includes family members.

However, a third travel category has emerged in the four years since Congress enacted the GTC card system in 1998: Temporary Change of Station (TCS). This is a form of "temporary" travel that can place a soldier in a travel status that amounts to a permanent state of limbo.

And this is where the GTC problem becomes critical. A soldier on a TCS assignment will be living off his or her GTC card in some remote site, while the monthly bill sits in the soldier's mailbox back at home station gathering dust for months.

Two common scenarios then occur: In one, the soldier (or his cash-strapped family) is forced to pay the monthly GTC card bill, often for as much as several thousand dollars per month, to cover the soldier's ongoing yet unreimbursed expenses. In the second scenario, neither the soldier nor his spouse has the money to pay the GTC card bill, and the account becomes delinquent.

The issue of government travel, reimbursement and monthly bill payments is not quite as painful a process for higher-paid, senior-ranking officers as it is at the lower end of the rank spectrum. One incident I personally observed involved a soldier who only earned $12,000 per year. He was deployed for several months to a remote site and forced to use his GTC card for living expenses, while at home, his spouse at one point was confronted with a $2,900 monthly bill due upon receipt.

A recent report by the congressional General Accounting Office concluded that many GTC reimbursements often come late. Tell our soldiers and their families something they don't already know! In fact, GAO accounting audits have found "substantial" delays in reimbursements. In one command unit, the California National Guard failed to pay its personnel within a month 61 percent of the time, and of those payments, 42 percent were inaccurate. From my corner of the foxhole, this does not demonstrate a successful program.

In the past year, the GTC card system has resulted in the names of more than 10,000 military personnel being reported to national credit bureaus as "credit risks," according to DOD financial records and the Army Times newspaper and other publications.

And it seems the only time the Defense Department acts in this situation, it is to take action against the cash-strapped soldiers who are victims of this system. Since last October, the Pentagon has garnished over $19.5 million from military paychecks to pay off what are determined to be "delinquent" GTC credit card bills, according to DOD records. Such garnishment is also considered derogatory information in a soldier's permanent military record and belies a lack of personal responsibility in the eyes of the Army.

Apart from the personal and financial stress of a bad credit rating, this has serious implications for a soldier's career as well: Any soldier who has a security clearance, and almost all soldiers now need as a minimum a Secret-level clearance, can lose that access on grounds of financial irresponsibility. This translates into rapid career death.

This is a major problem that cries out for congressional attention and action.

Even if a soldier somehow manages to stay afloat financially under the GTC card program, he or she is still coerced to make floating interest-free loans to the federal government for the duration of the deployment or TCS.

Some legal experts warn that the mandatory provision of the GTC program forces soldiers into a private contract against the soldier's will, which is a classic violation of basic contract law. Moreover, legal experts say that by forcing soldiers to personally front the government money for travel expenses, and putting their own personal "creditworthiness" at risk because of the sluggish whims of the Pentagon's accounting system, is a blatant violation of private property rights, which are protected, even for soldiers, under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In the meantime, while a small number of legal experts and politicians discuss this problem, more than 1.4 million American soldiers have been ordered, by law, to use the card for every travel expense until the year 2008.

It is a monstrous injustice to all of our military men and women to inflict this shortsighted and callous program on them. Where is the outrage? Where is the call for reform?

J. David Galland, Deputy Editor of DefenseWatch, is a retired veteran of over thirty years of service in military intelligence who resides in Germany. He can be reached at defensewatch02@yahoo.com.

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