February 5, 2003 12:41

Powell Destroys the Last Illusion about Iraq

By Ed Offley

Toward the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson explained his goal in writing the Declaration of Independence: "Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent .… "

By that standard, Secretary of State Colin Powell's articulate and detailed presentation to the United Nations Security Council on the Iraqi threat earlier today was an unalloyed diplomatic triumph.

Ironically, it appears that barring assassination, resignation or coup in Iraq, Powell's diplomacy has made war with Iraq inevitable.

In an unprecedented display of U.S. intelligence capabilities, Powell presented the Security Council with radio intercepts of Iraqi military officials plotting to hide evidence of biological and chemical weapons from the U.N. inspectors. He presented video imagery of a Mirage F-1 dispensing mock WMD agents from a spraying tank. He showed before-and-after photographs of WMD sites being emptied of ballistic missiles prior to U.N. inspection visits and a wide-ranging litany of evidence confirming that Iraq never intended to abide by U.N. Resolution 1441.

And he revealed in stark and chilling detail a nearly decade-old interaction between the Iraqi regime and the al Qaeda terrorist network. This latter presentation was the most chilling disclosure that the secretary of state delivered to the Security Council:

* Powell revealed new details showing that Saddam Hussein has permitting an al Qaeda terrorist cell to operate inside Iraq. Abu Musab Zarqawi, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant, has been operating freely in Iraq for more than eight months with about two dozen terrorists using Baghdad as an operational headquarters for planning terrorist activities. Zarqawi fled to Iraq after being driven out of Afghanistan, received medical treatment for battlefield wounds, and is believed to be in the Iraqi capital today.

* Saddam Hussein is also known to be connected with the Ansar al-Islam, a Taliban-style group allied with al Qaeda that operates in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

* The al Qaeda Baghdad cell is operating a secret "poison and explosive factory" in northeast Iraq Kurdistan supervised by a senior official in Iraqi intelligence.

* Zarqawi has been linked to last October's assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan by an al Qaeda cell that received explosives and funds from the Baghdad operation.

* The al Qaeda operation in Iraq has been linked to terrorist plots recently broken up in France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia. Al Qaeda terrorists arrested in England in early January found to have amounts of the deadly poison ricin were connected to Zarqawi's Baghdad operation. So, too, were the three terrorists arrested in France in December in possession of explosives and manuals on various toxins.

* The Baghdad terrorists attempted last year to send two of their members into Saudi Arabia who had been trained in using cyanide poison, a plot that was detected when the two were arrested at the border.

Moreover, German wire services reported early Wednesday that federal investigators had learned Zarqawi's cell was planning assassinations and other attacks in Europe in the near future.

Powell forcibly confronted the United Nations itself in his Feb. 5, 2003 appearance. "The issue before us is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi obstruction, but how much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq's noncompliance before we as a Council, we as the United Nations say: 'Enough. Enough'," Powell said. "We must not shrink from what lies ahead of us."

For most of the past 12 years, those who have urged caution and patience in dealing with Iraq's intransigence on its WMD programs have essentially argued that Saddam Hussein could be contained and deterred. That as the leader of a regime - however brutal and corrupt - the Iraqi dictator could be impelled by diplomacy and occasional, limited military force to behave rationally.

Colin Powell demolished that illusion once and for all.

Even French and German diplomats must know by now that today, any government that harbors and protects al Qaeda is a sworn enemy of the entire world.

Powell summed up the U.S. position in the starkest of terms: "The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world."

Prepare for war with Iraq.

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