Tag Archives: saddam

Saddam defeats … well, no one, really.

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NEWS FLASH: Sad­dam Hus­sein won the bal­lot tues­day in Iraq with 100 per­cent of the vote, accord­ing to this arti­cle in the New York Times. As the head­line yes­ter­day on ABC​News​.com said: “U.S. skep­ti­cal.“
I should say so! Reg­u­lar read­ers — both of you — will recall I reported on this last week and talked about the rea­sons for hold­ing the ref­er­en­dum now. But what’s most inter­est­ing to me, for some odd rea­son, is that Sad­dam got 99.96 per­cent of the vote in 1995, and 100 per­cent now. Per­haps the war threat from Amer­ica has ral­lied Iraqis around their leader?
But a bet­ter ques­tion is this: What hap­pened to the 0.04 per­cent — about 3,600 peo­ple, accord­ing to the Times — who voted “no” in 1995? Were they sui­ci­dal or just stu­pid? No doubt they have paid for their mis­take.
Of course this was hardly a free and fair bal­lot, and I should think that every per­son on the planet, except maybe those liv­ing under the North Korean regime, can see through this sham. But it’s an inter­est­ing phe­nom­e­non that Sad­dam feels the need to legit­imize his rule of fear.
“With a leader such as this,” asked a Bedouin tribal elder at the end of the Times piece, “how could Iraqis want to say any­thing but yes?“
Indeed.

Not so fast, Mr. President

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There is a time when politi­cians should be applauded. This is one of those times. Reps. Spratt of North Car­olina and Rep. Vic Sny­der, D-Ark., will intro­duce into the House debate on war with Iraq this alter­nate res­o­lu­tion. (It’s a PDF to be down­loaded.)
In essence it allows mil­i­tary action but only after the UNSC has been allowed to do every­thing it can, includ­ing mus­cu­lar and intru­sive inspec­tions. If the UNSC fails in its duties, the Pres­i­dent must come back to Con­gress and ask for autho­riza­tion for war against Iraq. (It actu­ally says “mil­i­tary force” instead of war, but still.)
In the case of shoot­ing, “the Pres­i­dent should endeavor to form a coali­tion of allies as broadly based as prac­ti­ca­ble to sup­port and par­tic­i­pate with United States Armed Forces, and should also seek mul­ti­lat­eral coop­er­a­tion and assis­tance, specif­i­cally includ­ing Arab and Islamic coun­tries, in the post-conflict recon­struc­tion of Iraq.“
And this:

In the event that the United Nations Secu­rity Coun­cil does not adopt a res­o­lu­tion as described in sec­tion 3, or in the event that such a res­o­lu­tion is adopted but does not sanc­tion the use of force suf­fi­cient to com­pel Iraq’s com­pli­ance, and if the Pres­i­dent deter­mines that use of the United States Armed Forces is nec­es­sary for such com­pli­ance, the Pres­i­dent should seek autho­riza­tion from Con­gress to use mil­i­tary force to com­pel such compliance.

Clear enough? In essence, come back to us, Mr. Pres­i­dent, when you’ve got some proof. Proof that Iraq is the clear and present dan­ger you say it is, and proof that the UNSC is an impo­tent orga­ni­za­tion that can’t do its job. Only then do you get the guns.
The House rules com­mit­tee has allowed this res­o­lu­tion in, so the whole House may vote on it. It likely won’t pass, but it’s a saner voice than what we’re hear­ing from the White House.
I don’t know Spratt or Sny­der or other other spon­sors of this res­o­lu­tion, but I sus­pect that I should. Thank you, gentlemen.