EDITORIAL - Winds of war

As America commemorated the first anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on US soil, its leaders prepared for war. Statements from Washington indicate that it’s only a matter of time before US troops would return to Iraq with the aim of delivering what they hope would be the decisive blow against strongman Saddam Hussein. The Americans will still present their case to the United Nations General Assembly. But there are indications that the Americans may go it alone – or at least with the British – if the UN refuses to endorse Desert Storm redux.

The past weeks American and British officials have been trying to make their case. Saddam, they correctly point out, had ordered the invasion of Kuwait and the genocide of his own people – the Kurdish minority. They say Saddam has developed enough chemical and biological weapons including sarin, mustard gas and anthrax bacterium to decimate the entire Gulf area. There are dissenting opinions here but they are muted. Finally, the Americans and British say that Saddam has a nuclear weapons program whose product could one day be unleashed on the free world – unless the world acts first. Here international opinion diverges.

The policemen of the free world have a dilemma. They want to pre-empt Saddam and prevent a repeat of the attacks in New York and Washington. Launching a war, however, requires a casus belli, which unfortunately would have to be either another Iraqi invasion of one of its neighbors, or else another attack on the scale of Sept. 11 for which Saddam can be held responsible. Even the attacks in New York and Washington last year have not been linked directly to Saddam but to Osama bin Laden, now the world’s most wanted man.

The international community appreciates the efforts of those who try to make the world a safer place free of fear, hatred, violence and oppression. At the start of this war on a shadowy foe, an emotional US President George W. Bush had said that nations were either with or against the United States. But fighting terrorism by flushing out Islamist cells, freezing their assets and apprehending suspects is one thing. Waging war is quite another. The first Gulf War enjoyed the support even of several Arab states because Iraq had invaded peaceful Kuwait. This time, where’s the provocation?