suppose I can just about bear to watch the "inspections" pantomime a
second time. But what I cannot bear is the sight of French and Russian
diplomats posing and smirking with Naji Sabry, Iraq's foreign minister,
or with Tariq Aziz. I used to know Naji and I know that two of his
brothers, Mohammed and Shukri, were imprisoned and tortured by Saddam
Hussein--in Mohammed's case, tortured to death. The son of Deputy Prime
Minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to twenty-two years of imprisonment
last year; he has since been released and rearrested and released again,
partly no doubt to show who is in charge. Another former friend of mine,
Mazen Zahawi, was Saddam Hussein's interpreter until shortly after the
Gulf War, when he was foully murdered and then denounced as a
homosexual. I have known many regimes where stories of murder and
disappearance are the common talk among the opposition; the Iraqi
despotism is salient in that such horrors are also routine among its
functionaries. Saddam Hussein likes to use as envoys the men he has
morally destroyed; men who are sick with fear and humiliation, and whose
families are hostages.
I don't particularly care, even in a small way, to be a hostage of
Saddam Hussein myself. There is not the least doubt that he has acquired
some of the means of genocide and hopes to collect some more; there is
also not the least doubt that he is a sadistic megalomaniac. Some
believe that he is a rational and self-interested actor who understands
"containment," but I think that is distinctly debatable: Given a green
light by Washington on two occasions--once for the assault on Iran and
once for the annexation of Kuwait--he went crazy both times and, knowing
that it meant disaster for Iraq and for its neighbors, tried to steal
much more than he had been offered.
On the matter of his support for international nihilism, I have already
written my memoir of Abu Nidal, the murderous saboteur of the
Palestinian cause ["Minority Report," September 16]. I have also
interviewed the senior Czech official who investigated the case of
Mohamed Atta's visit to Prague. This same official had served a
deportation order on Ahmed Al-Ani, the Iraqi secret policeman who,
working under diplomatic cover, was caught red-handed in a plan to blow
up Radio Free Iraq, which transmits from Czech soil. It was, I was told
(and this by someone very skeptical of Plan Bush), "70 percent likely"
that Atta came to Prague to meet Al-Ani. Seventy percent is not
conclusive, but nor is it really tolerable. Meanwhile, the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan holds several prisoners from the Ansar al-Islam gang,
who for some reason have been trying to destroy the autonomous Kurdish
regime in northern Iraq. These people have suggestive links both to
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It will perhaps surprise nobody that
despite Kurdish offers of cooperation, our intrepid CIA has shown no
interest in questioning these prisoners. (Incidentally, when is anyone
at the CIA or the FBI going to be fired?) People keep bleating
that Saddam Hussein is not a fundamentalist. But he did rejoice in the
attacks on New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, and he does believe
that every little bit helps.
I am much more decided in my mind about two further points. I am on the
side of the Iraqi and Kurdish opponents of this filthy menace. And they
are on the side of civil society in a wider conflict, which is the civil
war now burning across the Muslim world from Indonesia to Nigeria. The
theocratic and absolutist side in this war hopes to win it by exporting
it here, which in turn means that we have no expectation of staying out
of the war, and no right to be neutral in it. But there are honorable
allies to be made as well, and from now on all of our cultural and
political intelligence will be required in order to earn their
friendship and help isolate and destroy their enemies, who are now
ours--or perhaps I should say mine.
Only a fool would trust the Bush Administration to see all of this. I am
appalled that by this late date no proclamation has been issued to the
people of Iraq, announcing the aims and principles of the coming
intervention. Nor has any indictment of Saddam Hussein for crimes
against humanity been readied. Nothing has been done to conciliate Iran,
where the mullahs are in decline. The Palestinian plight is being
allowed to worsen (though the Palestinians do seem to be pressing ahead
hearteningly with a "regime change" of their own). These misgivings are
obviously not peripheral. But please don't try to tell me that if
Florida had gone the other way we would be in better hands, or would be
taking the huge and honorable risk of "destabilizing" our former Saudi
puppets.
Moreover, it's obvious to me that the "antiwar" side would not be
convinced even if all the allegations made against Saddam Hussein were
proven, and even if the true views of the Iraqi people could be
expressed. All evidence pointed overwhelmingly to the Taliban and Al
Qaeda last fall, and now all the proof is in; but I am sent petitions on
Iraq by the same people (some of them not so naïve) who still
organize protests against the simultaneous cleanup and rescue of
Afghanistan, and continue to circulate falsifications about it. The
Senate adopted the Iraq Liberation Act without dissent under Clinton;
the relevant UN resolutions are old and numerous. I don't find the
saner, Richard Falk-ish view of yet more consultation to be very
persuasive, either.
This is something more than a disagreement of emphasis or tactics. When
I began work for The Nation over two decades ago, Victor Navasky
described the magazine as a debating ground between liberals and
radicals, which was, I thought, well judged. In the past few weeks,
though, I have come to realize that the magazine itself takes a side in
this argument, and is becoming the voice and the echo chamber of those
who truly believe that John Ashcroft is a greater menace than Osama bin
Laden. (I too am resolutely opposed to secret imprisonment and
terror-hysteria, but not in the same way as I am opposed to those who
initiated the aggression, and who are planning future ones.) In these
circumstances it seems to me false to continue the association, which is
why I have decided to make this "Minority Report" my last one.