Here’s the one moment from last week’s ludicrous CNN “town meeting” that is worth preserving for posterity. A veteran named Mike Mac Call addressed a serious question to the Clinton administration’s national-security vaudevillians, Madeleine, Bill, and Sandy:
I spent 20 years in the military; my oldest son spent 25. My youngest son died in Vietnam. Six months later, his first cousin died in Vietnam. We stood in the gap.
If push comes to shove and Saddam will not back down, will not keep his word, are we ready and willing to send the troops in? You see, I have no problem with asking any one of these guys in the armed forces to stand in the gap for me now — we stood in the gap for them back then.
And I want to know — I think all of Congress wants to know: Are we willing to send troops in and finish the job, or are we going to do it half-assed? Are my grandson and some of these other grandsons [someday going] to put their lives on the line [because] we’re going to do it half-assed the way we did before?
Secretary of defense William Cohen replied:
Let me be as direct as I can. I just returned from visiting our troops on the U.S.S. George Washington. I visited our troops on the U.S.S. Independence. Each and every one of those young men and women who are out there are prepared to do whatever is necessary in order to contain the threat.
What we are seeking to do is not to topple Saddam Hussein, not to destroy his country, but to do what the United Nations has said in its declarations — and we want to insist not only on words, but deeds. We want the enforcement of the U.N. declarations — and these young men and women are prepared to carry out that mission.
We do not see the need to carry out a large land campaign, in order to try to topple Saddam Hussein. Our mission is to get the inspectors back; if they can’t get back, to make sure he can’t constitute or reconstitute this threat.
Thank you.
And thank you, Secretary Cohen. Thank you for making clear that the Clinton administration has no answer to Mr. Mac Call’s excellent question. We’re not going to finish the job because we have defined our mission as not finishing the job — that, unfortunately, is the sad truth about President Clinton’s Iraq policy.
That is why he is having so much difficulty “selling” his policy — both abroad and on Capitol Hill, and in venues like Columbus, Ohio. The reason people are reluctant to buy is that the product is flawed. The fact is, it would have been easier to rally support for a comprehensive political and military offensive aimed at removing Saddam — one that would not hesitate to use ground troops along with air power. Such a strategy would have represented a better and more easily defended course of action than the course President Clinton chose; and such a strategy remains a better course of action for the future.
Having said that, we need to face reality: Containment is the strategy this administration has chosen. And containment — especially tough-minded, more- force-rather-than-less containment — is a lot better than appeasement. To use the forceful vernacular of Mr. Mac Call: A half-assed military response is better than a no-assed response. Saddam Hussein must be punished for his misbehavior. He must be made to pay a price for attempting to build weapons of mass destruction. And he must at least be set back in his efforts to build those weapons.
So we should bomb, and bomb a lot, and bomb in a way that does as much damage as possible to Saddam’s arsenal and his power base. We must not bomb simply to “send a message.” And we must not be in a hurry to end the bombing so as to resume “negotiations” or “diplomacy.” We should certainly not accept another phony, temporary “resolution” of the crisis. Saddam Hussein is the crisis. And a serious bombing campaign could be the first step in a strategy to remove him.
That’s not the administration’s strategy right now. But it could become the strategy. Meanwhile, a fig-leaf compromise brokered by the U.N. would be disastrous. The president will be right to attack Iraq. The attack should be serious, substantial, and sustained. And if the attack is a first step and not a final step, the first in a series of steps that lead to Saddam’s removal, last week’s pathetic town meeting will soon be forgotten.
