NYT comes out for disarming Saddam

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Feb 15 22:55:35 PST 2003


On Sat, 15 Feb 2003, Peter K. wrote:


> I saw Kenneth Pollack on CNN today. His book is the best in regards to
> making the case for disarming Saddam.

If that's the best, then they have no case. Pollack's case for the need for war rests *entirely* of the idea that Saddam will get nuclear weapons, so that we need to get him before that happens. (He says quite clearly that neither chemical nor biological weapons are something worth going to war over, and while he deplores Saddam's humanitarian awfulness, he thinks war should only be justified on the basis of strategic risks.)

But nuclear weapons are the one category of weapons that all inspectors agree *can* be fully prevented by an inspection and sanction regime.

In the book (as opposed to the Foreign Affairs article that preceded it) Pollack obscures this point with a fog of scaremongering based on the recent book by the guy who has proclaimed himself "Saddam's bombmaker" and published a book under that title. But the credibility of that book was shredded on delivery by military think tanks that no one mentions it before.

In addition, even if you accepted this nuclear premise, Pollack goes on to say that *even then*, war should not be undertaken:

1) Until Al-Qaida is finished, because that is a higher priority;

2) Without allied support, because it will be essential to making sure

post Saddam Iraq is not strategically worse that what exists now

(especially since Pollack's main strategic goal is getting US forces

*out* of the Middle East -- the opposite agenda of Woolsley and Perle);

and

3) Without being willing to spend $50 to $150 billion on reconstruction,

for the same reasons.

Since the first two of these conditions do not obtain and the third is iffy, according to his argument, war is not justified at this moment. So even if you grant him all his premises (which I don't think we should), his reasoning would lead inexorably to the French/Russian position of extending inspections.

This comes out more clearly in the Foreign Affairs March/April 2002 than in the book. Because that was written for an audience of security wonks, it boils his argument down to its logical essentials and leaves out the overheated rhetoric.

Pollack reminds me of no one so much as Rex Reed, who used to write honest and relatively intelligent movie reviews, and then sprinkle them with overheated pull-away quotes he knew that movie producers will put on their posters saying exactly the opposite. It allowed him to be a whore to the powers that be while still preening his intellectual intactness.

Michael



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