By Ted Weaver

2/27/2003

As painfully slow as what it has been and somewhat confusing at times, the process of aligning allies is starting to and in some respects, taken shape. I remember what President Bush had said “either your with us or your against us”. That phrase never left my mind for a moment. And in the end, if not already, we are going to see who is and who isn’t. Though one can look at the bigger picture right now and draw some obvious conclusions, but I think there is still a little wiggle room for others yet.

I fully expected Russia and China to never agree to the use of force under the U.N. ( or at least until this point) to disarm Saddam and Iraq because of their history of alliances with each other and Saddam and their complicity in espionage and active covert operations against us over the preceding years and as far back as I can remember. France on the other hand, is somewhat of a surprise to me, because I thought surely when it came down to it, they would support us in the end. And they still might, however the signals that Pres. Chirac has been sending is consistent. Though still being slightly optimistic as I am, remembering one phrase President Chirac used not too long ago was “ we are friends - we are allies”, I would say to President Chirac, you are going to have your chance to prove it in the very near future and we’re going to hold you to it. Chirac must realize that there is a future, and would want to do what is in the best interest for the national security of his country and working relations with the more prosperous and secure Western nations. Surely, he must realize that the destruction of all  the WMD’s and the removal of a long standing terrorist supporting tyrant is paramount and in the best interest to his own country and not his short term financial interest. Which is going to be very short.

On the brighter side, Tony Blair and the U.K. have been very supportive and for that we should be very thankful for. Tony has essentially put his head out on the block for us and its times like these, when crunch time arrives, we really see who our true friends and allies are. The Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary, Pakistan, Jordan, U.A.E., Australia and all the others whom I failed to mention who fully support our position are considered our friends and allies. They know there is a bigger picture to all of this. Turkey on the other hand has some internal squabbles going on and with some outside meddling causing disruption. Perhaps they should look at the longer term strategic implications and less at the short term gains.

There are those that think we should have went charging in there already. What a “friggen” disaster that would have been. While I respect their views and would have agreed with had circumstances been different. I will reflect on that briefly.

In my opinion, had we gone in ill prepared, there would have been a very high risk of another 150,000 to 200,00 U.S. military personnel who would have ended up sick - with gulf war syndrome. I recently watched an ABC Nightline program segment about the syndrome, the experts they had on discussed the possibility and belief that Sarin was the reason and they couldn’t figure out how so many got sick. I disagreed with both analysis because I had already drawn some of my own conclusions prior to which I had put a lot of thought into and some research. What I came up with is that it was VX nerve agent, was the bulk of the problem. I arrived at that conclusion because of its abilities to survive the desert climate for weeks and because it is suppose to be a sticky substance. Also, the majority of the symptoms reported by the Gulf War Vets also match up with the affects of exposure to VX nerve agents. I feel the reason so many got sick was because of cross contamination. Similar to the same situation we faced with the anthrax in the mail system. If one thinks about it long enough, you can imagine all of the equipment such as tanks, trucks, clothing, footwear etc., anything that came into contact with the contaminated area’s and nerve agents had the potential for spreading it everywhere, pyramiding like and unfortunately to everyone. That venomous poison is just so toxic. According to reports I read, the tiniest of a drop can kill almost immediately. That is some strong stuff. Though I feel VX may not have been responsible for 100%, and other types of nerve agents were probably involved too, In my opinion, I feel VX is the main culprit.

Secondly, it would have been strategically beneficial to have had the inspectors find at least some of Saddam’s stockpiles of WMD’S for two reasons. The first being of course to be able to neutralize and quell any possible argument (so we didn’t have to hash it out) from the German - Russian - Chinese and French and their operative anti-American anti-use of force coalition positions. The bottom line is, you just can’t argue with a solid and an inarguable and irrefutable position. It also helps in building a large coalition, especially when it comes to dealing with the U.N.. Secondly, eliminating at least some of the arsenal of WMD’s stockpiles prior to the commencement of any military operations would be beneficial in terms of eliminating some risk. I just don’t agree that all the commanders of the Republican Guard will capitulate like the conscripts will. I believe the Republican Guard who are most likely to be the ones who would use the WMD’s.. They are the ones who have been brainwashed and would walk off the edge of a cliff if told to. The dropping of the pamphlets helps but doesn’t neutralize the majority of the risk. The bottom line is the more we learn through intelligence, the more the existing WMD’s are eliminated, the more the associated risk are reduced to our service personnel and civilian populations throughout which could be potentially catastrophic in terms of loss of life and cost and strategic considerations.

I personally believe that if some of these wavering Arab countries had solid assurances that the bottom line will be that in the end and without fail, Saddam is gone one way or another, there would be more support and less wavering. Perhaps those Arab countries also should realize that the road to stability and peace travels through a united front more so, than that of playing both sides of the coin.