Whatever the Case, America Will Have Its War

An Arab expert reports that the coming military agression against Iraq will be the first of its kind

Iraq is the prime news for almost all the world’s media outlets. One cannot say that this global attention is caused by anything special. The interest in the Iraqi issue is basically stirred up with guessing. Everyone is trying to guess the date when the Americans will attack Iraq. Because this subject has been talked about so much for the past year, it is not easy to get people to pay attention to anything else.

The American television company NBC suggested added to the guessing. The company’s journalists came out with a date when the operation against Iraq will start. The journalists reported with reference to so-called informed sources in the Pentagon that the operation will start on March 1, 2003.

In addition, various dates of the start of the attack on Iraq have been announced several times already. The latest announcement mentioned the end of December. However, the resolution of the UN Security Council and the fact that international inspectors started working in Iraq pushed the date further back.

The military operation against Iraq will provide employment for various kinds of experts and analysts. The NBC channel reported that the American military set up three secret bases on the territory of Israel. Americans have concentrated large reserves of their military equipment on those bases.

As a matter of fact, it is not really important if this is true or not. There are no doubts that Israel’s Arab neighbors will have their dislike of Israel increased by these actions. It seems likely that a campaign against the Israeli aggressors and their American sponsors is coming soon.

It is curious that NBC’s message appeared a couple of days after Iraq presented a detailed declaration of its weapons programs to the UN Security Council. The document contained detailed information about arms development, including data on weapons of mass destruction. Columbia, the country that chairs the UN Security Council at present, decided to wash its hands of the affair at once. It was stated that Columbia will not process the 12 thousand pages. As was expected, the document was handed over to the United States. The Americans promised to analyze it within a short period of time. One can argue about the outcome of this analysis, as it is clear America’s conclusions are going to be biased.

Anyway, it is not only people in the United States that are making forecasts regarding the launch of the military aggression against Iraq. For example, an Arab arms expert told the London-based Arab newspaper Azzaman that Iraq will be attacked from the territory of Qatar. The expert said that there will be high-tech weapons used in the attack, which will help Americans avoid losses. This will supposedly minimize the number of civilian casualties. The expert also added that the coming operation against Iraq would be the first attack in which the aggressor has no losses

In the meantime, the Iraqi government is quite happy with the inspections. Iraqi officials have even presented the UN Security Council with information about foreign arms suppliers. However, this information has not been made public yet. Nobody knows if it is ever going to be released, since a huge international scandal might follow. Saddam does not sit on his hands either. He is busy working on intensifying the contradictions between the supporters and opponents of the military operation against Iraq.

The world is also guessing about the future of the current Iraqi government. Most likely, there will be some light shed on this subject when the first state of the inspections is over. Everyone has to wait and see what Washington will do if the inspectors’ conclusions coincide with its expectations. Whatever the case, the USA is not going to leave Saddam Hussein alone.

Vasily Bubnov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov