BBC News Online: Special Report

US and Iraq: questioning the military option

It is a grey and wintry day outside the White House and about 50 or so protestors have gathered to oppose the action which many also accept is probably inevitable.

It was one of at least 30 demonstrations across the country in the past few days, and while none could claim overwhelming support, they do reflect a growing debate in America about what to do about Saddam Hussein.

Gordon Clark, the director of Peace Action which helped arrange the rallies, says he considers US policy to be inept and possibly dangerous.

"No-one can tell what the consequences of bombing an Arab population are going to be on the peace process, on Arab-Israeli relations, on possible terrorist counter-attacks, on the United States standing in the world, or in fact on the use of chemical and biological weapons," he says.

President Clinton has been insisting for months that the Iraqi weapons programme is simply too dangerous to be ignored.

He says there's only one question to be answered about military action, and this is: could military action, if all else fails, substantially reduce or delay Saddam Hussein's capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and to deliver them on his neighbours?

Mr Clinton is convinced that the answer is yes.

Would military action work?

But analysts from the left and right of American politics are questioning that view.

Dr Mary-Jane Deeb, editor of the Middle East Journal in Washington, says that if sites are bombed simply because they might be part of an Iraqi weapons programme, no-one may ever know what was actually achieved and the plan could easily backfire.

"Today the UN inspectors are able to inspect about 95% of the sites they want to inspect. If the United States were to strike Iraq, it is very likely that Saddam Hussein would decide that there would be no more inspections, " says Dr Deeb.

It is my opinion we do not have a long-term policy, we do not have a foreign policy in the United States to deal with Iraq.

No clear objective

Others believe that US policy aims with regard to Iraq have not been clearly spelled out.

According to Chuck Hagel, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, the Clinton administration has yet to explain clearly how military action can ultimately reduce the long-term threat from Iraq.

"Our foreign policy essentially has been containing Saddam Hussein, ensuring that he complies with the UN resolutions and mandates", he says.

"That is not a foreign policy, that's not in my opinion, and the opinion of many of our senate colleagues, good enough or strong enough to commit our men and women to war over this."

For President Bush in 1991, the threat from an Iraq which invaded the soverign territory of its neighbour, Kuwait, was relatively easy to identify.

But the threat from the same country weakened by seven years of sanctions and intense international regulation appears less convincing to many here.

The nub of the problem

Increasingly, Congress is identifying Saddam Hussein as the problem and not his war machine.

President Clinton says removing him from power is not the objective, but Richard Perle, who was deputy Defence Secretary under President Reagan, says ultimately that is the only way to solve this crisis once and for all.

"There's no sense delaying longer coming to the obvious conclusion - that as long as Saddam is there there will be continuing game of cat and mouse, and he is unfortunately a better mouse than we are a cat," he says.

Summaries

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US and Iraq: questioning the military option