Secretary of State Colin Powell, one of a few sane voices in the administration, remains opposed to a military strike just as he was in 1991, as it has no clear strategic objectives. Recent media leaks from the Pentagon and the State Department suggested that "many senior US military officers contend that Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat and that the United States should continue its policy of containment rather than invade Iraq". Soon another leak countered that some in the Establishment favored an "inside-out" plan to "take Baghdad and one or two key command centers and weapons depots first, in hopes of cutting off the country's leadership and causing a quick collapse of the government". Such a plan was once dismissed by General Anthony Zinni, the US Middle East envoy, as a recipe for a "Bay of Goats" disaster, like the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba. (Remember too the mess of Jimmy Carter's 1979 attempt to rescue US hostages in Iran.)
As Powell knows, there are no clearly defined strategic objectives for an attack on Iraq. Instead, Bush has his hands on a Pandora's Box that would release incalculable forces and consequences if he were to open it.
One of these incalculables, for example, is Jordan's Prince Hassan. The prince's unexpected appearance at a mid-July Western-rigged assembly of disunited and disgruntled Iraqi opposition leaders led to speculation that he might even emerge as a new consensus ruler of post-Saddam Iraq.
As Powell knows, there are no clearly defined strategic objectives for an attack on Iraq. Instead, Bush has his hands on a Pandora's Box that would release incalculable forces and consequences if he were to open it.
One of these incalculables, for example, is Jordan's Prince Hassan. The prince's unexpected appearance at a mid-July Western-rigged assembly of disunited and disgruntled Iraqi opposition leaders led to speculation that he might even emerge as a new consensus ruler of post-Saddam Iraq.