Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appeared on Face the Nation Sunday morning and characterized the potential military strike against Iraq as "substantial." A look at the new weapons that the Pentagon says it will use in any military confrontation with Saddam confirms this.
The Pentagon says it will deploy both the B-1 and B-2 bombers, neither of which has seen combat before. The B-2 bomber costs $2.2 billion a plane and will be outfitted with "near precision" bombs. The B-1 bomber will carry conventional smart bombs.
In addition to these planes, there will be new missiles, new bombs and old bombs with new capabilities. The SLAM is a new long-range cruise missile that contains a small camera that allows a pilot to manually lock the missile onto a target. Each missile costs the military $720,000. Hopefully, the Pentagon will not use too many of these. Then there is JDAM, a smart bomb that uses global positioning satellites (GPS) to find its target.
Another bomb is the GBU-28 "Bunker-buster" which is designed to travel 100 feet into the ground and pierce 22 feet of concrete. If Saddam hides in the wrong bunker, the GBU-28 can get him. The array of weapons reflects the seriousness with which Bill Clinton is approaching Saddam's intransigence, and Clinton has every reason to be serious.
During the Persian Gulf War, Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds in the northern part of Iraq, set hundreds of oil wells on fire in Kuwait and dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf. Saddam remains in power in Iraq and still threatens the world with chemical and biological warfare.
Unfortunately for Clinton, the coalition that George Bush put together is falling apart. Saudi Arabia says it will not allow military missions against Iraq to initiate from their country. Boris Yeltsin is claiming that a military strike against his former ally may lead to World War III, and Australia has not committed themselves to supply military aid.
Only Britain sees the seriousness of not allowing the weapons inspectors to do their job in Iraq. The weapons also bring back the questions of just how much money we are spending on the military and whether or not it is worth it. It is true that military spending since World War II is at an all time low, but should we make larger cuts in the military at the expense of affecting our capabilities? The times we live in would say no.
If the United States could not establish military dominance in the Middle East, how long would it be before Saddam Hussein developed chemical and biological weapons? Given his history, Saddam is not likely to back down to anything except a strong show of force and will use any weapons he develops.
Combining this reality with the tenuous nature of our relationship with the countries in the Middle East, a strong U.S. military capability in the future becomes an imperative.
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