A L S O +T O D A Y The whaling that wasn't By David Neiwert Environmentalists and Indians clash over whether gray whales matter more than native culture and treaty rights Paula Jones lawsuit settled A Salon Staff Report Clinton coughs up $850,000, but no apologies   T A B L E+T A L K Newt resigns! Mull over the soon-to-be-former speaker's decision in the Headlines area of Table Talk   R E C E N T L Y No mercy By Mark Herman California Gov. Pete Wilson is unlikely to grant clemency to a Thai national on death row, despite appeals from jurors, lawyers and the warden of San Quentin (11/13/98) Beware of the black CON-servative By C.D. Ellison An African-American Republican talks back to David Horowitz (11/13/98) He can't go home again By Marc Cooper No matter what the House of Lords decides, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is finally being held resonsible for the death of President Salvador Allende -- and Chilean democracy (11/12/98) The costs of Mitch By Mary Jo McConahay Can a hurricane threaten the fragile new democracies of Central America? (11/12/98) A day to remember? By Jeff Stein Police and federal agents brace for violence as anti-abortion forces observe a new "holiday" (11/11/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.
		Target: Saddam The goal is to bring him down this time, says David Kay, who led the first U.N. inspection team in Iraq. BY JEFF STEIN | Here we go again. People are calling it "Déjà Saddam," expressing a weariness with the cat-and-mouse game the United States has played with Iraq's bully dictator since the "victory" of Desert Storm eight years ago. Few Americans know how well Saddam plays the game better than David Kay, who led the first United Nations inspection team into Iraq in 1991. In a March interview with Salon on the occasion of the last "showdown" with Iraq, Kay accurately forecast that U.N. chief Kofi Annan's intervention with Saddam to defuse the crisis would be "worse than useless" in solving the long-term problem of neutralizing Iraq's secret program to build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. That now seems self-evident to everyone but Annan and the White House, who continue to argue that the goal of another bombing is to go back to Step One -- inspections that only gave Saddam more time to build weapons. Today Kay argues that the only solution now is to frighten Saddam's inner circle with a bombing strike so severe that they'll take matters into their own hands, "with a 9 mm bullet through his head." We're heading into another bombing of Iraq. The answer may seem obvious, but what has bombing Iraq ever accomplished -- except killing ordinary Iraqis? So far, very little. All it's accomplished is to make Saddam lose his fear of the military power of the United States. The attacks have only made him stronger politically, not hurt him militarily or economically. He thinks he can absorb this and kick the inspectors out and go right ahead and it won't hurt him very much. What do you think Saddam's doing now to beat us again? They're dispersing stuff that they think will be attacked. They can't move buildings, but they can move stuff inside that's vital. I went in right after one threatened strike in 1991 and the stuff we had been inspecting -- very expensive, very delicate equipment for making highly accurate centrifuges -- had suddenly disappeared into a grass field around one of their nuclear weapons sites. After the deadline passed without an attack, they moved the equipment back in. So they're very good at that. They'll also move antiaircraft guns onto the roofs of buildings, go through various blackout procedures and so on. What are his other techniques for blunting the impact of an attack? You can be very, very sure he's making sure that he's moving some of the stuff in ways that we can observe it, into areas where there are hospitals and schools, hoping and even inviting an attack, with the knowledge that if there's collateral damage it's a victory for him. I would also not be surprised if in the next few days you see the spontaneous movement of women and children into critical sites. In the past he's had them occupy the presidential palaces. It's a measure of his callousness that he'll use the death of women and children in order to get at the United States. Is there anything different in the Iraqi preparations this time? Primarily what you're not seeing is any fear of an attack. Saddam is communicating the message, "We're not afraid of the Americans." And for psychological and political reasons, he has to do that. People are calling this crisis "Déjà Saddam." It does sound like the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Oh, yeah, except that it's not as funny. People also refer to it as a cat and mouse game, but it's only funny if you're the cat. As a mouse it's not so fun. But why are we playing his game at all? The only reason is that the alternative, which is to retreat, and to let him end the inspections without cost, and to admit we failed, is more expensive to the United States in terms of prestige and the credibility of the United States in the region. It's not that we have a super-winning hand. Anyone who thinks that military action will bring a clear victory hasn't been looking the past eight years. So why, everyone is asking, are we going the bombing route? Well, it shouldn't be the same this time. The strategy this time has to have three parts, and they're not easy. First of all, you do not want to attack just the identified weapons sites -- most of them will be empty anyway, so that won't buy you much. You do want to attack the security forces, the Special Republican Guards, the people who monitor the telephones, the terror apparatus which keeps people in line, and his ministers, who by the way are suddenly appearing in military garb. The reason you want to do this is two-fold: One, Saddam does worry about survival, and if his security people are seriously injured, Saddam will wonder if he can detect a coup. He'll have to worry about that rather than developing weapons of mass destruction to use against his neighbors. N E X T+P A G E+| The U.S. sounds like the three little pigs