Bombs Away
Iraq has agreed to destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles by Saturday, the deadline imposed by Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix. Is this proof that inspections work? It’s certainly proof that Iraq doesn’t want war. The spin put on this will undoubtedly be negative (they’re not doing enough) rather than positive (Iraq is finally beginning to disarm). Certainly, Saddam could be just trying to buy time. But I don’t think that anything he does at this point will stop the pro-war juggernaut from getting the fight they want. The Onion recently had an article to the effect of “Saddam fully disarms; Bush administration tells Americans ‘he’s trying to fool you,’ angrily declares war.” (If anyone has the link, I’d be very grateful.) If Iraq continues to disarm and we still attack them, the global consequences will be even worse than we thought. So if we’re going to war, we had better go soon.
Bush is probably also keeping one eye on the polls, as support for his re-election is now below 50%.