By Garner Ted Armstrong
Will the United States attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq before year’s end?
With the rhetoric increasing on all sides; with America’s so-called
“allies” in Europe screeching caution and anti-American slogans; with the
congress demanding that President Bush come to them on bended knee and ask
their permission; with much of the world demanding that the US government
go humbly before the Security Council of the UN and beg their permission;
with Iraq once again using the hollow ploy of alleged readiness to invite
inspectors in — there is little certainty anywhere.
Meanwhile, the authoritative DEBKA file reports that up to 100,000
Americans may have been quietly gathering in the region. Up to five US
carrier battle groups are ploughing through the Gulf and Arabian sea, as
well as the eastern Mediterranean. A British aircraft carrier battle group
is also on station.
Clearly, if and when the US president gives the go ahead, US and British
forces are poised to strike. But strike where? How?
Obviously, any strike against Iraq would feature all the weaponry at US
and British disposal; cruise missiles, laser-guided bombs delivered at
night by stealth aircraft, amphibious landings; perhaps even air drops by
airborne troops.
Currently, military planning envisions a multi-pronged strike aimed at
paralyzing the Iraqi command and control centers, just as in the gulf war;
disrupting communications; blacking out radar, and destroying key military
targets. However, Americans must not think such an attack will necessarily
meet with the same success as those of “Desert Storm” or the war in
Afghanistan.
Iraq is a country the size of California. Saddam Hussein has literally
dozens of “palaces,” which are nothing less than large compounds, with
deep underground bunkers for troops, weapons and munitions. He has had ten
years during which he has had his military and special forces working hard
at dispersal and camouflage; hiding his stores of anthrax, smallpox, VX
nerve gas, mustard gas and other chemical and biological weapons, which
military experts say are “weaponized,” meaning they can be contained in
warheads of bombs and artillery shells, or missiles.
When the truth finally was known following the Gulf War, it was revealed
that coalition forces had found virtually none of the mobile SCUD missile
launchers in the western Iraqi desert; that they were able to launch,
move, and hide to avoid destruction.
Americans, accustomed to quick and easy victories, may be shocked at the
incredible difficulties inherent in an attack upon Iraq. Without a buildup
of at least a half a million men, a war with Iraq may prove much more
difficult than the attack against Afghanistan, and the overthrow of the
Taliban.
Of primary importance is “an exit strategy.” As Carl von Clausewitz wrote
in his military classic “On War,” no military commander should plan his
first move unless he knows his last!
Because the US ignored this all important principal, we won the war in
Iraq in only 100 hours, and then lost the peace — leaving Saddam Hussein
in power, and fully capable of carrying out his evil agenda.
Unless a genuine internal revolt occurs against Saddam; unless a
legitimate government, one which is NOT pieced together by the US or the
UN, but one which spontaneously arises INSIDE IRAQ can replace Saddam’s
regime, there will be no peace, but merely another breathing spell between
this impending war and the next.
Even so, will there be an Islamic state in the world, no matter how much
publicity is given to an indigenous uprising and turnover of government,
who will truly believe such a new government is not a puppet of the US and
Israel?
Some military men have stated their hopes that victory over Iraq would
lead to ”some Iraqi general” coming along to establish a peaceful new
regime with democratic reforms. Perhaps if Saddam’s own sons turned
against him; if his own clan revolted; if the palace guard betrayed him,
the Islamic world would believe. However, knowing the incredible evil
which has been perpetrated by Saddam’s two leading sons, Uday and Qusay,
and their virtually idolatrous worship of their father (they were handed
pistols by Saddam when only mere boys and told by their father to shoot a
man arrested for treason — the boys obliged, pumping full magazines of
cartridges into the jerking body of the defenseless, dying man while their
father watched approvingly), it is highly doubtful that his sons, who
control Iraq’s secret apparatus, would betray him.
Briefly, consider Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s heir apparent, according to a
State Department release:
Saddam's second son and heir apparent. Oversees all Iraqi
intelligence and security services, the Republican Guard, and the Special
Republican Guard. In 2001, was named Deputy of Ba'ath
Party's Military Bureau and elected member Ba'ath Regional Command.
Qusay swiftly helps Saddam eliminate any real or perceived threat to the
regime by using bloody and shocking "tools of repression" to blackmail,
force confessions, and destroy opponents.
Authorizes interrogation, jailing, and execution of political prisoners
and their families.
Periodically ordered during 1988-99 mass prison executions of several
thousand inmates ("prison cleansing").
Led crackdown against the al-Dulaym tribe in 1995 and local Shi'a revolt
in 1997.
Saddam’s sons are equally as evil as their father.
Obviously, only a post-Saddam Islamic regime which is approved and trusted
by all other Islamic states, and which can be proved to be ANTI-AMERICAN
AND ANTI-ISRAELI would ever be accepted by any of them!
And in this fact is the bleak truth that any post-Saddam regime, which
emerges out of the ashes of Iraqi defeat, will be suspect; will never be
truly trusted by the world of Islam! Obviously, any US President would be
insane to contemplate setting up a post-Saddam regime which would
immediately continue with Saddam’s policies, or which would be subservient
to Iran, or involved in close ties with other rogue states such as Syria
and Libya.
Consider the entire region, and its Islamic governments. Iran has recently
issued a proclamation calling upon Syria, the Hizbolla and other terrorist
organizations, as well as the Palestinians, to immediately, upon an attack
by the US against Saddam, to open up a “second front” by attacking Israel!
Just as he did in the Gulf War, Saddam will no doubt launch missiles
against Israel. The ruling Ayatolla in Iran believes that such a
many-pronged attack against Israel would halt the US attack against Iraq
in its tracks, or at least divert attention to such an extent that it
would slow it down enormously.
Syria, a known haven for terrorist organizations, and high on the list of
“rogue nations,” possesses its own substantial air force and armored
divisions. It also possesses an arsenal of sophisticated missiles
purchased from Russia, China and North Korea. Syria has smarted under its
many defeats in its wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 (when it lost
the Golan Heights), and 1973. Syria controls Lebanon; occupies the Bekaa
Valley north of Israel, where thousands of guerrilla Hizbolla continually
harass Israeli border towns.
This time, neighboring Arab and Islamic nations (Iran is Persian, not
Arab, but is Islamic) will not have the mitigating factor of the brutal
occupation of one Islamic state by another; Saddam Hussein‘s rape of
Kuwait, as justification for condemning Iraq. Instead, any US attack will
be viewed as an attempt to set up a US puppet state in the Middle East,
bowing to the whims of Israel and Washington. Millions of Arabs see the US
as the “Great Satan;” the embodiment of all evil. They believe the US is
wholly controlled by a “Zionist Conspiracy” which seeks possession of the
oil resources of the Gulf States, and the overthrow of what they see as
legitimate, sovereign Islamic states.
It is well known Saddam Hussein sits atop up to 10% of the world’s oil
reserves. While the US continually rattles sabers and talks war, Europe
and Russia wish to expand trade with Iraq, and urge the US to back off;
trade Inspectors for the quid pro quo of the lifting of sanctions, and
pursue a diplomatic policy of “containment” of Saddam and his weapons of
mass destruction, rather than going after him and his ruling clan.
I once was told of an old Lebanese proverb that sounded for all the world
like something an American farmer might have told: There is a stick lying
in the barn yard, completely covered with manure. You need to pick up that
stick. You might try to do so with thumb and forefinger, or with the index
fingers of each hand, rather than simply grasping it with the whole hand,
but no matter how you try to pick it up, you will find manure on your
hand.
This analogy is used to illustrate the sticky problem the US faces in the
event of an attack on Iraq. Even Tony Blair of Britain is urging the
revealing of more “proof” of Saddam’s evil intentions, and has recently
been chastised by the French Foreign Minister for saying he (Blair)
intended going public with some intelligence which proves Saddam’s
culpability.
Even Republicans in congress are urging Bush to do the same — to detail
the “proofs” that Saddam is on the cusp of once again invading Kuwait, or
threatening US installations and ships, or that he was involved in the
9/11 attacks, or is fostering terrorists who intend attacking the US here
at home. Hawks argue that the releasing of any such information
compromises the United States armed forces who will be sent in harm’s way;
allows Saddam to move any weapons which may have compromised, and
forewarns him even further of what is in the works. Truly, Iraq is like a
stick in a barnyard.
Bible prophecy says the final battles, which will rock this earth prior to
the intervention of God, will occur in the Middle East! As I have
portrayed in detail many times in the past (see my booklet about whether
war in the Middle East will lead to Armageddon), the prophecies of Christ
in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, together with Daniel 11:40-45, portray a time
of “wars and rumors of wars” accompanied by an increase in “natural”
disasters, such as floods, famines, disease epidemics, and earthquakes in
“divers” (different - many) places.
We are living in that time! You and I know we could wake up any morning
now, and find that another massive attack has occurred inside the United
States! Millions are apprehensive as we approach the anniversary of
September 11, not because of remembering, or as a solemn day of sadness
and grief, but also because terrorists are known to plan attacks on
anniversaries of previous attacks.
What is it going to take for thousands of people to WAKE UP, and realize
time is short?
What will it take to cause thousands who are simply “waiting it out,”
uninterested, uninvolved, sleepily thinking only of their own personal
lives, to WAKE UP, and realize we are on the brink, if not already IN the
beginning of the prophesied GREAT TRIBULATION to come upon our peoples?
This coming Feast of Tabernacles may be the most momentous in the history
of God’s church! Events may occur BEFORE, or DURING, or just AFTER the
Feast which will once again alter the very course of world history!
As I have said so many times, WATCH! Watch and pray as Christ commanded!
“Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to
escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the
Son of man” (Luke 21:36).
