Toying with Iraq

You seem to think Iraq was “carpet-bombed” in the recent war [Good Intentions, May]. It was not. Those were precision munitions. Granted, “precision” does not mean “100 percent.” Still, “carpet-bombing” has a specific military meaning, which does not apply to this action. You find it suspicious that we have not uncovered any WMDs yet. Prior to the war, the UN was proposing up to 1,000 inspectors working for up to 12 months to do the job. At the time of your writing, the U.S. had been in Iraq three to four weeks, with no inspectors (only troops, who were rather preoccupied), and yet had discovered quite a pile of circumstantial evidence. You argue that American aggression will inspire more terrorism. That is certainly possible. Yet the opposite could also hold. Terrorist networks use tales of Super Power military blunders (Vietnam, Mogadishu, Soviets in Afghanistan) as potent recruiting tools. When we show we mean business, as against the Taliban, recruitment goes down. (This according to intelligence sources.) Granted, it never goes down to zero, and it’s unlikely this issue can ever be decided conclusively. Finally, you ask what would have happened if we hit Iraq with $80 billion in Barbies instead of bombs? We can only guess, but I suppose Saddam could have used them to decorate his rape rooms and his children’s prisons. The people of Iraq would, no doubt, have been grateful for our largesse.

Gene Dillenburg, St. Paul