This time, however, if the Israelis are hit, it is highly unlikely they will heed American pleas for restraint.
The exception is Israel’s population, which over the years has been drilled in preparation for a chemical attack. Less well prepared are the civilians in the region, a population basically naked to this threat. The most likely delivery method will be Iraqi artillery and short-range rockets, and American and British forces have trained accordingly. ground forces fully expect to get “slimed,” as chemical attacks are known in the military.
Defeating inept Iraqi armed forces is one thing replacing the civilian infrastructure of a long-running dictatorship is quite another.īecause Saddam knows we are coming to get him this time, and that his survival as Iraq’s leader is not an option, any reluctance he may have had in the 1990-91 conflict to use chemical weapons or even biological agents has been removed. This is a formidable task and completing it complicates the military’s job enormously. This time, President Bush has left no doubts that “regime change” is a major objective of the war.
