Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003
Rather and Saddam
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
Edward Cline wrote:
> Watching Dan Rather interview Saddam Hussein
> last week, after ten minutes of the obscenity, I
> switched it off, having become too ill to watch any
> more of it, but knowing that the transcript would be
> available on the CBS site overnight.
I watched the entire interview and I agree with Edward Cline's
assessment of it.
Saddam Hussein was permitted to come across as the injured party
in his dealings with the United States, as if he is just a nice guy
running his own peaceful country and the town bully insists on
picking on him for no reason whatsoever.
He also said he didn't lose the Gulf War, but voluntarily withdrew
from Kuwait, because retreating is sometimes a necessary part of an
overall war plan; that the Gulf War never ended, because Iraq has
been bombed daily by the US and its allies; and that he won't
consider Iraq to have been defeated, so long as he is still alive and
the head of Iraq; that obviously the Iraqi people want him to be
their President, because he got 97.5% of the vote in an earlier
election and 100% of the vote in the last election; and he spoke of a
pan-Arabic association that was looking for a leader and implied
that he was such a leader; and that he wasn't jealous of Bin Laden's
ability to unite the Arab people, because jealousy is for women.
None of this was seriously challenged by Dan Rather.
Overall, this interview convinced me that defeating Iraq has to be
our next step in the War on Terror, because if we don't oust
Hussein he will definitely attempt to create a pan-Arabic empire
with himself as the leader and the United States as the primary
enemy.
<HB: And it has been pointed out that Saddam, for his so-far
successful defiance of the US, serves as a hero to Arabs throughout
the Middle East.>
