In bombing Iraq, was President Clinton simply trying to deflect attention from the impeachment proceedings?
I think there are certainly legitimate strategic reasons for bombing Iraq. I don’t want to say the president is motivated exclusively or even primarily by political reasons. Having said that, the bombings certainly serve the president’s interests. The timing works very well for him. There have been many occasions where taking military action against Iraq would have been appropriate. There was no reason last time around to believe Saddam’s lies — he always lies. Right now the president has tremendous incentives to take the action which he should have taken earlier. He should have bombed last month without question. Why? The Iraqis have not complied with the U.N. inspection requirements. The only way for Saddam to know that we are serious about enforcing the inspection regime is to punish him when he doesn’t follow it. Now, it’s true that we could not have taken out whatever weapons of mass destruction he has been building — because we don’t know where they are — but that’s not the sa
