In Search of Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction'

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See the Lev Navrozov Archive By Lev Navrozov SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for the New York City Tribune. His columns are today read in both English and Russian. .

As a reviewer (for ÒThe Yale Literary MagazineÓ and ÒThe Chronicles of CultureÓ) of the American currently ÒbestÓ and now-forgotten novels, I had to point out to a decline of American literature as compared with the times of Steinbeck's ÒOf Mice and MenÓ or Irwin Shaw's ÒThe Brooklyn Idyll.Ó Great literature is part of mental progress: it teaches how to understand others instead of stereotyping them into identical farcical villains and pompous heroes.

It is easy to stereotype Stalin and his successors, Hitler, Mao and his successors, and Ñ Saddam Hussein as identical villains , threatening the world with their villainy.

Now, whether or not Saddam Hussein is more cruel than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao or their successors, he has never been after world domination because only large, globally powerful dictatorships were or are after it and hence were or are threats to the world. Stalin's successors were, and Mao's successors are, developing Ñ no, not Òweapons of mass destruction,Ó but post-nuclear superweapons of global destruction outside their countries. Such superweapons are to destroy the enemy means of nuclear retaliation and thus make the attacked country defenseless.

In short, while Hitler ended too early for the development of post-nuclear superweapons of global-scale destruction, Soviet Russia did develop them at least up to 1991, and Communist China began to develop them in 1986, which was reported even in the ÒopenÓ (and not only secret) Chinese press.

But Saddam Hussein has never been after world domination because Iraq is too small, which he, not being a clinical idiot, has always understood, and if some members of the U.S. political establishment (pretend that they) do not, it is their problem.

Hussein had wanted before the war to preserve his power over Iraq and now he wants to regain it.

In the 1980s he kept receiving weapons of mass destruction (no, not superweapons of global-scale destruction) from the United States for his defense against Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. But then he punctually destroyed them, because what did he need them for?

To fight in the United States as did those nineteen suicidal Islamic fundamentalists on Sept. 11, 2001?

Yes, Islamic fundamentalists who become suicidal terrorists Òhate AmericaÓ religiously and are ready to die to do it any harm without any purpose except harm for harm's sake as an expression of hatred like spitting into a hated face.

But before the war of 2003, Hussein was never an Islamic fundamentalist Ñ on the contrary, his secular power was based on the domination of the more secular Sunni minority over the fundamentalist Shia majority, who Òhate AmericaÓ and perhaps will create an Iraq hating America, as those 19 suicidal terrorists hated it."

On the other hand, any reliable evidence in U.S. possession (not the Iraqi immigrants' tall tales to the CIA to involve the United States in the overthrow of Hussein) concerning Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (useless to him) or concerning his involvement in anti-American terrorism was bound to lead with a 100 percent certainty to a U.S. invasion, that is, Hussein's loss of his domination of Iraq.

Hussein did not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States during the Gulf War of 1991. He was told that he would be ÒnukedÓ if he did. Nor did he use weapons of mass destruction in 2003 since again he could be Ònuked.Ó

Nor has he been using them in the post-war assassinations of U.S. soldiers (usually, two a day)Ñ. Conventional bullets and bombs have been suitable for the task.

Why should he have kept weapons of mass destruction? To fight in heaven or in hell against Allah?

In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. To invade Russia, turn its natural resources into the globally irresistible armed forces and thus to establish world domination. In 1991 Hussein invaded Kuwait because the latter began to sell its oil at dumping prices and would not stop doing so despite Hussein's objections, since the U.S. oilmen were delighted with Kuwait's damping oil prices. Then Hussein invaded Kuwait, which was not the beginning of Hussein's war for world domination, but a detail of an oil conflict, which resumed in 2003.

Hussein did use chemical weapons against the Kurds in uprising (with which the United States had supplied him for the defense against Iran). But it was not the beginning of the war for world domination or doing harm for harm's sake to mankind, but the savage suppression of a dangerous uprising that would have dealt no less savagely with both Sunnis and Shias if it had won.

The history of stereotyping the rulers of foreign countries into identical villains from the same low farce did not begin with Hussein.

In 1999, President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was stereotyped by Clinton as Òthe Hitler of todayÓ because it was allegedly on Milosevic's order that 44 or 45 Albanian civilians were killed on January 15, 1999, in the village of Racak, Kosovo. Actually, it was the Kosovo Liberation Army that passed its dead soldiers for ÒAlbanian civilians.Ó Today, about five years later, the War Crimes Tribunal is still deliberating whether to pronounce Milosevic guilty or innocent. At one point they tried to pronounce him insane and hence unfit to stand trial, but he refused to undergo a psychiatric examination.

In 2001, Osama bin Laden was stereotyped as Òthe Hitler of todayÓ for his alleged terrorist act of Sept. 11. But Osama, for all his megalomaniac threats and boasts, had nothing to do with the September 11 attack, and he is very different from Hitler. The latter routed France, along with the British Expeditionary Force, in about a month, and within four months he destroyed the Soviet armed forces and could enter Moscow without resistance. Osama is a boastful charlatan, liar, coward, and nonentity, stereotyped by the U.S. media into the most dangerous man on earth Ñ Òthe Hitler of today.Ó

There is no doubt that if Osama could, he would harm for harm's sake the United States as much as possible, and he would annihilate not only Jews (as Hitler did), but Òthe Jews and CrusadersÓ (Christians) as he puts it. But even for a one-man suicidal terrorist act, it is necessary to find one suicidal terrorist, not millions of Moslem paupers willing to be called al-Qaedas for $1 a day.

Finally, stereotyped in 2003 into Òthe Hitler of todayÓ has been Saddam Hussein. Again, he is as different from Hitler as are Milosevic or Osama bin Laden. As Saddam Hussein, not another ÒHitler of today,Ó he had destroyed the weapons of mass destruction, as useless and dangerous to him.