The missiles "will destroy everything that makes life in Baghdad livable," Ullman told CBS reporter David Martin. "We want them to quit; we want them not to fight. ... You take the city down. ... You have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima - not taking days or weeks, but in minutes."
"Shock and awe," Ullman calls it. Shock there will be. Awe less likely, as so many will be dead by then.
The disgraceful Arabs, who have never learned the meaning of "unity" or "initiative," met in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last week. All they produced, apart from a slanging match between Libya and Saudi Arabia, was a statement saying no Arab country should help with the war against Iraq. Yet most of them already have U.S. forces stationed on their territory ready for battle. Does that give the U.S. and Britain the right to occupy Iraq, to be the new colonial masters?
The U.S. is waiting for the U.N. to give it permission to attack, but gives all indications of being ready to do it without permission. The U.N., for its part, maintains a shameful silence as Israel invades Palestinian areas, demolishes, kills pregnant women and children and razes houses with people still inside - all this from behind the safety shield of missiles and armed vehicles.
This silence is unlikely to change when the U.S. attacks Iraq. The shock-and-awe tactic will mean there are no body bags to send home to America. Iraqi dead will be called "collateral damage" again and quickly forgotten.
Yet North Korea is allowed to go into nuclear production. The gentle North Korean people are to be dialogued with. No double standards here!
I talked to my 85-year-old mother in Baghdad a few days ago. Everyone there is going about his or her normal business, quite used to war tension by now. They seem quite fatalistic.
My neighbor was going to Baghdad and I asked my mother what I could send her. "Nuts, please," she said. So I sent nuts - and chocolates and water purification tabs - and I told her: "In case war starts, please move to my house in the orchard. It's so much safer than yours on the river. ... "
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the U.N. is dismantling and blowing up all Iraq's weapons. No double standards here!
... The United Arab Emirates have suggested that Saddam step down to avoid war, but it doesn't look as if anything will satisfy the United States now except full control of Iraq. And the U.S. will be there to stay. Like Israel in the occupied territories, it will put down roots. ...
As fast as Iraqi missiles are being destroyed, so the U.S. and Britain increase their bombing of the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. Getting rid of Iraqi defenses; getting ready for the invasion which I think has already started.
