LONDON/WASHINGTON, 31 July — A US-led invasion of Iraq would
destabilize the Middle East, Arab League chief Amr Moussa warned
yesterday amid reports of growing unease among US and British
military chiefs over any such offensive.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper said that military chiefs on
both sides of the Atlantic were expressing deep unease at American
President Bush’s bellicose statements about Iraq. On Monday the
president spoke of his determination to crush threats posed by the
“world’s worst leaders.”
According to various reports, US contingency plans range from
heavy airstrikes with a small invasion force of 5,000 troops to a
massive ground force of 250,000 US troops supported by a
25,000-strong British force.
A British military source told the Guardian that all the
options were “high risk”. Gen. Michael Rose, a former head of
Britain’s elite Special Air Service, whose troops are trained to
operate behind enemy lines, also voiced concerns.
In an article in London’s Evening Standard under the heading
“The madness of going to war with Iraq”, Rose said: “There
are huge political and military risks associated with launching
large-scale ground forces into Iraq.”
A former chief of Britain’s defense staff, Field Marshal Lord
Bramall, warned in a letter to The Times that an invasion of Iraq
would pour “petrol rather than water” on the situation and
boost recruitment for Al-Qaeda, the group suspected of being
behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
In the United States, the Washington Post reported that many
senior officers believed Saddam posed no immediate threat and
advocated continuing the policy of containment rather than
invading Iraq, which carried too many risks.
They also questioned the Bush administration’s determination
to topple Saddam as part of its “war on terror”.
Moussa said: “It would threaten the whole stability in the
Middle East, which is already under constant threat by the
continuation, the aggravation of the Arab-Israeli or
Palestinian-Israeli issues.” Moussa, a leading voice in the Arab
world, was speaking to BBC radio.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that air
strikes alone would not stop Iraq from developing chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons. He also said Iraq has “benefited
from Americans spies” that provide insider information on US
military tactics.
“The Iraqis have a great deal of what they do deeply
buried,” Rumsfeld said at the US Joint Forces Command
headquarters in Suffolk, Virginia, referring to buried and mobile
sites for weapons of mass destruction the US believes Iraq has
developed.
“A biological laboratory can be on wheels in a trailer and
make a lot of bad stuff, and it’s moveable. And it looks like
most any other trailer,” he said.
Rumsfeld then quietly dropped a bombshell by saying that
American spies were helping the Iraqis. A Pentagon spokesman was
unable to clarify Rumsfeld’s remarks, but did say the secretary
was speaking about past, not current, US spies.