THE LEGACY OF WEAK LEADERSHIP AND FICKLE ALLIES

How Clinton and the Europeans convinced Saddam that the USA was weak.

U.S. DEFENSE AND Security sources tell NEWSWEEK that high-ranking former Saddam aides have told U.S. interrogators that Saddam believed the only assault President George W. Bush would ever launch against Iraq was the kind of low-risk bombing campaign that the Clinton administration used in the former Yugoslavia. Saddam was also confident that France and Germany would pressure the Americans to retreat from this course, leaving Iraq shaken but Saddam still in power.

Meanwhile, another author pushes a similar theme:

The President vowed to stay the course, but noted that it is only recently that America has done so. “During the last few decades the terrorists grew bolder, believing if they hit America hard, America would retreat and back down.”

Perhaps the President had in mind al-Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, when President Clinton and Al Gore backed down.

Perhaps he had in mind al-Qaeda’s attack on American troops in Somalia, when President Clinton and Al Gore backed down.

Perhaps he had in mind the attack on the Khobar Towers, a dormitory housing American soldiers, where President Clinton and Al Gore backed down.

Perhaps he had in mind the attack on the USS Cole, when President Clinton and Al Gore backed down.

“Five years ago,” the President continued, “one of the terrorists said that an attack could make America run in less than 24 hours. They’re learning something different today. The terrorists have not seen America running; they’ve seen America marching. They’ve seen the armies of liberation marching into Kabul and to Baghdad.” And they know and respect the difference.