06/24/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09964

SADDAM HUSSEIN MUST GO

"I made up my mind that [Saddam] Hussein needs to go. The policy of my government is that he goes," said President George W. Bush. Getting rid of Iraq's dictator is a good idea for many reasons. Saddam Hussein's regime poses a threat to the Iraqi people, the Middle East, and much of the world.

Since taking power in 1979, Saddam Hussein has brutally repressed the Iraqi people. His agents have murdered thousands of political opponents and tortured and imprisoned many more. His security forces used poison gas to kill thousands of Kurdish civilians in the 1980s. During the Kurdish and Shia insurgencies in 1991, Saddam's forces killed between thirty-thousand and sixty-thousand men, women, and children.

While Iraqi citizens are denied their basic rights, they also go short of needed food, medicine, and other necessities. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein and his henchmen live high. Saddam's personal wealth is mostly derived from the oil revenues that rightfully belong to the Iraqi people, and is estimated at over six-billion dollars. Saddam Hussein has spent a billion dollars on presidential palaces, complete with private waterfalls and lakes, while many Iraqis are short of water and sanitation facilities.

Hussein has used much of Iraq's wealth on war and weapons, including weapons of mass destruction. In 1990, his war machine invaded Kuwait. The Kuwaiti people endured savage repression until Kuwait was liberated by a U.S.-led international coalition.

The United Nations Security Council imposed economic sanctions aimed at ending Saddam's repression and shutting down his weapons of mass destruction program. But Saddam Hussein refused to comply. His regime is believed to have ballistic missiles and chemical and biological weapons. And Iraq continues its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. President Bush said, "the worst thing that could happen would be to allow a nation. . .run by Saddam Hussein to develop weapons of mass destruction, and then team up with terrorist organizations so they can blackmail the world."

The Iraqi regime sponsors international terrorist groups, especially those that seek to destroy Israel and block Middle East peace. Iraq offers Palestinians, in the words of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "twenty-five thousand dollars per family if they can persuade their youngsters to go out and kill themselves and kill innocent people." President Bush said that "those governments like Iraq, that reward parents for the sacrifice of their children, are guilty of soliciting murder of the worst kind."

The record is clear. Saddam Hussein is an implacable enemy of the Iraqi people and all others who value freedom. The Iraqi people deserve better.