U.S. DELAYS START OF IRAQI OFFENSIVE
by DEBKAfile, 23 March 2002
"In the light of the mounting opposition to the Iraqi operation US Vice President Richard Cheney encountered in his 11-nation Middle East-Gulf, the White House is reported by DEBKA-Net-Weeklys military, intelligence and political sources to have fitted new goals around the Iraqi scenario, including also solutions to the acute Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the long-festering Kurdish national issue and the Ethiopian-Somali border conflict all primary engines of terror.
This expanded geopolitical-cum-military agenda calls for carefully synchronized
multiple military strikes on several fronts. The immediate consequence of
the revised plan of action is a six-to-eight week delay in the US military
offensive against Baghdad from early April to the second half of May
or early June.
The postponement was decided during Cheneys penultimate Middle East
stop in Jerusalem on March 18-19, before he set off for Ankara. While the
Palestinian issue appeared to dominate the visit, in reality most of the vice
presidents 48-hour stay was taken up by highly confidential conferences
between him and President George W. Bush, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
secretary of state Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice
and CIA director George Tenet.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly s sources, Cheneys foremost argument
for the postponement was that broadening the campaigns objectives to
solve chronic conflicts that keep the region permanently on the boil, could
rally its European and Middle East opponents round to supporting the strike
against Saddam. The necessary delay could be used profitably to win more allied
support.
But with or without such support, the Bush team is determined to press ahead
with its multi-pronged program for removing Saddam and eradicating terror
clusters embedded in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.
In Washingtons sights are the Hizballah (harbored in Lebanon with tacit
Syrian sanction) the new al-Qaeda bases established in south Lebanon (and
tolerated by the Beirut government); the clandestine al Qaeda presence in
the Gulf region, including Yemen (which collaborates with US but also secretly
leaves the Islamic extremists be); Saudi Arabia (which secretly harbors al
Qaeda partisans and openly refuses to collaborate with the US counter-terror
drive); Abu Dhabi (a sanctuary for the lawless of every stripe); the al Qaeda
cells harbored in Somalia and Sudan (notwithstanding Khartoums gesture
of handing over an activist this week).
As for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he is deemed a write-off. Washington
will make sure he is removed from the Palestinian Authority and replaced with
an acceptable Palestinian leader or leaders. The United States, the vice president
explained, intended casting the kingdom of Jordan and its army in the role
of security patron over the West Bank province of the Palestinian state-to-be."