Bill Clinton has once again proven that he is the epitomy of the ' paper tiger '. He allows a despot like Saddam Hussein to play with him like a yo-yo. But does our beloved fearless leader have a hidden agenda? See my previous article for additional details: Kofi Break? ( 11-15-98 )

The President took to the air waves, to publicly announce the decision to abort military action against Iraq and puff out his stuffed shirt. Trying to act strong yet diplomatic he said, " Iraq has backed down, but must live up to it's obligations ". Like have they ever done that? He offered up an unconscious insight into the true nature of this latest deal with Iraq's dictator, when he said that Iraq was rescinding the complaints of October and August, ignoring the February memorandum signed by Kofi Annan and Iraq. Is this truely unconditional? I think not! This Presidential media show was a complete ' wag the dog ' event designed to make Clinton look like the master negotiator, but it should be recognized as the load of bull, that it was!

Just prior to the Presidential snow job, Nizar Hamdoon was on ' Meet The Press '. He was very clear in stating that UNSCOM could go anywhere ( under the February memorandum ). This means no surprise inspections and limited access to the so called Iraqi Presidential sites. These sites are where Iraq keeps the weapons materials at question. Eliminating the element of surprise, allows the Iraqis to remove components from the site to be inspected. Does this sound like unconditional unrestricted access? Isn't that what Clinton wanted us to believe ( unrestricted and unconditional )?

Kofi Annan has said, " We must avoid confrontational inspections ". Are these the ' inspections of discovery ' that Scott Ritter claims were cancelled by Albright and Berger themselves ( while Clinton talked tough on Iraq in his State of The Union Address )? These are the most important inspections, as they are the ones that uncover the weapons that Iraq is trying to hide. Unconditional...yeah, right!

In response to Clinton's foot in mouth media circus event, Tariq Aziz said that Iraq was only agreeing to what it set out in his letter to Kofi Annan on Saturday and they don't rescind what was called for in August, a comprehensive review of UNSCOM itself. This is in direct contradiction to what Clinton said.

Richard Butler and Scott Ritter both echoed that Iraq has a regiment to actively conceal their weapons of mass destruction from UNSCOM. Butler described the VX gas fiasco, when Iraq denied having any, but when some was found, said they only made only a few liters, while in reality they made four tons of it. Ritter said, " We must carry out inspections of discovery ".

Once again, prior to the Presidential dog and pony show, Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn weighed in. Lugar said, " We must strike Iraq; we have been embarrassed ". Sam Nunn said. " We should have gone ahead with the attack before the letter. We ought to tell them what we want. Make them sign a letter we write ". Oh Sam, you should be our President!

To finish off the Clinton foreign policy lovefest Whitehouse media event, Clinton enlisted National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Defense Secretary William Cohen. Clinton ended his comments with these self serving remarks. " We had a very credible threat of overwhelming force. Saddam is more isolated than ever before, since the Gulf War ". Is he trying to look like the great foreign policy master, or what? Too make sure there was no doubt on how serious our fearless leader should be taken, Sandy Berger said, " If they don't comply, we don't have any obligation to go back to the UN Security Council " ( before taking military action ). Clinton's resolve was echoed by William Cohen as he said, " Not an empty threat, it was close ". I wonder just how much these unused military deployments have cost the US taxpayer?

On ' This Week ', after the scripted Whitehouse capitulation-disgiused-as-victory media event, former CIA director John Deutch said, " This is an explicit strategy by Saddam Hussein ". ABC commentator Bill Krystal added, " This was a disaster for the United States ".

Kofi Annan finally emerged from the UN Security Council session and announced an agreement with Iraq that will allow the UNSCOM inspections to resume. When quizzed about whether the first inspections would be Presidential sites or inspections of discovery, he ducked the issue and defered to Richard Butler ( obviously, this journalist was hip to the possibility of ' conditional ' unconditional weapons inspections ).

Only the Iraqis and the UN Security Council known exactly what was decided upon. We do know that Iraq has had a few months of no UNSCOM activity, to conceal any weapons it has left. There are two things that I know for sure. 1) If Saddam did back down, he will be back up soon. 2) If Bill Clinton wagged the dog, he will be wagging it some more. It is sad that our foreign policy has come down to a gang of Whitehouse spinmeisters.

Oh yeah, all you Iraqis who work in aspirin factories or live in tents in the mountains; you can go back for a few days now!

- Bongo ( dejavu... )