By Steve Holt, Opinion Editor
On Tuesday, CIA Director George Tenet told a Senate panel that reports of planned al Qaeda attacks which led to a heightened U.S. security alert are “the most specific we have seen.” But with the shadow of a war with Iraq slowly creeping across the horizon, most Americans dismissed or underestimated the increased homeland terror alert last week. Friday the level reached “orange” for only the second time since Sept. 11, and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge said Friday that the terrorism reports U.S. intelligence intercepted last week were the most numerous and specific since before the attacks.
Al Qaeda currently is America’s No. 1 concern, not Iraq.
Yes, a regime change must occur in Iraq, either by Saddam Hussein willingly stepping down or by force, but our most immediate threat is in the widespread terrorist organization, al Qaeda. Likely to be in small factions all over Europe and probably Canada, this unpredictable and irrational organization has already shown America the scope of its terror, and it isn’t finished.
Ridge said colors were chosen to represent the levels of alert because of their ambiguity, but that if the alert were on a scale from one to 10, the likelihood of there being another terrorist attack in the next two weeks would be about eight.
Tuesday’s CIA testimony revealed that the U.S. homeland is more susceptible to terrorist attacks now than ever before. FBI investigations revealed many Islamic extremists in the U.S., hundreds of which have links to al Qaeda. The government shouldn’t let its mind wander overseas when the greatest threat could be on our own soil.
So where does this leave us with Iraq?
Saddam Hussein has shown no desire to cooperate with United Nations inspectors to this point and will not likely give up his power voluntarily, but the U.S. need not deploy every uniformed young man and woman to fight Iraq.
Hussein has protecting him three rings of forces.
The outer ring is the republican guard,composed of 50,000-70,000 soldiers stationed on the three main roads to Baghdad. The special republican guard, the second ring, is made up of about 26,000 soldiers in Baghdad. The inner-most ring is made of various security organizations, all with the mission to protect Hussein and the 50-or-so others who help govern Iraq.
In total, Iraq is believed to have a ragged, unorganized 375,000 soldiers, while the United States’ forces on the Iraqi border currently number 250,000 and rising.
So scale back the potential war, President Bush. Treat this war as you did the invasion of Afghanistan, with special forces and fewer troops. But before you pour ungodly amounts of money into a full-scale war with Iraq, consider that much more can be done to protect our ports and landmarks in the midst of the highest security threat since Sept. 11.
