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Thursday, March 20, 2003 Page: 9A
OPINION
WAR HAS BEGUN. That should be no surprise. President Bush had set a deadline
for Saddam Hussein and his camp to relinquish power and leave. The massing of
U.S. forces for war had been indisputable.
Yet even when war against Hussein’s regime began with just selected strikes
against military targets rather than a saturation attack, it was a moment of
“shock and awe” that was shared around the world.
It has begun. The United States has launched an assault against a defiant
Saddam Hussein. It is an attack without support from our erstwhile allies. It
is a war with considerable opposition in this country. It is a war that has
conflicted the emotion and reasoning of many Americans.
It is a war announced on prime-time TV, intended to lead the United States
out of “a time of peril,” said President Bush, but it is a strategy many
feel could lead to the marrow of jeopardy.
And while we watched from the comfort of our homes on Wednesday night, it
was a new day and a harsh morning a world away, where U.S. forces risked the
many hazards of war, and a defiant regime and a civilian population faced the
intimidation most of us can’t imagine.
However it is measured, it began with shock and awe.