Complications with Iraq

As if U.S. relations with Iraq aren't complicated enough, now comes word that Saddam Hussein may still be holding a pilot who was shot down during the Gulf War a decade ago.
At a time when Vice President Dick Cheney is touring Europe and the Middle East seeking support for an international alliance against Iraq, the possibility that Saddam Hussein has an American hostage in his grasp is unsettling.
Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher, who would be 44 years old now, was classified killed in action in 1991. After receiving information that Speicher had survived the crash of his plane and that he had been seen in Iraq, the CIA, the Navy, and President Clinton reviewed Speicher's case. On Jan. 10, 2001, Speicher was reclassified as missing in action.
This past January, President Bush and top advisers in the State and Defense departments were informed by intelligence agents that an Iraqi defector who had been a high-ranking military adviser to Hussein has told Dutch intelligence that an American pilot was in Iraq and alive as of January.
The defector said the American pilot is in prison and that Hussein has taken a personal interest in keeping him alive.
Coalition building: It was Cheney, then secretary of Defense, who declared Speicher dead during a press briefing after the first strike in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. During the past week, Cheney has been attempting, with apparent little success, to build a coalition that would help topple Saddam Hussein.
Hussein reneged on the treaty that ended the Gulf War by denying United Nations inspectors full access to records and sites that would show Iraq's involvement in the development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Iraq has also been involved in sponsoring terrorist cells, although there is no evidence linking Hussein directly to the attacks of Sept. 11.
Nonetheless, one Arab leader after another has counseled Cheney in recent days against opening an Iraqi campaign in the war on terrorism.
They're all telling Cheney that the top priority is to solve the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. We wouldn't necessarily disagree as to priorities, given the daily death toll in Israel and the West Bank.
But we have to wonder, after the United States makes a good faith effort to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians, will its Arab allies be equally supportive in holding Hussein to the Gulf War treaty, in breaking his links to international terrorism and in returning an American pilot to his native land? Or will the United States be force to act alone?