TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2002 — Buried within today’s Boston Herald is a surprising bit of news about Congressman Michael Capuano of Somerville. Capuano, a generally solid congressman known to fight for his constituents on bread-and-butter issues, has decided to venture into foreign policy — a realm he usually eschews. Capuano took the opportunity to criticize President George Bush for his recent tough language about Iraq: in his January State of the Union Address, Bush included Iraq in an "axis of evil."

A tough-minded former city mayor, Capuano, in his published remarks to the Boston Herald, came across as a squeamish European Union bureaucrat on the topic of Saddam Hussein. Capuano, apparently told the Herald that he "disliked President George W. Bush’s ‘name-calling’ when he lumped Iraq into his multination ‘axis of evil.’" Let’s try to understand this: Capuano thinks calling Iraq and its psychopathic, Joseph-Stalin-wanna-be leader Saddam Hussein "evil" amounts to "name-calling."

Apparently the gentleman from Somerville isn’t familiar with Iraq’s Ba’athist regime. (Here’s a link from a PBS Frontline special that provides some background: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/etc/script.html) After spending his teens as an assassin for Iraq’s revolutionary movement, the Ba’ath Party, Saddam Hussein became Iraq’s vice-president in 1968 at age 31. In 1979, Hussein orchestrated a palace coup, which culminated in his calling a list of traitors out from a mass party meeting. Those summoned forward were executed. Hussein spent the bulk of the ’80s engaged in war with neighboring Iran, a conflict that cost 100,000 lives and in which he used poison-gas weapons. The Iraqi dictator also used poison gas — which has been banned in combat under the Geneva Protocol since World War I — against his own Kurdish citizens of Iraq. In 1990, when Capuano was first getting used to serving as Somerville’s chief executive, Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait — leaving only when the first president Bush ejected him by military force. Hussein also fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel, a nation with which his country was not at war.

To end the Gulf War, Hussein agreed to America’s terms, which included an inspection regime to prevent him from developing unconventional weapons — weapons he had already used against his own people, Iran, and Israel. In exchange for his surrender, the Bush administration permitted Hussein the ability to use his brutal Republican Guards against those who had rebelled against his regime. It is estimated that his thugs killed at least another 50,000 of his own people after the Gulf War. Hussein even slaughtered two of his son-in-laws who had defected, but whom the dictator convinced to return.

Today, Capuano demands "hard evidence" from Bush that Iraq is "manufacturing weapons of mass destruction." Right now, in violation of the terms that ended the Gulf War, Hussein is barring international inspectors from entering Iraq. To get Capuano the kind of evidence he demands would require, most likely, a forced incursion into Iraq. But hard evidence that Hussein is trying to develop weapons of mass destruction does indeed exist. A simple call from the congressman’s office to Ambassador Richard Butler, the former chief United Nations Special Commission inspector, or Khidir Hamza, a defector from Iraq who once headed Hussein’s nuclear-weapons program, can provide Capuano with the information he needs.

If the Herald account is accurate, Capuano didn’t even invoke the fashionable criticisms leveled against Bush’s "axis of evil" rhetoric. Most critics argue 1) that the countries Bush listed — Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — cannot be an axis because there is no connection among them; and 2) that Iran should not be included because of its reform movement. I don’t agree with these criticisms, but I do acknowledge that there is some logic behind them. The same cannot be said of Capuano’s comments about Iraq.

Prior to the Gulf War, many Massachusetts legislators made passionate speeches against the US’s use of force in Kuwait. One of the most notable came from Representative Brian Donnelly of Dorchester. Donnelly made the poignant point that he would have to attend the wakes and funerals of the largely blue-collar soldiers from his district who died. Nobody could argue with the emotion of Donnelly’s speech, but Capuano’s comments, which seem to give cover to Hussein, lack even that.

In 1991, every member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation opposed the Gulf War. If Capuano gets his way, the current delegation will oppose the use of force against Hussein once again. Capuano wants to lead Massachusetts into making the same mistake twice.