WAR: HERE'S WHAT MISSOURI NEWSPAPERS ARE SAYING

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Here are editorial excerpts from Missouri papers on the military strike against Iraq.

The Sedalia Democrat:

Although it's risky to draw any firm conclusions at this point, it would appear that Saddam Hussein may be one of the biggest paper tigers in history.

... Still, one marvels at the lack of Iraqi response in the battle so far. Does Saddam have something up his sleeve, or were the air attacks so successful that his command and control facilities have been virtually eliminated?

Columbia Daily Tribune:

Never has America prepared for all-out war in the face of so much internal dissent. Yet, if the ensuing hours confirm early reports of success in the gulf attack, dissidents will be hard to find in the days to come.

...The legacy of Vietnam, however, is not dead. Never again will we enter a foreign war with so little purpose. Never again will U.S. citizens blindly follow leaders into armed conflict unless some overriding cause seems to be at hand.

The Daily Star-Journal in Warrensburg:

The advent of this war brought into play the wonders of the highly sophisticated technological world in which we live - some in the process of being proven.

... Awesome is the precision of the warplanes' operation and the bombing of strategic targets - Iraq's command and control facilities. It is too early for exact conclusions to be drawn. With the first blush of what appears to be extraordinary success, comes the very real danger of undue optimism. That can be ruinous.

Jefferson CIty Post-Tribune:

No one wanted this war, but as Operation Desert Storm evolves, we can take solace that it is being waged in a manner to protect Americans and innocent Iraqis. After the first attacks were over, allied losses were shockingly low ...

For those reasons, the highly-publicized and misguided protests around the nation may fall on increasingly deaf ears. By and large, the American public supports the national policy; it recognizes this is not a war over oil, but one against brutal aggression.

... It is true that no military operation is ever flawless, nor can the course of war be accurately foreseen. Still, the apparent success of the first night's sorties by American, British, French, Saudi and Kuwaiti forces is but a foretaste of the victory that, sooner or later, is certain.

Hannibal Courier-Post:

Part of the agony of uncertainty has been removed, and replaced with a single-minded mission: Let's win this war, the faster the better.

Perhaps we're fortunate that many of our armed forces now protecting our way of life aren't old enough to remember our last war, a war that ripped the very fabric of our society for well over a decade. Only recently have the biggest wounds healed; some still remain.

... For now, we have now forgotten, as we should, the things that sometimes divide us politics, regionalism, religion and have remembered, as we should, that we are all Americans and we are in this together.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The dreaded day has arrived.

... Even if the war is concluded as quickly as the experts forecast and everyone must hope, many will die and more will be maimed. Families in this country and elsewhere will suffer losses from which they will never recover.

... Unfortunately, very little about war is predictable, as military experts are the first to acknowledge. Once the forces of destruction are launched, events have a way of following their own course irrespective of all the advance planning and controls. In this war, the element of unpredictability is heightened by the extensive reliance on high-tech weaponry that has never been tested in combat.

And so it was that the bombers took off into the moonless night on a deadly mission that will influence developments in the Middle East for decades to come.

The Kansas City Star:

The U.S.-led alliance in the Persian Gulf enjoys overwhelming military superiority. The destructive power of the modern weaponry unleashed today upon Iraq is almost unimaginable, and far in excess of anything that country suffered in its war with Iran.

Many of the Iraqi troops are poorly trained and equipped. The prospects of severely disrupting Iraqi communications and supplies are good.

The decision to go into any war is not an easy one. But a consensus formed, in this country and in many others, that the likely alternative was not peace but an even greater, more costly conflict later.

The Springfield News-Leader:

George Bush did not blink.

When the time came to pull the trigger on Operation Desert Storm, the President of the United States unleashed a barrage of American military might bent on the certain destruction of Iraq's military machine.

Estimates are that the Persian Gulf war will last between three and 10 days. But for some, the war will be over in an instant. It is impossible to do battle without the loss of life.

It is too soon to declare victory. ...It is not too soon for Americans and for the world to pray that Saddam (Hussein's) mission of madness is cut short. It is not too soon for Americans to pray that our government's own policies will finally recognize that Iraq's aggression is only one chapter in a battle of nationalistic pride and bigotry on all sides.