While everyone is watching the war on Saddam, the Black United Front is escalating its battle against Cincinnati with weapons of mass deception.

It looks like the "historic collaborative" is history.

"It was destined to fail as long as the same people involved in the collaborative are tearing down our city in a boycott," said Mayor Charlie Luken.

The front announced it is pulling out of the collaborative - but it insists the city has to stay.

As usual, they think there are two sets of rules - one for them, and one for everyone else. And the federal judge who hasn't even asked them for a list of members might even agree.

Luken says if the front is allowed to renege, the city has no reason to stay. "If it's just a to-do list for the city, I don't want to play."

Federal meddling

Councilman Pat DeWine agrees: "They're saying, `We're not going to honor our commitment, but you have to honor yours,' " he said. "They have been completely unproductive."

So far, DeWine said, the collaborative has achieved nothing that the cops couldn't have done on their own months ago if not for meddling by the federal court.

Luken said it's worse than that. "We will still do what's in the collaborative" whatever happens, he said. But he has no confidence that the federal monitor will hold the Black United Front accountable. And meddling by the monitor may be undermining law enforcement.

"We're sending (a top police commander) to a meeting all day on a Saturday to be told that arrest is a last resort? I have a problem with that. I'm trying to tell the cops to make more arrests."

"We don't need all these, quote, experts. If you want to know what I'm concerned about, it's that we've got 16 murders and we've got violent crime way too high."

The front wants it both ways: to keep their lawyers at the table to collect fees, but duck out of accountability for their side of the deal.

"As recently as two weeks ago, the lawyers were in court saying they haven't got all the money they want," DeWine said. "So are they going to give the money back?"

Don't hold your breath.

The boycott franchise

Cooperating with the police and city to actually improve race relations is boring. Teaching kids not to run or fight with cops doesn't grab big headlines. Jesse Jackson didn't get his juicy slice of the power pie by "cooperating" and "collaborating." He keeps his boycotts on life support by terrorizing the living diversity out of big corporations.

And it looks like the front will open a local franchise of Jesse Jackson's Shakedown Inc.

They say they will ramp up their destructive boycott of Cincinnati by targeting businesses that are based here. The front is tired of boarding up street-level shops and wrecking jobs for hourly workers at restaurants and hotels. They want to rattle the glass on the 25th floors.

This has been the mother of all lousy deals from the start. The Black United Front filed bogus racial profiling lawsuits and the city rushed to surrender like the French.

It's time to dump the U.N. Security Council collaborative and the Hans Blix federal monitor and fight to save Cincinnati.

If the front walks, so should the city.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.