Sanctions Vote
Iraq News APRIL 30, 1998
By Laurie MylroieThe central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .
I. SADDAM CHAIRS RCC-PARTY LEADERSHIP MEETING, INA, APR 29
II. JIM HOAGLAND, "NO TIME TO TONE DOWN," WASH POST, APR 23
III. PAUL WOLFOWITZ, "REBUILDING THE ANTI-SADDAM COALITION," NOV 18
IV. BOSTON GLOBE ED, "FACED DOWN BY SADDAM?" APR 25
V. CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY HAILS SEN. LOTT ON IRAQ, APR 28
On Apr 27, the UNSC, as expected, voted to maintain sanctions on
Iraq. Apr 28 was Saddam's birthday, a major holiday on which no serious
work is to be done. On Apr 29, Baghdad issued its first major response
to the UNSC sanctions review. Saddam chaired a joint meeting of the RCC
and Bath party leadership. It issued a short statement, "The meeting
was held to follow up the UN Security Council's stands in light of the
principles stated in the statement issued by the Revolutionary Command
Council and the Iraq Command of the Arab Socialist Bath Party on 16
April" [which had called for the immediate lifting of sanctions after
the sanctions review.]
Yesterday's statement also said, "The meeting will be resumed to
discuss the foreign minister's report on the activities and contacts in
New York with the UN secretary general and UN Security Council members."
Iraq will respond to the UNSC vote, but it seems no decision will be
announced until after the Foreign Minister returns from NYC, where the
UNSC has still to decide on the Russian-led effort to "close" the
nuclear file.
Meanwhile, as Jim Hoagland, Apr 23, wrote, the Clinton
administration, which had not really expected another Iraq crisis until
Oct, seems to be further backpedaling [that was also reported in the
news section of the Wash Post, Apr 29]. "Despite new signs that Saddam
Hussein may soon break out of his deal with UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan," Hoagland explained, "the Clinton administration is weighing a
retreat from its previous threats to bomb Iraq if Baghdad resumes active
disruption of UN weapons inspections." The administration is apparently
moving toward a policy of "deterrence," rather than "containment,"
raising the threshold for Iraqi challenges that would cause the US to
threaten military action against Baghdad.
According to Hoagland, under a "deterrence" policy, the US would
respond "with force to any open deployment of chemical or biological
weapons or to any threatening move by Iraqi forces against Kuwait or
Saudi Arabia. . . . Under one set of proposals being urged on Clinton,
the United States would not treat expulsion of UNSCOM [!!!] as a trigger
for strikes, despite suggestions last February that Iraq's reneging on
the Annan deal would provoke an automatic US military response that
would be unilateral if necessary."
Indeed, on Feb 24, the day after the Annan deal, the Wash Post
reported, "Clinton said he remains ready to use military force if Iraq
reneges on the accord." Asked to respond to Republican criticism of the
accord, Clinton said, "Since 1991 our strategy has been to keep
sanctions on, keep Iraq from rebuilding its military might and
threatening its neighbors, but to pursue this inspection system to end
what is the biggest threat both to its neighbors and to others by
indirection, which is the chemical, the biological and the nuclear
weapons program."
Who is responsible for the US retreat from Feb to Apr, or at least
contemplated retreat? The allies, of course, particularly the Arabs.
As Hoagland explained, the US reassessment is based on a recognition
that Washington "failed last winter to generate support from its Arab
allies and from its main Security Council partners" for military
strikes.
Yet Paul Wolfowitz, former Bush Undersecretary of Defense, already
last Nov, described the situation otherwise. As he wrote in the WSJ,
Nov 18, "Why has the anti-Saddam coalition become so weak . . .and what
might be done to reconstitute a new coalition? The major reason for
other nations' hesitance to join any military effort to force Saddam
Hussein to comply with the UN Security Council resolutions remains
unspoken. They do not wish to be associated with a US military effort
that is ineffective and that leaves them alone to face Iraq. That is
the lesson of the original Gulf War coalition.
"International condemnation of Saddam's 1990 occupation of Kuwait was
almost universal. But that outrage alone would not have been enough to
create a consensus for unified action. The actions countries were asked
to take were extremely risky, particularly the nations of the Arabian
Peninsula. . . The decisive step in forming the coalition that
eventually liberated Kuwait was not the initial condemnation of Iraqi
aggression by the UN Security Council, but the decision by Saudi Arabia,
a few days later, to accept the deployment of a large US armed force on
Saudi soil. That Saudi decision was initiated by a telephone call from
President Bush to King Fahd on Aug 4, 1990, in which the president
promised that US forces would finish the job of liberating Kuwait. Mr.
Bush then dispatched Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to Jiddah for a
meeting with the King on Aug 6 that sealed the Saudi agreement to the
deployment of one of the largest American armed forces ever sent
overseas.
"In hindsight that Saudi decision has been almost taken for granted,
but at the time it was anything but a sure thing. The Saudis had
already declined a US offer of a fighter squadron in the immediate
aftermath of Iraq's aggression. . . . The US was asking a country with
only modest armed forces of its own to take on a tiger in its immediate
neighborhood . . . The Saudis had no interest in merely pulling the
tiger's tail. If the US was serious about eliminating a threat to their
survival, they would join us. Otherwise they would do the best they
could to persuade the tiger to leave them alone." And that, more than
anything else, helps explain the lack of Arab support for the
administration's proposed strikes on Iraq.
The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Apr 17, also
commented on the planned US shift to deterrence, "meaning we will only
use military force against deployment or use of missiles or WMD - not
their acquisition or possession. What then? After they are deployed,
will we say, 'The US will only retaliate against their use'? Or after
they are used, will we say, 'The US will only retaliate if they are used
against someone we like'?
The editors of the Boston Globe, Apr 25, also took the administration
to task, calling the proposed policy "even more untenable" than the old.
The Globe endorsed a policy of overthrowing Saddam, applauding recent
Senate approval of funding for the Iraqi National Congress and
describing the INC's "realistic" plan for bringing Saddam down.
Finally, the Center for Security Policy, Apr 28, hailed Sen Lott's
leadership on Iraq, "Even as the Clinton administration once again shows
itself unable or unwilling to address the threat posed by Saddam Hussein
and his weapons of mass destruction in the only way certain to be
effective-namely, by removing him and his clique from power-Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) has once again insisted that the
latter should be the object of American policy. Better yet, he has
helped to secure the first increment of funding need to achieve that
objective."
Seconding Sen. Lott's call for US support for the Iraqi National
Congress, whose leader, Ahmad Chalabi, he met earlier this week, the
Center concluded, "The Clinton administration could powerfully signal
its embrace, albeit belatedly, of this goal by having President Clinton
follow Senator Lott's in meeting with Dr. Chalabi. Until then, the
Majority Leader is to be commended for stepping into the breach-and his
colleagues in the Congress for following his strategically important
lead."
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