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US, UK, & Israeli Criticism of Iraq Policy

Iraq News, AUGUST 17, 1998

The 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.  WASH POST EDITORIAL, "PARTNERS IN A CHARADE?" AUG 15
II. FRED HIATT, "A NATION IN RETREAT," WASH POST, AUG 16
III. RICHMOND-TIMES DISPATCH EDITORIAL, "IN A BOX," AUG 14
IV.  MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, IN A CAGE, NYT, AUG 17
V.   US APATHY ON IRAQ CRISIS WORRIES ISRAEL, HAARETZ, AUG 17
VI.  JERUSALEM POST EDITORIAL, "US LOSING WILL ON IRAQ," AUG 16
   A very knowledgeable source confirmed to "Iraq News" that the Wash
Post account of how the Clinton administration blocked UNSCOM
inspections was "thoroughly accurate."
   Sec State Albright denied there had been such interference, but Rep.
Ben Gilman, chair of the House International Relations Committee, called
her remarks, "carefully worded," and said "they 'appear only to confirm
the substance of The Washington Post report,'" according to AP, Aug 14.
As AP explained, "Gilman, R-NY, recalled that he and three other senior
Republicans in Congress had written President Clinton in June that they
were troubled by an apparent US failure to back the UN commission but
were assured by Clinton in July that the commission had his full
support. 'There obviously is a vast gulf between the administration's
public statements and its private policy on Iraq,' Gilman said in a
letter to Albright. 'This can only demoralize UNSCOM and encourage
Saddam Hussein to believe that his continued obstruction will be
rewarded by further retreat by the United States.'  The Chairman asked
Albright to provide the committee promptly with the 'talking points'
used by American diplomats in their conversations with Butler."
 John Bolton, Asst Sec State for Int'l Organziation Affairs during the
Bush administration, on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, Aug 14, said, "That
report in The Washington Post this morning, if it's true, goes from
simple incompetence by the administration to malfeasance. . .  It's
particularly hard to understand, if these reports are true, that the
United States has actually tried to pull back the UNSCOM inspection
effort.  This would be a break with our allies and our friends that
would be almost inexplicable."
  Geoffrey Kemp, of the Nixon Center, explained, "Clinton is very weak,
not just on [Iraq], but on dozens of other foreign policy fronts.  What
they should be doing is putting in place a really serious long-term
effort to get rid of [Saddam]. . . They've got to build support for it,
and it cannot be done overnight."
   Bolton was asked "What would be wrong with letting the UN take the
lead on this?  You've heard the administration people saying this is
between Iraq and the UN, not between Iraq and the US at this point.
What's wrong with that?"  He replied, "I think that's fatuous.  I think
anybody who believes that the UN is going to operate in this or any
other area without American leadership is simply deceiving themselves.
I think the main point is that the administration has bumbled the
situation in Iraq repetitively over so many years that they're actually
quite correct at the moment in saying their options are limited. Their
options are limited because they haven't kept the Gulf coalition
together; they haven't prepared adequately to take the kind of military
strikes that they should, and as Geoff Kemp pointed out, and I certainly
agree, I think the policy-long-term policy-should be to overthrow Saddam
Hussein, because we are not dealing here merely with technical
violations of the inspection regime.  We are dealing with a consistent
seven-year history by Iraq of attempting to break free of those
restrictions entirely.  And I think it's a no-brainer at this point to
conclude that the only way to keep Iraq from getting a capability of
weapons of mass destruction is to get a new government there."
   In his final comments, Bolton said, "I don't find Secretary
Albright's denial all that reassuring. ... [But] the most disturbing
aspect of the Post story, though, was contained in its very first
sentence, where the reporter said that the efforts by the United States
to pull UNSCOM back and to rein it in had been going on for months, even
after the March discovery of elements of VX nerve gas that might have
been weaponized.  If, in fact, this turns out to be true-and I
personally believe that the House and Senate Foreign Affairs Committees
should come back from recess and hold hearings on this matter-I think
it's that serious-if that's true, that's not just a reversal of American
position, it's betrayal." [Bolton has an article on this in The Weekly
Standard, out today].
  The Wash Post, Aug 15, in a hard-hitting editorial [also in today's
Int'l Herald Trib], entitled "Partners in a Charade?" wrote of its
suspicions, following the Feb 23 Annan accord, that UNSCOM, shackled by
cumbersome new rules, would find nothing to discomfit Baghdad, letting
the US off the hook in forcing Iraqi cooperation, while allowing Saddam
to retain proscribed weapons, even as the administration protested that
that would not happen.  Thus, the Post wrote, "It is doubly shocking to
learn, six months on, that the Clinton administration may have been not
only an accomplice in the creation of a charade, but, offstage a leading
player--in a role that, given its duplicity, would make the United
States more culpable in some ways than those countries, such as China
and Russia, that have overtly undermined the UN inspection regime. ...
If ever a foreign policy matter called for congressional inquiry, it is
this alleged practice of deceitful diplomacy."
  A journalist at London's Daily Telegraph reported that their main
editorial, Aug 15, dealt with the same issue.  He explained that the DT
excoriated the UK Gov't and the foreign office, while chiding the
Clinton administration for betraying UNSCOM.
   Fred Hiatt, in the Wash Post, Aug 16, contrasted the strong US
position six months ago with the attempt to sweep the issue under the
rug today.  "It was barely more than half a year ago that President
Clinton resolutely addressed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from the US
Capitol. 'You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are
determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.' . . . And just
in case there was any ambiguity in the remark, Clinton's national
security adviser spelled out a couple of weeks later just what the
president meant. . . . 'If [the inspectors] are not allowed to do their
job unhindered, we must be prepared to deal directly with the threat
posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction--with force if necessary,'
Berger said.  'Either Saddam Hussein acts--or we must be prepared to do
so.'
 "Now that Saddam Hussein has called Clinton's bluff, it seems that the
fine phrases were nothing more than that . . . No talk of force; no
televised lectures on the killing power of biological weapons; no plans
to deny Saddam Hussein any capabilities.  Instead, the administration
pretends that this latest setback is in fact a great victory.
'Basically, Saddam Hussein was wrestled himself to the ground,'
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright explains, meaning that economic
sanctions now won't be lifted. 'He's stuck in a box and he's thrown away
the key.'  And Defense Secretary William Cohen says, 'If he takes any
action to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction, or disrupts the
stability or peace in the region, then the United States reserves every
option, including the military option at the time and place of our
choosing.'  That one sentence tells you just how far the administration
has traveled in only six months.  It assumes that Saddam Hussein does
not now have such weapons-though six months ago Berger said that
'stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions  . . . remain
unaccounted for.'  It assumes that the United States will know what and
when Saddam Hussein is reconstituting-though six months ago, the
administration acknowledged this would be impossible without inspectors
on the ground.  It assumes that Saddam Hussein is not now a disruption-
though six months ago Albright likened him to Hitler, and Clinton said
his regime 'threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his
region and the security of all the rest of us.'  Most improbably, it
assumes that this administration, which cannot summon the will to act
against Saddam Hussein when he is weak and clearly in violation of
international agreements . . . will be more likely to take action when
he is stronger--when he is, as he will surely now seek to become, a
nuclear power."
  The Richmond Times Dispatch, perhaps representative of the US
heartland, at least that part which is paying attention, in an Aug 14
editorial that began by mocking Albright's statement about Saddam's box,
wrote, "Saddam hasn't taken such a drubbing since Warren Christopher's
bare-knuckle days.  Iraq trembles."  The Times Dispatch called for a
policy to overthrow Saddam and concluded, "Secretary Albright's metaphor
of the box is unintentionally apt--for while Saddam only should be in
one, the US definitely is."
  Still, in today's NYT, Madeleine Albright in, "The US Will Stand Firm
on Iraq, No Matter What," began by blaming the Bush administration for
Clinton's problems with Iraq, "At the end of the gulf war, conventional
wisdom had it that Saddam Hussein would not last six months.
Unfortunately, conventional wisdom was wrong and we have had to live and
deal with the consequences ever since."
  But it isn't true that the Clinton administration had no opportunity
to overthrow Saddam.  Rather, it failed to pursue those opportunities
very vigorously and dealt with Iraq in the fashion described by John
Bolton.
   Albright continued, "Periodically, Saddam rattles his cage, hoping
that by provoking a crisis he can wear away at the will of the
international community.  . .  [But] we will decide how and when to
respond to Iraq's actions, based on the threat they pose to Iraq's
neighbors, to regional security and to US vital interests.  Our
assessment will include Saddam's capacity to reconstitute, use or
threaten to use weapons of mass destruction . . . We have reconfigured
our forces in the gulf so that we can react swiftly and forcefully when
necessary."
   In its Aug 5 statement suspending inspections, Iraq also threatened
monitoring.  It demanded that the UNSC restructure UNSCOM and stated
that while waiting for "these fair and legitimate steps" it would
suspend inspections, but "in an expression of Iraq's good will and its
sincere desire to see that its decisions are interpreted correctly and
not wrongfully as to explain them as nonabidance by Security Council
resolutions" . . . Iraq agrees to maintain the monitoring activity
during the period of time mentioned . . . in accordance with the
requirements stipulated in Resolution 715."
   If the entire inspections/monitoring regime ended, what threat would
Iraq pose to the region?  The questions Fred Hiatt asked are extremely
relevant.  Could Saddam take oil facilities in the Gulf in short order,
if he were prepared to use Iraq's CBW?  What if he acquired a nuclear
bomb?
   Following Hussein Kamil's Aug 95 defection, a State Dep't official
wanted to take an entirely new look at Saddam's unconventional
capabilities.  Until Kamil's defection, the administration had been
preoccupied with keeping sanctions on Iraq and looked at what was
thought to be a small residual unconventional capability from that
perspective.  But Kamil's defection changed that.  Suddenly, it emerged
that Saddam might have a military option in the Gulf.  The State Dep't
official wanted to look at Iraq's proscribed capabilities from that
perspective.  What might Saddam be able to do, or think he could do, if
he were prepared to use CBW?
  His boss agreed that he should work on the issue, in conjunction with
a CIA colleague.  It seemed that it would happen.  But it never did. The
CIA official never came through and the project was never done.  So what
is the threat?  Congress could very usefully ask the administration for
the studies it has done on that question, so that the risks in a policy
of "deterrence" can be properly evaluated.
  The Israeli Gov't, long deferential to the US on Iraq, looks to be
shifting.  As Ha'retz reported today, "Israeli officials are critical of
growing signs of US indifference to Iraq's recent refusal to cooperate
with UN disarmament inspectors. . . .  Government officials in Jerusalem
confirm reports earlier this month that on two occasions, Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright informed UN chief weapons inspector Richard
Butler that the United States opposes his plans to stage some 'challenge
inspections'. . .  Israel government officials say that 'diplomacy not
backed with force means that diplomacy is not likely to succeed.'"
  Finally, The Jerusalem Post, long in the vanguard in Israel in
highlighting the Iraqi menace, in an Aug 16 editorial, warned, "If US
officials do not put some backbone into the confrontation with the
ubiquitous dictator of Baghdad, the damage to American prestige overseas
could be serious. . . . It was only last year that President Bill
Clinton threatened massive military force to destroy Saddam's forbidden
weapons programs, if he did not come to heel.  What has changed in a
year, one may ask, and where is the US containment of Iraq's lethal
plotting now heading?  All the indications are that the responsibility
is being quietly shuffled off from Washington to the United Nations.
This means the question must become, not what will Clinton do about
Saddam's future defiance of UNSCOM, but what will Kofi Annan do about
it?  The answer to that is easier-probably nothing."