The Criticism Mounts
Iraq News, AUGUST 31, 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. RITTER, KISSINGER, DOMINICI, ON SUNDAY TALK SHOWS, AP AUG 30
II. GINGRICH OPENS FIRE ON WHITE HOUSE'S IRAQ POLICY, WASH POST, AUG 29
III. UK PROPOSES SUSPENSION OF IRAQ SANCTIONS REVIEWS, REUTERS, AUG 28
IV. MARTIN PERETZ, "UNSCOMSCAM", THE NEW REPUBLIC, SEPT 7
Richard Perle, Asst Sec Def in the Reagan administration, in the
London Sunday Times, Aug 23, wrote about the Clinton administration's
response to terrorism. Among other things, Perle noted that, even given
the lack of Saudi cooperation, the US investigation into the Jun 25 1996
Khobar towers bombing was listless and ineffective, "One is forced to
wonder whether the absence of zeal for tracking the Khobar bombers was
driven by the fear that, once found, it would be necessary to do
something about them-and a further, related concern that Saddam Hussein
might be behind it."
Indeed, would that explain the Saudi non-cooperation? Did the Saudis
understand that the Clinton administration was not going to blame the
most obvious suspect, Iraq? After all, Khobar towers housed the pilots
that flew over Southern Iraq, enforcing the no-fly zone. Moreover, on
Jun 22-23, an Arab summit was held in Cairo, the only Arab summit to be
held since the Gulf war. Iraq was the only Arab state not invited to
the summit, which took a tough line on Iraq. After Hussein Kamil's Aug
95 defection, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait became very concerned about the
proscribed weapons Saddam retained, as revealed in the wake of his
defection. The Arab summit communique called on Iraq to comply with the
UNSC resolutions and blamed Baghdad for the suffering of the Iraqi
people, even as it was Baghdad's position that the US and its allies
were responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people under sanctions.
The Iraqi press responded immediately, lashing out at the US, Kuwait,
and Saudi Arabia. And the following day, the biggest bomb ever to
explode in Saudi Arabia exploded at al Khobar. Who should have been
behind that? Yet immediately after the bombing, the administration
suggested every possible suspect--including "an international terrorist
organization," as if that explained much--save for the most obvious
candidate. And nearly a year later, the State Dept's 1996, "Patterns of
Global Terrorism," issued in Apr 97, asserted "Iraq's ability to carry
out terrorism abroad has been curbed by UN sanctions." How do sanctions
inhibit Iraq from carrying out acts of terrorism? Perhaps, the
situation is quite the reverse; perhaps sanctions are an
incentive/motive/reason for terrorism?
In the WSJ, Aug 28, Paul Gigot wrote, "In the levitation act that is
the Clinton Presidency, this is the month the magic ceased to work. You
now get the feeling the crash could come at any time. For most of the
last three years, support for this president has rested on three
pillars: Blind loyalty among fellow Democrats, a Justice Department
willing to stonewall, and a placid world of prosperity that has put
Americans in a buoyant mood. Now all of those props are teetering at
the same time." Gigot described Clinton's problems among Democrats,
rising from the Lewinsky scandal and suggested, "Things could only get
worse if voters begin to connect Mr. Clinton's character to new troubles
around the world. That was the implicit message of Scott Ritter, the
Marine-turned-UN inspector who resigned his post in disgust this week.
Mr. Ritter, a Gulf War veteran all but said our president lacks the
starch to stand up to Saddam Hussein. So his administration chose to
surreptitiously delay or block intrusive UN inspections in Iraq that Mr.
Clinton threatened to go to war over just months ago. Many Americans
have been like Democrats in assuming Mr. Clinton's character could be
separated from his performance. But what if his flawed character has
produced such a total lack of moral authority that it undermines
performance? That seems to be happening in Iraq, as well as the global
financial crisis. . . All of this proves the folly of those who thought
the Lewinsky case could be dismissed as mere 'private' behavior. . . We
are all going to pay for our national delusion that Bill Clinton's
character didn't matter."
Tom Friedman, in the NYT, Aug 29, wrote, "Which do you think is
scarier? Is it that Scott Ritter, the top UN weapons inspector in Iraq,
quite his job, accusing the US and the UN of surrendering to Saddam
Hussein? Or is it the story told by Russian economists about a Russian
soldier behind the Urals who drove his army tank to City Hall to demand
months of back pay? The soldier said he drove the tank not because he
wanted to blow up the municipality, but because he didn't have any other
way to get there and couldn't afford cab fare. Or is it reading The
Washington Post, where a State Department spokesman, James Foley, was
quoted as saying that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright couldn't
possibly be going soft on Iraq because, after all, 'Saddam Hussein has
called Secretary Albright a snake and a witch among other things'? What
these disturbing stories suggest is that the basic pillars that have
stabilized the post-cold-war world are all either shaking or crumbling.
And that's scary." Friedman's first pillar was Russia's supposedly
irreversible move from Communism to free market capitalism. His second
was "America's defeat of Saddam in the gulf war. That defeat resonated
around the world. Those who supported Saddam, like Yasir Arafat, had to
literally apologize to their neighbors after the war. Those who went on
supporting him looked like fools, tilting against a Pax Americana. Arab
moderation spurred Israeli moderation. But today the Arab center, not
just the extremes, is again reconciling with Saddam. The Clinton team
says it has no allies anymore to confront Saddam and no domestic
support, and it's right. But neither did George Bush when he built the
anti-Iraq coalition."
Tom Lippman, reporting in the Wash Post, Aug 30, "Critics Turn to
Albright," detailed the administration's mounting foreign policy
problems, including Newt Gingrich's attack on the administration's Iraq
policy [below], as well as the critique of Iraq policy by the New
Republic's editor in chief, Martin Peretz [also below]. As the Post
wrote, "Peretz outraged Albright and her inner circle of advisers by
writing about the Iraq revelations that 'Of course, concealing important
truths is one of Albright's lifetime habits.' That was an apparent
reference to the discovery early last year that her grandparents were
Jews who perished in the Holocaust, which she said she never knew while
being raised as a Catholic."
The Forward, Aug 21, reported, "The Project for the New American
Century, a conservative foreign policy group, is calling for an
investigation of reports that Secretary Albright asked United Nations
inspectors in Iraq to curtail surprise inspections of weapons
facilities. 'If true, these allegations raise fundamental questions
about the Clinton administration's handling of the most serious national
security crisis since the Gulf War,' said the group's executive
director, Gary Schmitt. 'Congress should hold hearings immediately at
which Secretary Albright can explain her actions.'"
And what will she say? I was just following orders? Or just deny
it all? According to AP, Aug 30, Scott Ritter told Newseeek, "I heard
somebody say Madeleine Albright blocked more inspections in 1997 than
Saddam Hussein did. It's a funny quip, but unfortunately it's true."
Ritter told ABC's "This Week" that NSC Adviser Samuel Berger, was, along
with Albright, involved in blocking an inspection earlier this month,
while Senate Budget Committee Chairman, Pete Domenici, said, "I think
the American people have been seriously misled . . . We're over there
saying we're holding their feet to the fire, we are sending our men and
women over there, we are spending a lot of our tax dollars, and behind
the scenes if this is happening, then I think the administration has to
be held accountable." And Henry Kissinger, on "Fox News Sunday" also
faulted the administration approach. "We have walked up the hill and
down the hill three times since last November, and we have maneuvered
ourselves into a position where the threat of force has become almost
implausible."
The Wash Post, Aug 29, reported, "House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga)
yesterday signaled the start of a concerted Republican attack on the
Clinton administration's Iraq policy, saying that disclosures this week
suggested a secret shift 'from confrontation to appeasement' in direct
conflict with the government's public rhetoric. 'If in fact this was not
a deliberate policy of deceiving the public and the Congress, then the
president should be angry about being deceived by his subordinates,'
Gingrich said in a telephone interview. . . . In a letter to President
Clinton released yesterday to reporters, Gingrich wrote that the Post
article and Ritter's reasons for resignation suggested to him 'that your
administration's tough rhetoric on Iraq has been a deception masking a
real policy of weakness and concession.'" Still, after the Post read
Gingrich's remarks to Albright, she called him. As Gingrich told the
Post, "The secretary of state chatted with me. . . She did state
unequivocally that she was not in any way trying to undermine the
policy, so I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.'"
Why? The administration said repeatedly about Saddam that they would
judge him not by his words, but by his deeds. Let us apply the same
standard to them. Is it reasonable to believe that the administration,
halved the US force in the Gulf, over the Memorial Day weekend, as part
of a policy in which it is preparing to back up UNSCOM, threaten Iraq
with force, and actually strike Iraq, if necessary? Isn't it more
likely that the administration halved the force, because it was no
longer its intent to do so?
Reuters, Aug 28, reported that the UK has proposed a UNSC resolution
suspending sanctions reviews until Baghdad resumes cooperation with
UNSCOM. That is what the administration is doing, in co-ordination with
the UK. And that is the policy--to maintain sanctions on Iraq.
Yet as Martin Peretz wrote in The New Republic, Sept 7, "The point of
sanctions was to maintain them until inspections had proven, beyond a
reasonable doubt, that Iraq was no longer in the unconventional weapons
business . . . and not before. Only months ago a US spokesman had
warned Baghdad of our intended response to any violation by Saddam
Hussein of the agreement his government had made with Kofi Annan: a
'snap back' policy of decisive armed force. . . . Not surprisingly,
there have been many such violations by Iraq. And, just as predictably,
there has been no snapback response or any other practical response, for
that matter. ... Still it was stunning to learn that this policy
reversal actually included Albright's direct interventions against the
inspection teams' specific plans. The secretary of state was actually
micromanaging a policy she wanted to throttle."
Peretz also described the threat that Iraq's unconventional weapons
programs, including its nuclear program, posed to every state in the
region, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, "The position and
power of Iraq are critical to Israel's estimate of its own long-term
security. When Israel and the surrounding states (with the PLO also
there tucked into the Jordanian delegation as Arafat's punishment for
having cheered for Baghdad) were summoned to Madrid in October 1991, it
was with the glib assumption that Saddam Hussein had been at last tamed.
Few then had weighed fully the consequences of the victory that did not
vanquish. So Iraq was not widely seen as a salient actor in the ongoing
drama. But that was before Bill Clinton demonstrated both his polemical
outrage at, and functional indifference to, Iraq's various provocations,
including Saddam's movement into Kurdish 'safe havens' and the attempted
assassination of George Bush."
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