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More Criticism; Sudan and Iraq

Iraq News, SEPTEMBER 2, 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.  BOSTON GLOBE, US HAS GONE SOFT ON IRAQ INSPECTIONS, AUG 28
II. JOHN BOLTON, CLINTON/ALBRIGHT'S DECEIT, WEEKLY STANDARD, SEPT 7
III. IRAQI VICE PRESIDENT TOURS SUDAN'S SHIFA FACTORY, SUDAN TV, AUG 31
  This is the 28th day without weapons inspections in Iraq.
  The Boston Globe, as printed in the San Diego Union Tribune, Aug 28, 
reported more detail on congressional opposition to Clinton's Iraq 
policy, as precipitated by Scott Ritter's revelations and resignation.  
Sen. John McCain, [R, AZ] of the Armed Services committee, in a letter 
last week to committee chairman, Sen. Strom Thurmond [R, SC], called for 
holding hearings after the Congressional recess ends.  McCain wrote, 
"The hearings should examine whether the administration has thwarted 
Iraq's development of chemical and biological weapons or whether it has 
sought merely to avoid another inconvenient crisis in the Persian Gulf." 
Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Readiness 
Subcommittee, said "It is evident that our policy on Iraq is becoming 
unglued."
  John Bolton, Asst Sec State for Int'l Organization affairs in the Bush 
administration, now senior vice president at AEI, in The Weekly 
Standard, Sept 7, wrote, "In the most stinging indictment yet of the 
Clinton administration's Iraq policy, United Nations weapons inspector 
Scott Ritter resigned last week. . .  [The Clinton administration] has 
been worse than incompetent regarding Iraq.  It has been duplicitous.  
In early August, faced with renewed defiance by Saddam Hussein, the 
administration radically altered longstanding American policy.  Instead 
of threatening-and if necessary using-force to compel Iraqi compliance 
with UN mandates, the administration is backing down.  Worst of all, the 
president's agents steadfastly maintain they haven't changed a thing.   
  "There have always been three broad approaches to handling post-Gulf 
War Iraq.  First, containment.  Some strategists believe that simply 
deterring Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction will protect our 
interests and that intrusive UN inspections intended to eliminate such 
weapons are unnecessary.  Second, is the administration's policy, which 
one official calls Whack-a-Mole.  Support the weapons-inspection mission 
(UNSCOM) and continued economic sanctions, and whenever Saddam acts up 
intolerably, whack him with military force.  Third is the policy I 
support: Admit that the administration's middle-ground approach is not 
sustainable, will not achieve its objectives and will fritter away 
America's position of strength.  Only overthrowing Saddam Hussein can 
eliminate the Iraqi threat to peace.  
   "The administration has now clearly adopted the first policy, while 
continuing to give lip service to the second.  Had the policy been 
changed because the administration concluded that sanctions and 
inspections had failed, or that the containment model was superior for 
reasons of either cost or benefit, it could (and should) have said so.  
It could have explained why its calculus had changed and defended its 
new approach.  Some would have applauded.  Others would have objected 
vigorously to reneging on the vow to eliminate Iraq's weapons of 
mass-destruction capability and shifting to a policy of containment.  
And the debate would have been on."  
   Bolton then took Albright to task for her half-truths and non-truths 
regarding the US blocking of UNSCOM inspections, "Why is the secretary 
dissembling with her fellow citizens when the object of her 
policy-Saddam Hussein-understands better than anyone else that American 
policy has been dramatically reined in?  Who does she think she is 
deceiving, and for what purpose?"  Bolton advised, "Perhaps, she like 
the president she serves needs a better strategy for dealing with the 
truth."
  In the view of "Iraq News," the Clinton administration's "agitprop" 
approach to national security affairs is not only undemocratic, it might 
prove very dangerous. The administration presented a false account of 
its new Iraq policy and there was no debate about it, as Bolton 
explained.  Thus, the pros and cons including the risks, were not 
adequately considered, or at least not considered to the extent they 
would have been, if there had been a proper discussion of the matter.  
   In fact, the administration has been grossly misleading regarding 
three aspects of Iraq policy.  In addition to its treatment of 
UNSCOM/Iraq's proscribed weapons, there is also its treatment of the 
Iraqi National Congress/the effort to oust Saddam.   The administration 
has actually sought to undermine and discredit Saddam's Iraqi opponents, 
as Frank Gaffney, among others, have repeatedly explained [see "Iraq 
News," Aug 18]. 
  And the third aspect of the Iraq spinning concerned terrorism.  The 
spin on terrorism is perhaps the most unbelievable and the most 
reprehensible of all.  It cost American lives and will continue to do 
so, until the mistake is corrected.  But it is the hardest to explain, 
because it was so very egregious, and there is no Scott Ritter for this. 
Indeed, were it not for Ritter, who would have believed that the 
administration was blocking UNSCOM inspections?  Still, "Iraq News" is 
trying, slowly, slowly, to explain the botch on terrorism that began 
with the administration's handling of the Feb 26 1993 World Trade Center 
bombing [see "Iraq News" Aug 12 & 24].  The point of introducing the 
subject now is to suggest that the administration's deceitfulness, 
described by Bolton in its dealings with UNSCOM, also came into play as 
it responded to the first major foreign terrorist bombing on US soil.
   Regarding the Aug 20 US strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan, Bolton 
wrote, "One wonders about the administration's real objective.  Thus, in 
explaining the strike in Sudan, Albright and her colleagues assiduously 
avoid mentioning that Iraq may be producing chemical weapons in Sudan in 
an attempt to evade the UNSCOM inspection regime."  Indeed, following 
the strike, when the US was challenged, because the Khartoum plant 
produced pharmaceuticals, in addition to whatever else it may have 
produced, the administration revealed more than it had apparently first 
intended.  Osama bin Ladin's purported link to the plant faded into the 
background, while US officials explained that Iraq had ties to the 
plant. 
   As that began to come out, several readers were stunned at the news 
reports.  The NYT, Aug 26, explained, "UN weapons inspectors who were 
charged after the 1991 Persian Gulf War with dismantling Iraq's chemical 
arms program have for months believed that the Iraqi government might 
have transferred some of its research and production capacity to Sudan. 
Their interest, however, focused not on the plant that was attacked, but 
on a smaller more heavily fortified facility in Khartoum. . .  Other 
indications of Iraq's involvement include the presence of Iraqi 
officials at the plant for its 'grand opening' in 1996, the US official 
said.  One of the Iraqis believed to have visited the plant was Emad 
Atti, described as the father of the Iraqi chemical arms program."  
   As one reader, a former USG official, remarked, "It raises some 
serious questions about the dissembling of the administration, like did 
we forget to tell John Q. Public that Iraqi chemical weapons officials 
visited a chemical weapons plant while we were saying Saddam was in his 
box?"  Another reader, also a former USG official, asked how long has 
the administration known about Iraqi cw activity in Sudan and what has 
it done about it?
  And those revelations also raise the question of what was the role of 
bin Ladin and what was the role of Iraq?  Today, the NYT reported that 
Sec Def Cohen and CIA Director Tenet briefed congress yesterday and 
"provided what they said was new and not fully evaluated evidence of 
financial ties between the plant's owner, Saleh Idris, and Osama Bin 
Ladin. . . They are convinced that the decision to destroy the plant was 
sound, though they have backed away from assertions that bin Laden was a 
direct investor in the plant, which they initially described as making 
no commercial products, when in fact it produced medicine."  
  If the administration only presented evidence that was "not fully 
evaluated" of Bin Ladin's alleged ties to the plant, that would suggest 
that it does not have "fully evaluated" evidence for that.  And "Iraq 
News" does not believe it will ever come up with significant, credible 
evidence linking bin Ladin to that plant.  VX production is not a 
private sector enterprise.  It is produced by Gov't's.  And the plant's 
ties to Iraq, rather than Bin Ladin, is what made it suspicious.  It is 
the bet of "Iraq News" that after the Kenya/Tanzania bombings, the 
administration wanted to hit an Iraqi target, but not an Iraq target in 
Iraq.   
   Administration officials read Iraq's Aug 5 statements, just as the 
readers of "Iraq News" did [see "Iraq News," Aug 6].  And when, two days 
later, simultaneous bombings occurred at US embassies in Kenya and 
Tanzania, they could draw the obvious conclusion.  They are not so much 
mentally defective, as morally so.  But they do not want to say that 
Iraq looks to have been behind those bombs, for a variety of reasons, 
including how they dealt with the Trade Center bombing.  So, already the 
day of the bombing, they grabbed on to the straw Baghdad had offered 
them and said Osama Bin Laden is our main suspect.  And two weeks later, 
on Aug 20, they hit him and hit Iraq as well.     
  Finally,  Iraqi Vice President, Taha Yasin Ramadan, stopped in 
Khartoum on his way to the Non-Aligned summit in South Africa.  As Sudan 
TV, Aug 31, reported, he toured the bombed factory and said, "The 
important thing is that we . . . know, and our people know, the 
intention of the American administration, which is spurred on by 
Zionists and serves Zionist aims, and what it is seeking by hitting 
specified areas and specific regions . . . It is up to us to make our 
people understand, and make them aware, and prepare for other similar 
situations so that we can choose the best means to confront this great 
injustice being directed by the United States at the world today."