The US Debate Over Iraq
Iraq News, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 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. CLINTON SPEECH, IRAQ EXCERPTS, NOV 11
II. US DEBATES GOALS OF IRAQ STRIKE, AP, NOV 11
III. RICHARD COHEN, OVERTHROW SADDAM, WASH POST, NOV 12
IV. WILLIAM SAFIRE, OVERTHROW SADDAM, NYT, NOV 12
V. JIM HOAGLAND, OVERTHROW SADDAM, WASH POST, NOV 12
Today is the 99th day without weapons inspections in Iraq; the 12th
day without UNSCOM monitoring; and the first day without IAEA
monitoring.
For extensive information on the Iraq crisis, including the deployment
of US forces, Iraqi targets, & etc. see the FAS' "Iraq Crisis: Special
Report" at http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/iraq.htm
Yesterday, Clinton spoke about Iraq during his Veteran's Day
address, as the Pentagon ordered another 129 land-based warplanes and
3,000 more Army troops to the Gulf. Clinton affirmed, "If the [UNSCOM]
inspectors are not permitted to visit suspect sites or monitor
compliance at known production facilities, they may as well be in
Baltimore, not Baghdad. That would open a window of opportunity for
Iraq to rebuild its weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems in
months-I say again, in months-not years. A failure to respond could
embolden Saddam to act recklessly, signalling to him that he can with
impunity develop these weapons of mass destruction or threaten his
neighbors. . . . And it would permanently damage the credibility of the
United Nations Security Council to act as a force for promoting
international peace and security."
With a US strike apparently imminent [assuming no surprises],
criticism of the administration's goal--degrade Iraq's unconventional
capabilities--is mounting, as the critics argue for overthrowing Saddam.
On CNN's "Inside Politics," yesterday, the Carnegie Endowment's Robert
Kagan, asked, What happens the day after the air strikes end, with
Saddam Hussein still in power? Six months hence, Kagan cautioned,
Saddam could again be in possession of proscribed unconventional agents
to threaten US interests. As he explained, Clinton has pursued an Iraq
policy "on the cheap." Clinton has been unwilling to take the risks
necessary to solve the problem--Saddam Hussein. Kagan advised that we
either get rid of Saddam ourselves, by sending US forces to Iraq, or
pursue the policy advocated by Congress, supporting the democratic
opposition.
Even Tara Sonenshine, former Clinton NSC aide, now at USIP, who also
appeared on the show, acknowledged that over the long term, it might not
be possible to keep Saddam in his "box." She suggested that
strengthening the democratic opposition might have to be the path the
administration goes down.
Paul Wolfowitz, former Bush Undersec Def, on the Jim Lehrer Newshour,
yesterday, spoke up for the population of Iraq, against an Arab
spokesman, Edmund Ghareeb, a Lebanese. "Iraq News" chanced to watch the
show with an Iraqi who bristled as Ghareeb advocated dictatorship and
repression for the Iraqi people, in the name of nationalism and
independence, rather than consider how US policy could be bent toward
the interests of the Iraqi people and serve both moral and strategic
purposes.
It fell to Wolfowitz to do so. As Wolfowitz explained, "I think what
we're seeing now is a failure of American policy and a failure of
American policy to take advantage of our greatest strength and
[Saddam's] greatest weakness, which is that 98 percent of the people of
Iraq would like to be rid of this tyrant, and they need some help in
doing so. . . . It's been almost a hundred days now without effective
[weapons] inspections in Iraq. I think the only real way to deal with
this problem is to deal with the heart of the problem: that's Saddam
Hussein himself. And it's not as hard as people say it is, because so
many people in that country-not just Shia in the south and Kurds in the
north-but Sunnis want to be free of this man. He kills his own people;
he murders his own associates. He's a terrible tyrant and that creates
a weakness which we ought to be taking advantage of."
Regarding the administration's plans for a military strike, Wolfowitz
explained, "If they don't do anything, . . . they will look weak; they
will lack credibility. But they have no credible options either. The
military actions they're talking about, they, themselves, admit aren't
going to get inspectors back in, aren't going to get rid of [Saddam's]
capability . . . They've resisted-and I don't know why they've
resisted-what the Congress has voted overwhelmingly to support, and that
is to provide serious support to the democratic opposition of Iraq. . .
I think our policy has collapsed, and it's going to continue collapsing
further and see the restoration of Saddam to full power and enormous
influence in the Gulf unless we change course and make it clear that
supporting the Iraqi people to get this man off their back is our goal."
Yesterday, AP, reported that "Sen. Sam Brownback, R. Kan, chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South
Asian affairs, said the goal [of US action] should be to extend no-fly
zones in the north and south of Iraq to put a squeeze on Saddam and 'in
essence, limit him to being the mayor of Baghdad.'" Zalmay Khalilzad,
deputy undersecretary of defense in the Bush administration, now at
Rand, "said if the objective is to bomb Saddam into compliance,'it's
unclear how much force might be necessary. . . It could be done. But we
may have to be prepared to use a lot of force and over a long period of
time. Do we have the stamina and the will to apply that level of force?
. . . Such an approach might require persistence over time that we
don't have.' No US strategy will be ultimately successful so long as
Saddam remains in power, he said." And David Albright, a former nuclear
weapons inspector, now president of the Institute for Science and Int'l
Security said that "a more massive campaign might do substantial damage.
But if the goal is to wipe out Saddam's future capabilities,
particularly the ability to develop nuclear weapons, 'no bombing
campaign can do that.'"
And three of the three columnists who wrote about Iraq in today's
Wash Post and NYT--Richard Cohen, William Safire, and Jim Hoagland--all
said the aim of US policy must be Saddam's overthrow.
Cohen wrote, "It will be eight years this January since the United
States went to war against Saddam Hussein. It's about time we won it.
. . . [Bush] left in power a man, who for some odd reason, would rather
hold on to his weapons of mass destruction-and the programs that produce
them-than sell oil and feed his own people. In the rhetorical buildup
to the Persian Gulf War, Bush demonized Saddam, mispronouncing his name
and characterizing him as another Hitler. If only the president had
believed his own words. Evil men do not listen to reason. . . . You
could argue that Clinton and his national security team were dealt a bad
hand-and they were. But nothing about their conduct of foreign policy
suggests that they would have handled things any differently. Indeed,
they have done the minimum amount to keep Saddam in line, all the while
conceding this or that demand. It was just a matter of time until the
UN arms inspection program became a fond memory. . . . The problem has
been the reluctance of the administration to come to terms with an Iraqi
reality: As long as Saddam rules, the US-Iraq conflict will continue...
Iraq-a poor, suffering nation-has to be cleansed of all weapons of mass
destruction the only way, apparently, Saddam Hussein will allow: over
his dead body."
Safire wrote, "Forget the fascination with our semiannual military
buildup in the Persian Gulf to persuade Saddam Hussein 'this time we're
really, really, serious.' That point's been made with the UN's
evacuation of employees it does not want to be chained to suspected
anthrax storage sites. . . . The Clinton strategy up to now has been to
go along with UN appeasement of Saddam to such an extent that even the
French got sick of sustained humiliation. Our doormat approach-though
it has enabled Iraq secretly to steal a march on building terror
weapons-is now being presented as having brilliantly 'unified our
allies.'" Of the four US options, Safire dismissed the extremes--doing
nothing and invading Iraq, "Instead we have strategic choice #3: '300
pinpricks' to exhibit our extreme irritation. Cruise missiles launched
from sea for a couple of weeks . . . The fourth choice is the 'degrade
his capabilities' option which seems to be in favor: Use cruise missiles
at first to disrupt communications and depress air defenses, then strike
with carrier aircraft and heavy bombers from land bases. This would
target suspected weapons manufacturing sites, tank parking lots and army
barracks, similar to our softening-up air campaign of a decade ago. The
Clinton Joint Chiefs would claim we successfully 'degraded' his threat.
That military jargon means 'temporarily lessened' but by no means
ended.'" But Safire warned, Saddam "will invite television crews to
cover collateral damage to civilians. If necessary, he can set off
bombs in children's hospitals and orphanages himself. . . Although
Saddam miscalculated wildly a decade ago, his current strategy takes
full advantage of Clinton's expected decision to wage limited air war
with its modest compliance aim. So long as our purpose is only to
'degrade' facilities rather than to replace an aggressive regime, the
strategic advantage is his."
Finally, Hoagland explained, "Defense Secretary William Cohen
traveled to Saudi Arabia this month armed in advance with assurances
that Saudi Arabia would permit the refueling of US warplanes in northern
Saudi airspace. This enabled Cohen to be far more assertive than he was
on his embarrassing February jaunt when he announced he would not press
Arab nations for combat help. . . . Washington now accepts that the
inspection era is probably at an end in Iraq. Embarassing disclosures
by former inspector Scott Ritter about US fecklessness and Iraq's
renewed open defiance exposed how the February Annan-Saddam deal had
effectively gutted the inspections in any event. . . Saddam will gamble
that American bombs will bring Iraq sympathy from Europe and the Arab
world, and splinter sanctions even more. . . . The Clintonites will
have to fight the battle of world opinion during and after the bombing.
But they should guard against treating the aftermath as one more
spin-control operation. . . . No operation that results in widespread
Iraqi civilian deaths, as this one almost certainly will, can be hailed
as a success. It is instead at best a necessity. The administration
must show that it has an attainable strategic goal that could be
furthered only by the violence it will visit on Iraq: the overthrow of
Saddam. 'Keeping Saddam in his box' is not a credible or sufficient
argument for the morning after. . . . Only a serious, focused campaign
to liberate Iraq finally from his rule can justify a return to war by
the world's only superpower against a poor, broken nation."
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
