"FIRING BLANKS"
Iraq News, NOVEMBER 4, 1999
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 .
Regarding the crash of EgyptAir 990, a knowledgeable Wash DC reader
wrote, "I am profoundly puzzled as to how/why the FBI and White House
have been so adamant that terrorist action can be categorically excluded
as an explanation. . . . This seems to be a departure from their
normal 'premature to speculate' line, since I gather their guidance to
news organizations amounts to a categorical exclusion of the possibility
of terrorist action. Unless they have rather direct knowledge. . . I
just don't see how they could be so categorical in excluding hostile
action . . . I am somewhat surprised at the effectiveness of their news
management in keeping this topic quiet, while filling the news with far
more far-fetched mechanical failure theories."
The newly-elected INC leadership team met yesterday with 12 Senators
and two Congressmen. The Senators included the majority and minority
leaders, Trent Lott (R, Miss); Tom Daschle (D, SD); as well as Joseph
Biden (D, DE); Sam Brownback (R, KS); Jesse Helms (R, NC); Bob Kerrey
(D, NE); Jon Kyl (R, AZ); Joseph Lieberman (D, CT); Connie Mack (R, FL);
Robert Torricelli (D, NJ); John Warner (R, VA); and Paul Wellstone (D,
MN). Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R, NY) and Rep. Christopher Cox (R, CA)
also attended.
The Senators expressed their very considerable support for the INC.
They said they would back virtually any effort to overthrow Saddam.
Sen. Biden said he would even support sending U.S. ground troops, if
necessary.
The Senators were amazed to hear from the INC that they had had
virtually no substantive meetings with the administration on plans to
implement the ILA, particularly as the legislation was passed over a
year ago. Sen. Helms was particularly outraged that there had been no
such meetings, noting that he had met with the INC already a year ago.
Sens. Lott, Daschle, and Biden said they would contact the
administration that day to urge it to begin holding such meetings.
There was unanimous support for a program to begin immediately
which would include communications, radio, and satellite television,
along with the INC's starting a detailed discussion with the Pentagon
about military assistance.
The INC welcomed the Congressional support and looked forward to
working closely with the congress and the administration to develop a
plan to overthrow Saddam.
Time Magazine, Nov 8, carried an extensive report on US policy toward
Iraq, or the lack thereof. "Most Americans can be forgiven, if they
have forgotten-assuming they ever knew-that the U.S. has been at war
with Iraq. A year ago, as the UN weapons-inspection program in Iraq
collapsed, President Clinton announced that the US would not only
'contain' Saddam's threat to the rest of the world but also work to
'change' the brutal regime in Baghdad. . . . One year after Clinton
unveiled his plans to overthrow Saddam, Iraqi opposition groups grumble
that the program is being staged more for show than out of any
conviction that the exiles have a chance of succeeding. House
International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman asserts
flatly, 'The Administration is not very serious . . . about replacing
Saddam's regime.' . . .
"A TIME investigation found that little if any of the $8 million
Congress has already appropriated (in Economic Support Funds, separate
from the Liberation Act money) to oust Saddam has ended up directly in
the hands of Iraqi opposition groups. Rather, Capitol Hill
investigators complain, much of the money has gone to high-priced public
relations experts and consultants. A somewhat less than ferocious
outfit called Quality Support Inc., of Springfield, Va., for example,
has received $3.1 million to book hotel rooms, airline tickets and
conference halls for opposition meetings. . . .
"Last month the White House notified Congress that it was withdrawing
the first $5 million from the $97 million made available by the Iraq
Liberation Act. But instead of guns, the Pentagon is providing desks,
faxes and computers. . . 'It's lame, says Democratic Senator Joseph
Lieberman. 'It's obviously not what Congress intended them to do with
that money.'
"The problem with simply discarding hope for an on-the-ground
insurgency is that the in-the-air war is expensive and, top commanders
will sometimes admit, ineffective. . . . It is not being waged
according to Pentagon doctrine. It lacks a clear, attainable objective
and forfeits the initiative to Saddam. And it doesn't make traditional
military sense. Risking the lives of your pilots to destroy an
opponent's air-defense network makes sense only when such risky missions
precede an aerial invasion."
I. "FIRING BLANKS"
Time
November 8, 1999
Firing Blanks
The plot to oust Saddam and the constant pounding from U.S. jets are
going nowhere
By Mark Thompson/Incirlik and Douglas Waller/London
Saddam Hussein doesn't get to pick his enemies, but if he did, the
choice would be easy. Gunning for him on one front is a 25-year-old
rookie pilot from California who wants to be known only by his call
sign, "Loose." An F-15E Strike Eagle pilot, Loose recently lit his
afterburners to escape a salvo of three Iraqi missiles. "I had a big
fat grin," Loose says, remembering the day when the missiles came close,
but missed, and his commander radioed back that he could retaliate with
a pair of 500-lb. bombs. Once again an American pilot trained at a cost
of $2.5 million had beaten the $14,000 bounty Saddam offers to any Iraqi
who can down a U.S. jet. "People can say this is a low-intensity
conflict," Loose said from his hardened bunker at Turkey's Incirlik Air
Base. "But I can tell you that having somebody shoot at me definitely
makes me feel like I'm at war. And I guarantee that the people I dropped
bombs on feel they are at war."
Saddam's other "enemy" lives 2,000 miles away in an 18th century
town house on London's fashionable Cavendish Square. It looks more like
the corporate digs of a leveraged-buyout firm than the headquarters of a
guerrilla movement. Instead of AK-47s and Molotov cocktails, No. 17
Cavendish Square boasts fully equipped offices with ergonomic furniture,
fresh-cut flowers and expensive prints hanging on the walls. For a
suite on its second floor, the U.S. State Department pays more than $200
a sq. ft. annually, according to documents obtained by TIME--double what
most empty modern office space in London costs. Iraqi opposition
leaders are supposed to use the lavish accommodations Washington has
provided to plot Saddam's overthrow, but most say they stay away. For
them, Cavendish Square is an embarrassing example of how the other front
in this war with Saddam has become an extravagant charade.
Most Americans can be forgiven if they have forgotten--assuming they
ever knew--that the U.S. has been at war with Iraq. A year ago, as the
U.N. weapons-inspection program in Iraq collapsed, President Clinton
announced that the U.S. would not only "contain" Saddam's threat to the
rest of the world but also work to "change" the brutal regime in
Baghdad. Clinton also signed the Republican-sponsored Iraq Liberation
Act, which allowed him to supply Iraqi opposition groups with as much as
$97 million worth of military equipment and training. Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright appointed veteran foreign-service officer Frank
Ricciardone to be her czar for overthrowing the Iraqi dictator, and in
January took him along on a Middle East tour to show him off to Arab
leaders.
Since then, U.S. warplanes have attacked Iraqi positions in northern
Iraq on 89 days--about one of every two days they have flown. Just last
week jets bombed missile sites around Mosul for three days. According
to documents reviewed by TIME, on some days the Air Force has dropped
more than 30 bombs and missiles on as many as half a dozen Iraqi
targets. Two months ago, the war ratcheted up when U.S. warplanes
attacked an air-defense center south of Mosul and later discovered they
had caused "serious destruction" to a 500-man unit hidden there,
according to a senior commander. The Administration, senior aides
insist, finally has "a serious strategy" for keeping Saddam in his box
and eventually ousting him. In his State Department office, Ricciardone
has a framed picture of TIME's 1992 cover of Saddam with its red
bull's-eye over his face.
Saddam doesn't have to duck for cover just yet. Personally, the
bombings endanger him little. And they seem to have had slight effect
on his power base, though it is tough to judge popular support for the
dictator. One year after Clinton unveiled his plans to overthrow
Saddam, Iraqi opposition groups grumble that the program is being staged
more for show than out of any conviction that the exiles have a chance
of succeeding. House International Relations Committee chairman
Benjamin Gilman asserts flatly, "The Administration is not very
serious...about replacing Saddam's regime."
DODGING THE GOLDEN BB
At Incirlik, an isolated Turkish base 444 miles southeast of
Istanbul, the Gulf War has never really ended. Most mornings some two
dozen American F-15s and F-16s scream skyward, along with E-3 and RC-135
command planes and KC-135 tankers to keep them safely flying and fueled.
An hour later, in a delicately choreographed ballet 400 miles east, the
warplanes take their final sips of gas before turning south toward Iraq.
Their mission: to show the Iraqi military how impotent Saddam is in
protecting Iraqi sovereignty--and them. Maybe this will foment
rebellion.
The war out of Incirlik began last Dec. 28 following a four-day U.S.
bombing campaign designed to hinder Saddam's efforts to build atomic,
biological and chemical weapons. Since then, according to Pentagon
reports, American pilots have flown close to 12,000 missions, dropped
some 1,200 bombs on nearly 300 targets and destroyed 139 anti-air
artillery guns, 28 radars, 13 mobile surface-to-air missile launchers
and 22 command sites--all without a single scratch on American property.
For the most part, the Iraqis lie low and launch a flurry of flak,
hoping to down a warplane and deliver a live pilot to Saddam. "If
you're looking at the right place at the right time, you can see the
muzzles flash," says Captain Brian Baldwin, an F-15 pilot. "They're
looking for the golden BB."
Lieut. Colonel Vincent DiFronzo, an F-15 pilot, says the Iraqi
missiles and artillery are getting closer to hitting U.S. warplanes,
which fly at more than 20,000 ft. to avoid Iraqi fire. "They're making
adjustments that allow them to cover more altitude," he says. The
Iraqis fire usually with no electronic guidance, which would sound an
alarm in U.S. cockpits. Often the only alert pilots have is the silent
pop of charcoal-gray puffs of smoke from exploding artillery hundreds or
thousands of feet below. U.S. pilots say they attack only after Iraqi
forces threaten them.
Many of Iraq's antiaircraft-missile batteries have been moved south
to protect Baghdad and other sensitive sites, leaving ancient guns, and
even rockets designed to kill tanks, to fire crudely at U.S. warplanes.
Many guns and missiles still in the north have been placed in
residential neighborhoods or amid historic ruins, where, the Iraqis
know, Washington's sensitivities will keep U.S. bombs at bay. A handful
of American planes are dropping some bombs crammed with concrete instead
of explosives to minimize the chance of civilian casualties.
U.S. officers like to talk of the multinational effort under way at
Incirlik, but it's a far cry from the 28-nation alliance that ousted
Iraq from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, or even the 19-nation war in
Kosovo. The current force of 1,274 includes 1,058 Americans, 179
British, and 37 Turks supporting about 45 planes. The Turks fly no
planes into Iraq, and the British fly only reconnaissance planes there.
When it comes to dropping bombs, it is an all-American show.
TRAVELING FIRST CLASS
Success and failure are harder to measure on the second front. A TIME
investigation found that little if any of the $8 million Congress has
already appropriated (in Economic Support Funds, separate from the
Liberation Act money) to oust Saddam has ended up directly in the hands
of Iraqi opposition groups. Rather, Capitol Hill investigators complain,
much of the money has gone to high-priced public relations experts and
consultants. A somewhat less than ferocious outfit called Quality
Support Inc., of Springfield, Va., for example, has received $3.1
million to book hotel rooms, airline tickets and conference halls for
opposition meetings. Of that, a State Department document estimates that
Quality Support will spend about $670,000 for the seven-month lease at
the Cavendish Square office and for three company staff members to work
there. (Quality Support declined to comment on its contract.)
Money has gone to other projects that have little to do with
overthrowing the Baghdad regime. The Middle East Institute in
Washington is receiving $255,738 to host "thematic conferences" on what
kind of government Iraqis should establish after Saddam's downfall. An
additional $200,000 has been budgeted for an environmental study of
Iraq's southern marshlands. "It's all just nonsense," says Francis
Brooke, Washington representative of the Iraqi National Congress.
The CIA, which secretly plotted against Saddam before Clinton went
public, is still picking up the pieces of its shattered operation. More
than five years ago, the agency poured millions of dollars into a
guerrilla force of the I.N.C., a loose coalition of Iraqi exile groups
led by Ahmed Chalabi, a wealthy Iraqi Shi'ite and skillful political
organizer. But with the White House nervous about being sucked into a
contra-style insurgency war, the CIA pulled the plug on its support for
Chalabi's guerrillas and turned to Iraqi officers in Saddam's inner
circle who might topple him. That ended in an embarrassing debacle for
the agency when Saddam uncovered the plots and crushed them. The CIA is
trying to recruit new agents inside Iraq. But intelligence sources
concede that it could take at least five years before that network would
cause Saddam any worry.
Chalabi didn't fade away after his defeat in 1996. Instead, he flew
to Washington, where, to the outrage of the CIA and State Department, he
began cultivating key Republican Senators such as Trent Lott and Jesse
Helms, who forced Clinton to sign the Iraq Liberation Act. Chalabi
hoped that the legislation would open the spigot on U.S. arms and
training so he could field another guerrilla force.
Last month the White House notified Congress that it was withdrawing
the first $5 million from the $97 million made available by the Iraq
Liberation Act. But instead of guns, the Pentagon is providing desks,
faxes and computers. And for military training, the Defense Department
is starting out by having four Iraqi exiles fly to a Florida Air Force
base this week for 12 days of classes on the role of the military in
developing democracies. The four have been told to wear casual civilian
clothes. It is clear that the White House hopes that if military power
can't oust Saddam, maybe these insurgents can. Others see the training
in a different light. "It's lame," says Democratic Senator Joseph
Lieberman. "It's obviously not what Congress intended them to do with
that money."
GROUNDHOG DAY
The problem with simply discarding hope for an on-the-ground
insurgency is that the in-the-air war is expensive and, top commanders
will sometimes admit, ineffective. Almost every day at Incirlik is
Groundhog Day, as in Bill Murray's 1993 film. "You wake up, you come
in, you get ready to launch the aircraft, you launch the aircraft, they
come back, you recover them, you go home," says Staff Sergeant George
Palo, who maintains aircraft fuel systems. "We don't have a lot of
calendars around here, because the only day that counts is the day you
get to go home."
Operation Northern Watch, the U.S.-led effort to keep the skies over
northern Iraq clear of Iraqi warplanes, is the strangest of wars. It
is not being waged according to Pentagon doctrine. It lacks a clear,
attainable objective and forfeits the initiative to Saddam. And it
doesn't make traditional military sense. Risking the lives of your
pilots to destroy an opponent's air-defense network makes sense only
when such risky missions precede an aerial invasion.
Military experts are split on the effectiveness of this kind of
wait-and-bomb war. Retired General Merrill McPeak, Air Force Chief of
Staff during the Gulf War, believes it represents the prototypical 21st
century conflict, in which a grinding, persistent battle plan trumps a
short, intense war. "The bombing isn't hurting us, and it is hurting
Saddam," he says. But Richard Haas, who helped run the Gulf War as a
key member of the Bush Administration's national-security team, says a
superpower's might evaporates as such a stalemate drags on. "When a
great power acts, its military force must be seen as menacing," Haas
says. "Using little bits and pieces of military force tends to be
counterproductive because it becomes part of the background noise."
A NEW YORK CITY VACATION
Much of the war against Saddam has faded to the level of indistinct
chatter, where it is hard to sort signal from noise. The problem is bad
on the military front, but it is even worse among the Iraqi insurgents,
who have to be coached, caressed and cajoled by the State Department.
Last weekend 300 delegates from various Iraqi opposition groups gathered
in New York City, where U.S. officials hoped they would finally lay
aside their feuds and present a unified front. That didn't happen. The
major group representing Iraq's southern Shi'ites, the Iran-backed
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, didn't even show.
The confusion helps explain why Saddam seems to have grown
comfortable with his situation. Though the Desert Fox air campaign last
December rattled his regime, and though there have been outbreaks of
violence among Shi'ites in southern Iraq and even Baghdad, his security
services always ruthlessly stamp out dissent. The CIA still believes
Saddam will be eliminated by someone in his inner circle, but
intelligence agents don't see how a "silver bullet" would ever get close
to him. He has multiple layers of security around him, never announces
his travel plans ahead of time, sleeps in a different bed every night
and uses doubles for public events and even some private meetings.
And the U.N.'s oil-for-food program is helping Saddam stay in power.
The nearly $5 billion worth of food and medicines the U.N. has allowed
the regime to buy with oil exports has in some cases been re-exported
for profit or its distribution in the country has been cruelly
manipulated by the government to control hungry groups. Meanwhile,
Saddam, who intelligence agencies believe is a billionaire, has built 48
palaces for himself since the Gulf War ended. Last April, according to
a State Department report, he opened a vacation resort west of Baghdad
for his cronies. It is complete with 625 homes, a man-made lake,
stadium, amusement park and Ferris wheel.
Chalabi and the other exile leaders want arms and real military
training from Washington now. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (P.U.K.)
and the other Kurdish faction in northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (K.D.P.), say they have 80,000 lightly armed fighters, while the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq claims a force of
20,000 Shi'ite soldiers who have been launching raids in the south.
Chalabi wants to train about 500 exile intelligence operatives, who
would first infiltrate Iraq. They would be followed by 5,000
U.S.-trained Iraqi guerrillas, who would seize territory under U.S. air
cover and encourage demoralized Iraqi army units to defect to their
cause. Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey would take U.S. support a step
further. Containing Saddam with sanctions and almost weekly aerial
attacks against his sam batteries "has failed," Kerrey argues. "I favor
committing U.S. ground forces and air forces" to topple the dictator.
Saddam's neighbors, however, have concluded that Washington is not
serious about getting rid of him, so they have begun rearranging their
foreign policies to live with him and are pressing for the economic
sanctions to be lifted. Most Arab governments refuse to deal with
Chalabi or allow him to use their countries as staging areas for any
guerrilla force he might assemble. Jordan has convicted him in absentia
on banking-fraud charges. (Chalabi says the allegations were trumped
up.) Though the loyalty of many divisions in Saddam's 400,000-man armed
forces is questionable, U.S. intelligence believes that enough of the
elite Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard units would stand
and fight. And those well-trained divisions, with thousands of tanks
and artillery pieces, would maul the guerrillas in what intelligence
analysts believe would become a Middle East version of the Bay of Pigs.
Faced with that possibility, it is no wonder the Clinton Administration
seems content to let Public Enemy No. 1 remain at large.
POLICING IRAQ
Although Operation Desert Fox ended almost a year ago, the U.S. and its
allies are still shooting it out with Iraq. It's a costly and very real
war but doesn't seem to be achieving much.
ALLIED FORCES: Northern Watch -- U.S. - 1,058, Britain - 179, Turkey -
37; Southern Watch - U.S. -- 6,000, Britain -- 1,200
MISSIONS: Total Flown -- 28,000, Bombs dropped -- 1,800, Targets hit --
450
STATED OBJECTIVES: Contain Saddam's regime, Improve stability in the
region, Foster strategic partnership with Turkey
REAL OBJECTIVES: Highlight Saddam's inability to protect Iraq's
sovereignty, in hopes this will help insiders or exiled rebels push him
from power
STRENGTHS: Keeping the Kurds and Shi'ites from being massacred while
containing Saddam
WEAKNESSES: No clear goal. The use of U.S. forces without an exit
strategy leaves the initiative in Iraq's hands (the U.S. attacks only
when Iraqis fire first) and entangles the U.S. in an endless conflict.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
