After Kosovo
Iraq Still Remains Defiant
By JONATHAN
POWER
June 23, 1999
LONDON- If the war with Slobodan Milosevic is now in
abeyance it is, perhaps, to remind us that only temporarily
were we allowed to forget that the one with Saddam Hussein
continues. The bombing never stopped; neither do the
sanctions.
The one important thing always to recall when discussing
what next to do about Saddam Hussein is what President Bill
Clinton has said more than once: that the UN arms inspectors
found and destroyed more Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
than were destroyed during all the days of intensive
bombardment during the days of the Gulf War. Briefly put,
most of the work of disarming Iraq has now been done. The UN
inspectorate may not have been a perfect fool-proof system
but it was pretty good. Nothing that existed before, in the
annals of warfare, short of total military occupation, had
such a record of success in disarming a nation.
If there are still horrors to unearth - - stocks of
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as the doubters
sometimes suggest, they are 1) primitive 2) have no feasible
means of delivery other than aircraft which are relatively
easy to track and shoot down, or by hand.
Yet the West seems preoccupied with re-establishing the
presence of the UN inspectorate which was partly withdrawn,
partly thrown out, in the course of a row with Iraq at the
end of last year over the terms of access and allegations
(which turned out to be largely true) about the use of the
inspectorate as a cover for American intelligence
operations.
Thus today Iraq goes unexamined, free, if that is the
desire, to build for itself what arms it is able.
This is why the new British/Dutch draft resolution tabled
yesterday with U.S. support in the UN Security Council is
something of a milestone, but also, once examined, more of
an historic curiosity, in the evolving tussle with Saddam
Hussein. It promises a "suspension:" of sanctions in
exchange for full cooperation on a new system of
inspections. And, most important, in a major change in
U.S./British policy, it would not demand the removal of
Saddam Hussein before sanctions can be terminated. In short,
it replaces what was only stick with a medium sized carrot.
Its flaw is that the carrot is probably too small. Still,
for both the U.S. and Britain it is a major departure, one
that if it had come sooner might well have avoided the
present impasse.
But, for now, Saddam holds a better hand than his
antagonists. In return for sanctions, which hurt his people
rather than him, and for some limited bombing which is so
insignificant it rarely makes more than a line in the
papers, he is free of the troublesome inspectors. No one
knows if he is hatching some wicked ploy that will turn the
tables on the West - - a simple suitcase nuclear bomb that
he can have smuggled into New York or London. The very
thought should be enough to turn the stomachs of western
leaders, but they seem unruffled. The truth is Saddam is
well aware of the massive retaliation that such a
provocation would unleash. Which only underlines that real
deterrence never lay with the inspectorate, but with the
might of western military power.
This raises the question - - why do Washington and London
insist on maintaining the full panoply of economic
sanctions? Over 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a
result. If we want to talk about "body counts" it is the
West that is guilty of using "weapons of mass destruction".
Yet for all the brutality of sanctions they have not worked
to undermine Saddam's popularity. Sanctions have merely
served to build antipathy towards the West.
It is now time to cut back sanctions without a quid pro
quo on the inspections front. That cat is well and truly out
of its bag and no policy, short of a new Gulf War, will
persuade Saddam to put it back in. The only sanction that is
important to retain is the one that prohibits the purchase
of military equipment and dual-use technology. And, of
course, Iraq must continue to pay into the UN Gulf War
compensation fund.
A policy to be effective needs to have unanimity of
support in the Security Council. At present US/British
policy meets with a hostile reception in Moscow and Beijing
and a frosty one in Paris. The Arab states, for their part,
although they have no love for Saddam, feel totally out of
sync with the sentiments that govern policy in Washington
and London.
But if policy is recast to focus on an arms embargo there
is a chance of success. Iraq's military power is in tatters
after the Gulf War; it has no airforce or navy to speak of
and its tank strength has been cut dramatically for want of
spares. Unless it can buy arms from outside, Iraq can
threaten no one.
Continuation of the old policy will only entrench a
failed posture. A new policy will be seen as a dynamic break
with the past, one that boldly suggests that Washington and
London are working to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi
people, a concern that somehow seems to have got lost along
the way.
This is not appeasement. This is narrowing containment so
that it concentrates on what is most doable and most vital,
making sure that Saddam can never build an armoury that
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterand with
their neurotically, competitive arms sales enabled him to
build before.
Copyright © 1999 By JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
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