| |
Is Iraq Next on Washington's Hit-List?
Phyllis Bennis
Middle East International (London), 25 January 2002
[NOTE: This was published before the State of the Union Address]
When President Bush George Bush and his team were sworn in at the beginning of 2001, the big split within the administration was already clear: what to do about Iraq. It was a debate shaped primarily by ideology - was US hegemony best maintained by creating (or imposing, if need be) an international coalition for Washington to lead, or by simply asserting military force unilaterally as the right of the world's sole superpower?
A year later, the debate over Iraq remains unresolved. But it had - and continues to have - profound implications for how US foreign policy in Iraq and elsewhere would play out.
What is dramatically different is the political terrain on which the battle is fought. Prior to the events of September 11th, supporters of an escalated military attack on Iraq and/or intensified military training of the so-called Iraqi opposition were dismissed by some policymakers and editorial writers as unrepentant hawks out of step with today's world. They were not, of course, actually marginal in US politics; they included powerful members of congress, and many of the then-private sector hawks today hold the highest positions in Bush Junior's cabinet.
But after September 11th, their credibility, if not their position, was transformed. Suddenly the debate over what was now called "expanding the anti-terror war" to Iraq was on the front pages, a foreign policy debate given new public resonance and urgency by the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Secretary of State Powell staked out a position that did not call for escalating the on-going low-level military assaults or arming the feckless opposition - though he did not explicitly oppose those calls. He continued to emphasize re-tooled economic sanctions, continuing or tightened military sanctions, and continued bombing in the no-fly zones. Powell's position, both before and after September 11th was essentially a continued policy of containment. Before 9/11, his Iraq policy was in a kind of holding pattern, designed to placate domestic concerns about appearing "soft on Saddam", and to shore up the almost collapsed allied coalition supporting the US in the region. In that context, protecting the Arab and other regional allies was particularly important. After 9/11, new pressures on the coalition now defined by "anti-terrorism" meant that the US influence, even without coercion, was even stronger. In return for a grant of immunity from human rights criticisms, Washington counted on virtually complete support from its allies. As a result, especially as the direct military campaign in Afghanistan shifted to a less massive, more directed attack, the need to affirmatively placate coalition allies diminished.
One sign was Powell's abandonment of a "smart sanctions" proposal in the UN. Originally embraced as a public relations ploy to undercut growing regional concern about the dire conditions facing Iraqi civilians under sanctions, smart sanctions as originally endorsed by Powell would have only tinkered with the sanctions' impact, not reversed them. After September 11th, it became clear that Washington no longer felt compelled to respond to how the world perceives the impact of sanctions
The UN Security Council decision of early November reflected this new post-9/11 reality. The US "smart sanctions" proposal that Russia had threatened back in the spring to veto, was taken off the table, replaced by an extension of the existing sanctions arrangements and agreement within the Council to negotiate a new arrangement for the import of goods to Iraq. That would mean either a list of potentially dual-use items requiring special inspection with everything not on the list approved automatically without needing further authorization (the Russian approach), or a list of limited approved goods that would be allowed in, with anything not on the pre-approved list subject to inspection and potential veto (Washington's preference).
On the other hand, Powell's opponents within the administration, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his Deputy Paul Wolfowitz, were long-time backers of a much more militarily aggressive policy, and less interested in the details of sanctions regulations. Both before and after September 11th they emphasized increased military support for the so-called Iraqi opposition. Their policy was overtly aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussein, if not the Iraqi regime, in what was primly defined as "regime change". (Post 9/11 of course, the strategy became part of the war on terror.) Their plan called for providing military training to the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), who would, with the help of US planes and ground troops, then "liberate" Iraq by militarily defeating the 400,000-strong Iraqi army. Committed unilateralists and military strategists all, this group cared little for the niceties of coalition politics.
All of the Bush hawks had signed a high-profile 1998 letter to President Clinton, calling for greater military backing for the INC. It was a contentious position at that time, and remained so when the Bush administration came into office. General Anthony Zinni, then chief of the Pentagon's Central Command had come out strongly against the INC, saying he did not believe the London-based opposition was a viable force in Iraq. But the INC itself had high hopes for the Bush administration. Less than three weeks after President Bush was sworn in, INC spokesman Sharif Ali Bin Al-Hussein noted a "marked shift" in interest and attitude of Bush, compared to the Clinton Administration. "It's a different ballgame now", he said. It's tangible how big the change is".
But not everyone in the Bush administration wanted such a big change. Once in office the Bush hawks toned down their rhetoric somewhat from their overheated language during the Clinton years. Vice-President Cheney, a key supporter of the arm-the-INC contingent during his 1990s years in the private oil sector, told CNN on March 4, 2001 that ''I don't believe [Saddam Hussein] is a significant military threat today.'' But that, of course, was before September 11th.
It was not as if there was any credible evidence of Iraqi involvement in those attacks. Such claims were indeed made, but even top administration officials as well as Israeli intelligence confirmed there was no serious evidence of a link. To the contrary, the long-established antagonism between the rigidly, often murderously secular Ba'athist regimes and their Islamist opponents was well known. Evidence of the power of that antagonism was almost unnoticed in a long New York Times article analyzing the Saudi roots of al-Qaeda. The article stated that
"shortly after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990, Osama bin Laden approached Prince Sultan bin Abdelaziz al-Saud, the Saudi defense minister, with an unusual proposition ... as recounted by Prince Turki bin Faisal, then the Saudi intelligence chief, and by another Saudi official. ... Arriving with maps and many diagrams, Mr. Bin Laden told Prince Sultan that the kingdom could avoid the indignity of allowing an army of American unbelievers to enter the kingdom to repel Iraq from Kuwait. He could lead the fight himself, he said, at the head of a group of former mujahedeen that he said could number 100,000 men".
Rhetoric aside, the calls for a new war against Iraq also have no connection to any verifiable information regarding Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction programs. When the UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of the US bombing raids (they left after being warned of the impending raids - they were not expelled, as so many, including Henry Kissinger, blithely claim), Iraq was close to a clean bill of health regarding its WMD production, though questions remained about biological weapons.
Since that time, there has been little credible new information regarding Iraq's current capacity. A small stream of defectors eager to sell their stories and increase their usefulness to western asylum officials continues to emerge with tales of grandiose WMD programs still underway. But without inspectors on the ground it remains impossible to verify their claims. While their number is likely to grow, the defectors' stories validate only the urgency of getting UN inspectors back into Iraq and into countries and onto borders throughout the arms-glutted region - something that will be possible only when economic sanctions are lifted.
Fewer questions still remain regarding Iraq's conventional weapons. In a new year's day Washington Post op-ed answering military analysts critical of attacking Iraq, even sanctions-booster and research director of the AIPAC-backed Washington Institute for New East Policy Patrick Clawson agreed that Iraq's "weapons are old; Iraq has not been able to buy much in the past 12 years, other than smuggled-in air defense systems used in a futile attempt to bring down one of the American or British planes enforcing the no-fly zones".
As the year ended, public calls to "expand the war to Iraq" escalated, and rumors swirled around the UN that Washington was orchestrating a new military approach to Iraq. The new approach would be based on coercing the permanent veto-wielding members of the Security Council to accept a US plan for new military strikes against Iraq later in 2002. The strikes would be legitimized by a new UN resolution that would authorize the use of force by "member States" or a "coalition of the willing" in response to any Iraqi refusal to accept new arms inspectors.
In fact that specific scenario remains unlikely. Russian sources vehemently deny any openness to such a plan. And Washington's rejection of the need for UN authorization for a military response to the September 11th attacks indicates its continuing sidelining of the global organization. It is far more likely that any future attack on Iraq will be orchestrated unilaterally, with an off-handed reference, should one be required, to earlier UN resolutions that the US will claim give it all the authority it needs for a new war.
But the political debate remains unresolved. In mid-December Congress passed a resolution identifying any Iraqi rejection of new arms inspectors as a "mounting threat" to US security, thus helping to lay the foundation for a new war. The vote in the House of Representatives was overwhelming, with only 12 no votes and 393 in favor. It was designed for domestic consumption, and had no operational language. Many US congresspeople, as well as other policymakers and pundits, seem to accept the claim, once limited to the right-wing fringe, that Iraq should be attacked despite the absence of any link to 9/11, because it is a state with some future WMD potential and could provide WMD material to some mythical terrorists in the future. (Presuming bin Laden by that time has repudiated his earlier offer to provide 100,000 troops against Iraq.)
More troubling, though far from definitive, are the military efforts to put in place the hardware of a new war. According to the Berlin daily die Tageszeitung, at the request of the US Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Prague will send 350 soldiers, most of them from the 9th Special Chemical Weapons Unit, along with special tanks, to Kuwait over the next two months.
On 8 January plans were revealed in Berlin for sending German chemical warfare troops and the specialized Fox tanks designed for chemical warfare. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had publicly reiterated his firm opposition to expanding the war to Iraq, a move largely understood as necessary to keep his coalition with the German Green Party intact. (The Greens were sorely divided over support for Washington's war in Afghanistan; support for expansion to Iraq was thought to be past the limit.) But on September 16 Berlin had agreed to Washington's request for troops and most importantly the specialized chemical warfare Fox tanks, and the early January announcement reflected that commitment. As reported by Tageszeitung, the September talks left no doubt that the troops and tanks were being requested only for use against Iraq.
The movement of small, even if specialized, European troops and tanks towards Kuwait is not proof of actual, let alone imminent, US intent. More significant is the ambiguity of elite opinion within the US The recent shift in Bush officials' rhetoric from Iraq to the dangers of terror enclaves in places like Somalia or Yemen, plus the increasing presence of military "advisers" in the Philippines participating in the campaign against Abu Sayyaf, seems to indicate that Iraq's rise to the top of the target list is not likely until perhaps late spring. And even then, the clearer-thinking, less ideological of Bush's advisers are appropriately wary of the military challenges Iraq poses relative to Afghanistan, as well as of the likelihood of greater international isolation.
The danger of a new US war against Iraq is very real. As Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post, "Creating an appropriate coalition for such an effort and finding bases for the necessary American deployment will be difficult. ... Nevertheless, the skillful diplomacy that shaped the first phase of the anti-terrorism campaign would have much to build on. Saddam Hussein has no friends in the gulf region. Britain will not easily abandon the pivotal role, based on its special relationship with the United States, that it has earned for itself in the evolution of the crisis. Nor will Germany move into active opposition to the United States - especially in an election year. The same is true of Russia, China, and Japan".
On the other hand, Colin Powell's pragmatic approach - backed by some military officials, still loyal to their former boss and supportive of his view that US troops should be used sparingly - still seems to have the upper hand. Turkey, a key ally needed for bombing base rights, vacillates between uneasy and adamantly opposed to a new war against Iraq. Europe still, despite the troops moving towards the region, remains politically opposed to expanding the war. Growing unease from a few influential members of congress, and continued pressure from a small but vocal anti-war movement in the US (who managed hundreds of constituency calls to members of congress despite the near-secrecy and lack of notice of the vote on HR 75) will raise the domestic political stakes for a war which all agree will not be an Afghanistan-style walk-over.
And whether President Bush wants to put at risk his post-9/11 90% + ratings by launching a war which could lead to failure. It was the Pentagon's General Zinni, after all, now a top Middle East envoy for the Bush administration, who memorably said that a military effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein would turn Iraq into a "bay of Goats". Not an optimistic legacy for an election year.
Copyright 2002 Middle East International
|
|
