[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 18 (Monday, March 2, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1177-S1182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, we are well aware that an agreement was
struck this week by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi
Annan, and the Iraqi Government, led by Saddam Hussein, with respect to
the sites that Iraq agreed would be open to unfettered inspection at
the conclusion of the gulf war. Let me give a little history first.
Remember that the United States and the allied forces were prepared
to carry the battle further, perhaps even to Saddam Hussein himself,
but the President of the United States judged that the battle could be
called off if the Iraqi Government would agree to a series of
commitments to abide by the rule of law in the future. As a result, we
stopped our military campaign against the Iraqi Army, and an agreement
was entered into between the Iraqi Government and the allied forces
under the jurisdiction of the United States in which the Iraqi
Government made some very specific promises. The key promise was not to
develop any weapons of mass destruction and to destroy everything that
they had.
To implement that commitment, an inspection regime was established,
and the Iraqi Government agreed to allow unfettered inspection of its
country in order to assure that it was abiding by the agreement not to
develop and, indeed, to destroy any weapons of mass destruction that it
might already have.
[[Page S1178]]
From the day that agreement was signed, it has been violated
repeatedly by the Iraqi Government and Iraqi authorities, and it has
been literally, Mr. President, a cat-and-mouse game between the U.N.
inspectors under UNSCOM and the Iraqi Government. It seems that
unfettered inspection has been permitted until the inspectors get
warm--like the old child's game, ``Am I getting warm yet?''--and as
soon as the inspectors would get warm, then there would be delay and
deception and denial and, if it were serious enough, outright barring
of inspectors from a site or facility until the offending material had
been whisked literally out the back door, in some cases, and then when
the site was clean, the front door would open, the inspectors would be
invited in and they would find, of course, nothing. That game went on
for a long time. Finally, the U.N. inspector said, ``Enough, this isn't
going to work; every time we get warm, he stops us and we have to find
a way to enforce the agreement that Saddam had entered into.'' That is
when the United States began to consider a bombing campaign as a means
of at least attempting to degrade the weapons of mass destruction that
Iraq had developed.
A lot of people felt it probably wouldn't succeed because it is
difficult to find those caches of weapons, except for the ones that
were disclosed when Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan for
a while and indicated where this material was and our inspectors were
able to go in and find it as a result of that, Saddam Hussein all of a
sudden remembering that he had forgotten to tell us that that existed.
Except for that instance, we have been unsuccessful in being able to
identify much of these stocks. So it was problematic as to whether a
bombing campaign would actually result in the destruction of this
material. As a result, a lot of people were pushing the administration
prior to that bombing campaign to develop a broader strategy that would
consist of a wide array of actions that over time could result in
addressing the real problem here, which everyone agrees is Saddam
Hussein himself. That broader strategy might consist of a series of
actions that would destabilize his regime, would put more pressure on
him and would eventually perhaps result in a replacement of his
Government, not by assassination, which is contrary to American policy,
but by means of the assistance of the people of Iraq.
Since the agreement by the U.N. Secretary General, the need for a
resolution from the Congress supporting military action has been, in
effect, put on hold, but I suggest that it is only on hold, that there
will come a time, sooner or later, when the United Nations will, again,
be faced with the question, and the United States as the primary actor
here, as to whether or not it is necessary to take some additional
action.
As sure as we are here today, Mr. President, the Iraqis will violate
the terms of either the most recently agreed-upon regime for inspection
or the remaining principles of inspection which apply to other than the
so-called eight Presidential sites in Iraq. That would probably happen
if, that is to say, we begin again to get warm, if our inspectors find
something that they want to get into further.
At that point, we will begin to again see denial and deception by the
Iraqi Government. At that point, it is going to be relevant again
whether or not the American people, the world community and the
Congress support action by the administration to deal with the then
most recent crisis. If the administration has developed a broad
strategy, the bombing campaign only being a part of that strategy, and
everyone recognizing that it by itself is not going to solve the
problem, but as a part of an overall strategy can contribute to a
solution, then the President, I think, will have the support he needs
to proceed with the execution of that plan.
But the development of that plan is critical, and that is why I think
during this interregnum, this period in which at least nominally
inspections will be permitted and pressure of immediate military action
has receded, it is important for us in the Congress to work with the
administration to help it develop the outlines of such a policy. That
is not our job, and I don't suggest that the Congress be the one to
develop that broad strategy. That is the administration's prerogative;
it is the administration's responsibility. It is its responsibility,
and because many in Congress feel the administration has abdicated a
significant part of that responsibility in the past, I think we have
the opportunity and we have the responsibility to share ideas with the
administration that it could put together in a broader strategy. If it
does that, it will have the support of the Congress if and when that
time comes. That is why I think it is important for us to talk a little
bit about the agreement that was entered into and about some
alternative proposals that have been suggested, including one which I
will submit for the Record. A letter sent to the President by 28
prominent--prominent--American citizens offers their suggestions as to
what might be done, most of which have also been offered by Members of
the Senate.
Before I close with that, let me indicate that when the majority
leader took the floor last week to criticize the agreement that had
been entered into between the Secretary General and Saddam Hussein, I
supported the remarks that he gave and I have said that ever since,
because I think some criticism of this agreement is warranted.
It is a fact that our Government was put in a box when the President
and the Secretary of State, in effect, ceded this element of policy to
the United Nations. It was a foregone conclusion we would have to then
accept the agreement and attempt to abide by it; we had no choice at
that point; and as a result, the administration has to go forward with
it and has to nominally at least support it. Richard Butler, the chief
inspector, has to support it. He is a man of significant qualifications
and eloquence. In describing how this is going to work, he says he can
make it work, but it is all predicated on the assumption that Saddam
Hussein will abide by the agreement. That is what Richard Butler
himself says.
There are a lot of criticisms of the agreement, about the precedent
that it sets, about the fact that it puts the United Nations literally
in the driver's seat and reduces the UNSCOM inspectors, the
professionals, and the United States, which has been a primary country
backing the agreement, to a secondary position. There has been
significant question about whether the inspections themselves will be
compromised by the inclusion of a lot of diplomats which are
essentially to act as chaperones to the inspectors at these eight
Presidential sites.
Part of the problem of the inspections is that Saddam Hussein has
always seemed to have been aware of where we wanted to go and has been
one step ahead of us. That is because his Government has significantly
penetrated the operations and has information in advance of the
inspections. If the diplomats are involved in this, and some of them
are from countries which are clearly supportive of the Iraqi regime, it
certainly is open to question as to whether or not the inspections will
be compromised in the future.
So a lot of questions that the majority leader raised about this
agreement, I think, remain as significant and ought to instruct us in
the future as to how not to go about business. But it is done. And for
the time being, we are going to have to at least abide by it.
The key point about the agreement that I think I will make is this:
We should have no illusions that it will be abided by. At some point,
the Iraqis will, if we get close to finding something, prevent either
the full inspection under the new agreement or revert to form under the
current policies that apply to all of the sites other than the eight
Presidential sites. In either case, we have the responsibility to act.
Now, the administration has the view that this will actually make it
easier for us to engage in military action in the future because in the
past we did not have support from the world community, but this time if
Saddam Hussein violates it, the world community will be with us. Well,
unfortunately, the world community appears to have an almost infinite
capacity for rationalization not to take an action against Saddam
Hussein because we cannot even get a resolution through the Security
Council that says the ``severest'' consequences will result from a
violation of the agreement. Instead, we argue about words--of whether
it will
[[Page S1179]]
be very severe consequences. This clearly means that our allies are not
going to be backing us in terms of the kind of military action that we
will want to take if and when that becomes necessary.
So concluding on this point, Mr. President, I think it is important
for us to look at some of the suggestions that are being made and for
the administration to begin to develop this broader policy.
I want to put two things in the Record at this point. I will ask
unanimous consent to do so. One is a letter, an open letter to the
President, signed by 28 prominent Americans, calling upon the President
to consider a variety of specific actions that should be taken; and the
other is a statement by Paul Wolfowitz who is the Dean of the Paul H.
Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins
University for the House Committee on International Relations on
February 24. Since that was a House hearing, I thought it would useful
for our Members here in the Senate to have it.
So I ask unanimous consent that those two documents be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Open Letter to the President--Committee for Peace and
Security in the Gulf,
February 19, 1998.
Dear Mr. President: Many of us were involved in organizing
the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf in 1990 to
support President Bush's policy of expelling Saddam Hussein
from Kuwait. Seven years later, Saddam Hussein is still in
power in Baghdad. And despite his defeat in the Gulf War,
continuing sanctions, and the determined effort of UN
inspectors to fetter out and destroy his weapons of mass
destruction, Saddam Hussein has been able to develop
biological and chemical munitions. To underscore the threat
posed by these deadly devices, the Secretaries of State and
Defense have said that these weapons could be used against
our own people. And you have said that this issue is about
the ``challenges of the 21st Century.''
Iraq's position is unacceptable. While Iraq is not unique
in possessing these weapons, it is the only country which has
used them--not just against its enemies, but its own people
as well. We must assume that Saddam is prepared to use them
again. This poses a danger to our friends, our allies, and to
our nation.
It is clear that this danger cannot be eliminated as long
as our objective is simply ``containment,'' and the means of
achieving it are limited to sanctions and exhortations. As
the crisis of recent weeks has demonstrated, these static
policies are bound to erode, opening the way to Saddam's
eventual return to a position of power and influence in the
region. Only a determined program to change the regime in
Baghdad will bring the Iraqi crisis to a satisfactory
conclusion.
For years, the United States has tried to remove Saddam by
encouraging coups and internal conspiracies. These attempts
have all failed. Saddam is more wily, brutal and
conspiratorial than any likely conspiracy the United States
might mobilize against him. Saddam must be overpowered; he
will not be brought down by a coup d'etat. But Saddam has an
Achilles' heel; lacking popular support, he rules by terror.
The same brutality which makes it unlikely that any coups or
conspiracies can succeed, makes him hated by his own people
and the rank and file of his military. Iraq today is ripe for
a broad-based insurrection. We must exploit this opportunity.
Saddam's long record of treaty violations, deception, and
violence shows that diplomacy and arms control will not
constrain him. In the absence of a broader strategy, even
extensive air strikes would be ineffective in dealing with
Saddam and eliminating the threat his regime poses. We
believe that the problem is not only the specifics of
Saddam's actions, but the continued existence of the regime
itself.
What is needed now is a comprehensive political and
military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime. It
will not be easy--and the course of action we favor is not
without its problems and perils. But we believe the vital
national interests of our country require the United States
to:
Recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the
principles and leaders of the Iraqi National Congress (INC)
that is representative of all peoples of Iraq.
Restore and enhance the safe haven in northern Iraq to
allow the provisional government to extend its authority
there and establish a zone in southern Iraq from which
Saddam's ground forces would also be excluded.
Lift sanctions in liberated areas. Sanctions are
instruments of war against Saddam's regime, but they should
be quickly lifted on those who have freed themselves from it.
Also, the oil resources and products of the liberated areas
should help fund the provisional government's insurrection
and humanitarian relief for the people of liberated Iraq.
Release frozen Iraqi assets--which amount to $1.6 billion
in the United States and Britain alone--to the control of the
provisional government to fund its insurrection. This could
be done gradually and so long as the provisional government
continues to promote a democratic Iraq.
Facilitate broadcasts from U.S. transmitters immediately
and establish a Radio Free Iraq.
Help expand liberated areas of Iraq by assisting the
provisional government's offensive against Saddam Hussein's
regime logistically and through other means.
Remove any vestiges of Saddam's claim to ``legitimacy'' by,
among other things, bringing a war crimes indictment against
the dictator and his lieutenants and challenging Saddam's
credentials to fill the Iraqi seat at the United Nations.
Launch a systematic air campaign against the pillars of his
power--the Republican Guard divisions which prop him up and
the military infrastructure that sustains him.
Position U.S. ground force equipment in the region so that,
as a last resort, we have the capacity to protect and assist
the anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of
Iraq.
Once you make it unambiguously clear that we are serious
about eliminating the threat posed by Saddam, and are not
just engaged in tactical bombing attacks unrelated to a
larger strategy designed to topple the regime, we believe
that such countries as Kuwait, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, whose
cooperation would be important for the implementation of this
strategy, will give us the political and logistical support
to succeed.
In the present climate in Washington, some may
misunderstand and misinterpret strong American action against
Iraq as having ulterior political motives. We believe, on the
contrary, that strong American action against Saddam is
overwhelmingly in the national interest, that it must be
supported, and that it must succeed. Saddam must not become
the beneficiary of an American domestic political
controversy.
We are confident that were you to launch an initiative
along these line, the Congress and the country would see it
as a timely and justifiable response to Iraq's continued
intransigence. We urge you to provide the leadership
necessary to save ourselves and the world from the scourge of
Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction that he refuses to
relinguish.
Sincerely,
Hon. Stephen Solarz, Former Member, Foreign Affairs
Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; Hon. Richard
Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute;
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense; Hon. Elliot
Abrams, President, Ethics & Public Policy Center;
Former Assistant Secretary of State; Richard V. Allen,
Former National Security Advisor; Hon. Richard
Armitage, President, Armitage Associates, L.C., Former
Assistant Secretary of Defense; Jeffrey T. Bergner,
President, Bergner, Bockorny, Clough & Brain; Former
Staff Director, Senate Foreign Relations Committee;
Hon. John Bolton, Senior Vice President, American
Enterprise Institute; Former Assistant Secretary of
State; Stephen Bryen, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense; Hon. Richard Burt, Chairman, IEP Advisors,
Inc.; Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany; Former
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs.
Hon. Frank Carlucci, Former Secretary of Defense; Hon.
Judge William Clark, Former National Security Advisor;
Paula J. Dobriansky, Vice President, Director of
Washington Office, Council on Foreign Relations; Former
Member, National Security Council; Doug Feith, Managing
Attorney, Feith & Zell P.C.; Former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy; Frank
Gaffney, Director, Center for Security Policy; Former
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear
Forces; Jeffrey Gedmin, Executive Director, New
Atlantic Initiative; Research Fellow, American
Enterprise Institute; Hon. Fred C. Ikle, Former
Undersecretary of Defense; Robert Kagan, Senior
Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace;
Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Director, Strategy and Doctrine,
RAND Corporation; Sven F. Kraemer, Former Director of
Arms Control, National Security Council; William
Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard; Michael Ledeen,
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Former
Special Advisor to the Secretary of State; Bernard
Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and Ottoman
Studies, Princeton University; R. Admiral Frederick L.
Lewis, U.S. Navy, Retired; Major. Gen. Jarvis Lynch,
U.S. Marine Corps. Retired; Hon. Robert C. McFarlane,
Former National Security Advisor; Joshua Muravchik,
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Robert
A. Pastor, Former Special Assistant to President Carter
for Inter-American Affairs; Martin Peretz, Editor-in-
Chief, The New Republic; Roger Robinson, Former Senior
Director of International Economic Affairs, National
Security Council; Peter Rodman, Director of National
Security Programs, Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom;
Former Director, Policy Planning
[[Page S1180]]
Staff, U.S. Department of State; Hon. Peter Rosenblatt,
Former Ambassador to the Trust Territories of the
Pacific; Hon Donald Rumsfeld, Former Secretary of
Defense; Gary Schmitt, Executive Director, Project for
the New American Century; Former Executive Director,
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; Max
Singer, President, The Potomac Organization; Former
President, The Hudson Institute; Hon. Helmut
Sonnenfeldt, Guest Scholar, The Brookings Institution;
Former Counsellor, U.S. Department of State; Hon Caspar
Weinberger, Former Secretary of Defense; Leon
Wienseltier, Literary Editor, The New Republic; Hon.
Paul Wolfowitz, Dean, Johns Hopkins SAIS; Former
Undersecretary of Defense; David Wurmser, Director,
Middle East Program, AEI; Research Fellow, American
Enterprise Institute; Dov S. Zakheim, Former Deputy
Undersecretary of Defense.
Organization affiliations given for identification purposes
only. Views reflected in the letter are endorsed by the
individual, not the institution.
____
Statement of Paul Wolfowitz
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to testify
before this distinguished committee on such an important
subject as policy toward Iraq.
Although I share in the general sense of relief that the
mission of the U.N. Secretary General has made it possible to
avoid, for the time being, the necessity of U.S. military
action against Iraq, I see no reason to rejoice about the
outcome of the latest crisis with Iraq. Nor do I see any
reason to be optimistic about the agreement that has been
reached. In fact, the events of the last several weeks
constitute a significant political victory for Saddam
Hussein.
However, the course of military action that the
Administration was preparing for would have been an even
greater political defeat for the United States, accomplishing
little or nothing at the cost of the lives of American pilots
and Iraqi civilians and also at great political cost to our
friends and allies in the region. What the United States
needs to develop urgently is a long-term strategy so that we
will not find ourselves in the same box again in a few
months, forced to choose between an unsatisfactory diplomatic
outcome or costly and ineffective military action. If we must
act militarily in Iraq, it should be in support of a serious
effort to help Iraqis to liberate their country from Saddam
Hussein's tyrannical grasp. That is also the only way to
rescue the region and the world from the threat that will
continue to be posed by Saddam's unrelenting effort to
acquire weapons of mass destruction and to exact vengeance
for the defeat he suffered in the Persian Gulf War.
I would like to discuss three points in my testimony this
morning:
(1) Even a perfect agreement would have constituted a
tremendous victory for Saddam Hussein and left the UNSCOM
inspectors under an enormous handicap in their efforts to
uncover his weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems.
(2) The agreement, or what we know of the agreement, leaves
enormous question marks about whether UNSCOM will any longer
be able to carry out its function of searching for Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in any of the eight so-
called Presidential Palaces or for that matter, in any other
locations that Saddam Hussein may at some later date decide.
(3) If the agreement has not effectively gutted the
inspection effort and if the inspectors are thus able to get
lucky and get back on the trail of what they were about to
discover when Saddam blocked inspections a few months ago,
the United States must have military options that are better
than the one that was available this time of bombing targets
whose contents we have little knowledge about in the small
hope that this might ``substantially reduce'' his weapons of
mass destruction capability. What is needed is not the
``major land campaign'' that top Administration officials
falsely suggest is the only effective way to remove Saddam
from power. The real option is to support the many Iraqis who
desperately want to overthrow this tyrant, but who have so
far found the U.S. stinting and unreliable in the support we
have provided them. What is needed is not a ``massive U.S.
ground invasion'' but political, economic and military
support so that Iraqis can carry that fight themselves.
the losses in a return to the status quo
First, it is important to recognize how much Saddam has
gained even if the present agreement actually did commit him
to allow the UNSCOM inspectors the ``free, full, unfettered
access to these sites, anywhere in the country'' that
President Clinton demanded in his speech to Pentagon
personnel on February 17. Most of the reasons to be skeptical
about this agreement can be found in the President's own
speech.
As President Clinton said, an agreement with Saddam Hussein
on this issue means nothing: ``Saddam has spent the better
part of the past decade trying to cheat on [the] solemn
commitment'' to submit to inspection of his suspect weapons
programs. ``Throughout [this] entire process,'' as the
President said, ``Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut
UNSCOM.''
It is also true, as the President said, that the UNSCOM
inspectors have done a remarkable job of uncovering Iraq's
secret programs despite all of this lying, concealing and
obstruction. But there is one major difference now if the
inspectors are able to go back to work unhindered in Iraq:
this crisis has bought Saddam months of time to move whatever
it may have been that U.N. inspectors were about to discover
that forced Saddam finally to declare key sites off limits.
As good as the inspectors are, it is not reasonable to think
that they could get back any time soon to the point they were
at when Saddam's obstruction began. It could take many
months, or even years, particularly when much of the progress
they have made in the last two years has been due, again as
the President acknowledged, to the extraordinary revelations
brought out by Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, when he
defected in 1995. It is unlikely that we will ever get such a
well-placed defector again.
Thus, even in the best of circumstances. Saddam Hussein has
almost certainly bought himself a very long time before we
will have to face the need to obstruct the U.N. inspectors
again, to continue the game of ``cheat and retreat'' as Les
Aspin called it. Long before then, we can be sure, the
pressure will build from Russia, France and others to lift
the sanctions on Iraq on the grounds that the inspectors have
found nothing. And once again President Clinton had it right
in his February 17 speech when he said: ``Already these
sanctions have denied him $110 billion. Imagine how much
stronger his armed forces would be today, how many more
weapons of mass destruction operations he would have hidden
around the country if he had been able to spend even a small
fraction of that amount for a military rebuilding.''
What has Saddam had to pay for this long breathing space
and for the four-month defiance of the United Nations that
produced it? Absolutely nothing. Even worse, he has been
rewarded for it. Rewarded by forcing the United States into a
costly military build-up that has strained our relations with
key allies in the region. Rewarded by the legitimacy of a
meeting with the Secretary General of the United Nations and
a formal agreement with him (a dignity, we should be
remember, would never have been accorded to Radovan Karadzic
when he claimed to be the leader of Serbian Bosnia).
Rewarded by an enormous outpouring of sympathy and support
for him in many parts of the Arab world. Rewarded by
appearing to have stood up to the United States and not
paying any price for doing so.
Perhaps most seriously of all, Saddam has been rewarded by
the repeated statements by top U.S. officials--not to mention
those of other countries--that our goal is limited merely to
getting the U.N. inspections restored. That is to say, or
rather as President Clinton said, ``Would the Iraqi people be
better off if there were a change in leadership? I certainly
think they would be. But that is not what the United Nations
has authorized us to do; that is not what our immediate
interest is about.'' Or, in the words of the Secretary of
Defense: ``What we are seeking to do is not to topple Saddam
Hussein, not to destroy his country, but to do what the
United Nations has said in its declarations.'' Of course,
these are not warm endorsements of Saddam Hussein's
continuation in power. But they certainly go a long way to
discourage opponents of his regime from thinking that we are
seriously interested in removing Saddam.
potential weaknesses in this agreement
There are also serious problems with the agreement itself.
It does much more than simply provide for ``diplomats'' to
accompany UNSCOM inspectors in visiting sensitive sites. In
fact, Article 4 of the agreement says that inspection of
those sites will be conducted not by UNSCOM but by a new
Special Group, appointed by the Secretary General, in which
members of UNSCOM will simply be members. Although the
language is ambiguous, it suggests that the Executive
Director of UNSCOM, Ambassador Richard Butler, who by all
reports has done a magnificent job to date, would not be a
member of this Special Group. The Special Group would have
its own head, called a Commissioner, also appointed by the
Secretary General.
If this means that Ambassador Butler has effectively been
dismissed for the function of inspecting sensitive sites, and
access to those sites is now to be negotiated by a Russian
diplomat or someone else who is more sensitive to Saddam's
claims of ``sovereignty'' than to the need to carry out
effective inspections, then the damage to the inspection
regime is truly fatal. If any confidence is to be placed in
this agreement at all, it is vital that the Secretary General
move very quickly to appoint Ambassador Butler as the
Commissioner of the Special Group, something which the
agreement permits but does not require.
Even if the Executive Director of UNSCOM remains in charge
of inspecting sensitive sites, there are other reasons for
concern. The inclusion of ``diplomats'' in the teams may
compromise security, a serious problem for UNSCOM in the best
of circumstances. The promise by the Secretary General to
bring the issue of lifting of sanctions to the attention of
the Security Council, while seemingly vapid, could generate
serious problems. Finally, there are serious concerns about
the size and scope of the defined eight ``Presidential
Sites'' that are supposed to be defined in the annex to the
agreement, an annex which was still not available more
[[Page S1181]]
than twenty-four hours after the agreement was announced.
the need for better military options
It may be a long time, if ever, before the inspectors can
get close to finding whatever it was that caused Saddam to
start obstructing them last year. But if they do, we can be
certain, he will block them again. President Clinton has said
that in that case we must be prepared to take military
action. If so, that military action needs to be something
more effective than what was planned this time.
Although the Clinton Administration declared repeatedly
that the air strikes they were planning would not be ``pin-
pricks'' like the ones they administered in response to
Saddam's attempted assassination of President Bush in 1993 or
to his attack on our Iraqi opposition allies in 1996, simply
making a bigger bang is no guarantee of serious results.
There is simply no way that the U.S. Air Force can do from
the air what the U.N. inspectors must do from the ground.
Over time it seemed that our objectives were steadily scaled
back. As it began to dawn that bombing would probably not
succeed in forcing the inspectors back in--indeed, it might
well have the opposite effect--one heard less talk of that as
a possible objective. But since we also couldn't hope to
eliminate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction with air power
alone, we finally ended up with the objective of
``substantially reducing'' that threat. In the absence of
inspectors, it would be impossible to know what we had
actually destroyed. Perhaps the thinking was that the word
substantially has enough flexibility in it to cover a range
of outcomes. But as Secretary Cohen demonstrated with his bag
of sugar, it would not take much left over to continue to
pose a serious threat.
Thus, the U.S. would have been left trying to claim
significant military success, with little evidence to back it
up, while the evidence of death and destruction in Iraq would
be real and readily demonstrated by Saddam. Risking American
lives and the lives of innocent civilians is something that
should be done only when there are serious goals to be
accomplished by doing so. The proposed operation could meet
that standard only with the greatest of difficulty. And it
would have imposed serious costs on our allies in the Arab
world.
Which brings us to the question asked by the elderly
veteran in Columbus, Ohio: ``If push comes to shove and
Saddam will not back down, will not allow or keep his word,
are we ready and willing to send the troops . . . and finish
this job, or are we going to do it half-assed, the way we did
before?''
Secretary Cohen's answer was ``What we are seeking to do is
not to topple Saddam Hussein . . . but to do what the United
Nations has said in its declarations.'' At the same Town
Meeting, Sandy Berger said that ``The costs and risks of that
course of action, in our judgment, are too high and not
essential to achieving our strategic interests as a nation .
. . It would require a major land campaign, and risk large
losses of our soldiers.''
Yet Secretary Cohen on other occasions, has said correctly,
that this is not simply about U.N. declarations but about
real threats to U.S. National Security. Saddam Hussein has
demonstrated that we will cheat and try to build weapons of
mass destruction as long as he remains in power. He
demonstrated, by attempting to assassinate George Bush early
in the term of a new American administration and by
burning Kuwait's oil fields as his army left that country,
that he is bent on serious vengeance against those who
opposed him in the Gulf War. He has demonstrated not only
in 1990 but also again in 1994 that he will pose a threat
to Kuwait whenever he thinks he has a chance. He has
demonstrated countless times that he will conduct genocide
and war crimes against his own people including gassing
them with chemical weapons, machine-gunning them in mass
graves. and threatening them with starvation by diverting
rivers. The one effective way to cope with the weapons of
mass destruction problem, like all these other problems,
is to help remove him from power.
As President Clinton has said, the issue of weapons of mass
destruction is an issue that concerns the future of the
twenty-first century. As Mr. Berger said in Columbus, it is
an issue worth fighting for. Why is it worth fighting for
ineffectively with air power and not worth fighting for
effectively, if that means using ground forces? Instead of
deciding what means it is willing to use, and then tailoring
the goals to fit them, the Clinton Administration should
decide what it takes to do the job and ask the country to
support it.
However, the estimates that it would take a major invasion
with U.S. ground forces seriously overestimates Saddam
Hussein. As we did for too long in Bosnia, we are in danger
of painting a brutal dictator and his army as mighty giants
when, in fact they are military pygmies. There was some
excuse for overestimating the capability of the ``fourth
largest army in the world'' before the Gulf War, when all we
had to go on was their performance against Iran in the
1980's. There is no reason to be doing so today, when their
weaknesses were exposed in 1991, and when the Iraqi army of
today is far weaker than the one that we faced then.
The notion that a large U.S. ground invasion would be
needed is based on the belief, repeated often by U.S.
government officials, that the Iraqi opposition is feckless.
But that Iraqi opposition rose up in large numbers to fight
against Saddam Hussein in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf
War. That Iraqi opposition, with some help from the U.S.
Operation Provide Comfort, kept the northern third of Iraq
out of Saddam's control for more than five years, and even
today, despite the serious division between the two major
Kurdish factions, Saddam's writ is weak in Northern Iraq.
Alas, it is U.S. support for the Iraqi opposition, more
than that opposition itself, which has been feckless. I am
sorry to say that the single best opportunity to support the
Iraqi opposition was during the Bush Administration, when
Saddam Hussein was to use his armed helicopters to slaughter
the rebel forces, while American fighter planes flew over
head, with their pilots not allowed to shoot at Saddam's
gunships. But, where the Clinton Administration came to
office promising to do more, they in fact have done less. We
have preferred to support coup attempts in Baghdad, which are
almost certain to be penetrated and to fail, than to provide
open support to the democratic opposition. Ultimately, when
the Iraqi opposition was fighting for its life in the North
when Saddam attacked Irbil in 1996, the United States made a
few meaningless missile strikes against radars in the South,
proclaiming the North to be of no strategic importance and
abandoning the people whom we had promised to support.
But Saddam is not ten feet tall. The brutality that makes
him so feared by his people also makes him hated. And his
army is badly weakened by its defeat in the Gulf War and by
the effect of years of sanctions. When President Bush did
decide to do something to stop Saddam's repression of his
people, by launching Operation Provide Comfort in April of
1991, it took only a small, lightly armed American force and
ill-equipped Kurdish guerillas, backed up by the threat of
American air power, to drive the Iraqi army out of the
northern third of the country. When the opposition proposed
an attack on Iraqi forces in the North in 1995, the United
States warned them not to and said we would not support them.
As a result, the larger of the two Kurdish factions pulled
out but the operation nevertheless succeeded in capturing
several large Iraqi army units with minimal fighting.
Just a few days ago, Daniel Williams reported in the
Washington Post from Amman, in an article titled ``Saddam May
Be Weaker Than He Seems,'' that:
``Diplomats, Jordanian officials and travelers say that the
south is dangerous territory for Saddam Hussein's army and
police. `By day, things seem calm enough, but at night the
police and soldiers retreat into their shelters. They are not
safe,' said a recent arrival from Iraq. `There is lots of
hit-and-run activity on Saddam's security forces. The
nighttime belongs to them,' a Western diplomat added.''
What saves Saddam from massive uprisings in this situation,
a former Iraqi military official exiled in Jordan told
Williams, is that ``no one wants to be burned twice.'' If the
United States wants the opposition to Saddam Hussein to be
less feckless, then it must be less feckless in its support.
This does not mean that we can guarantee their success. But
there are certain minimum things that we must do. We cannot
pretend to support a serious resistance movement when we have
yet to give them a single rifle, much less antitank weapons.
We cannot plan to sit by while helicopter gunships slaughter
them without interference.
What the U.S. needs to do to support effective resistance
to Saddam Hussein is not a large ground invasion, but rather
a series of political, economic and military measures that
can help the Iraqi people liberate themselves:
Political: We need to challenge Saddam Hussein's claims to
be the legitimate ruler of Iraq. This will be much harder to
do in the wake of the agreement that he has just signed with
the Secretary General. But it is important, nevertheless, to
press to indict him as a war criminal and to challenge his
claim to represent Iraq in the United Nations.
We should also indicate our willingness to recognize a
provisional government of free Iraq, and the best place to
start is with the current organization and principles of the
Iraqi National Congress, the only organization that has to
date set forth a set of principles on which a post-Saddam
representative government could be built.
The United States can expect to be isolated at first in
pushing these positions, but it is important to do so because
they are not merely symbolic steps. They have real practical
consequences, both political and economic.
Economic. One of the consequences of creating a mechanism
to recognize a provisional government for Iraq is that it
would open a way to make the frozen assets of Iraq,
reportedly in the neighborhood of $1.6 billion just in the
U.S. and U.K. alone, available to support the resistance.
Another important measure will be to lift economic
sanctions from regions in Iraq that are wrested from Saddam's
control. It is inexcusable that sanctions have been kept in
place all this time on Northern Iraq, even when it was
liberated territory. This squeezed the people in the North
between a U.N. embargo from the north and Saddam's embargo
from the south, thus exacerbating tensions among the Kurds.
Ultimately, the most important economic measure will be to
make provision for the oil
[[Page S1182]]
resources of liberated areas to be made available to support
the resistance to Saddam Hussien.
Military: Serious military support is also needed from the
United States, but not the large land invasion that is thrown
up regularly as a straw man. What is needed most of all is
weapons and logistics support. Anti-tank weapons, in
particular, could have a powerful equalizing effect, just as
anti-air weapons did in Afghanistan. It is difficult to
understand how U.S. officials can claim that we have tried
supporting the opposition, when we have never tried to arm
them.
We should also be prepared to provide air cover for
liberated areas within the southern and northern no-fly
zones. This is of critical importance, not only to provide a
base from which the resistance to Saddam can operate, but
also to provide a secure zone to which units of his own army
that wish to change sides can go. Saddam is now so unpopular
with his own regular army and even with many parts of his
Republican Guards that if a secure and honorable path can be
opened for his army to leave, major units are likely to do so
or to desert without a fight. This presents a very different
scenario than the imagined ``major land invasion'' with U.S.
troops marching on Baghdad against a fiercely resisting Iraqi
army.
conclusion
Mr. Chairman, it seems clear that the United States is
going to have to live with this agreement. While we can work
to clarify certain important details--particularly those that
bear on the continued ability of UNSCOM to do its remarkable
work. But no new agreement with Saddam Hussein is going to
fundamentally alter the threat that Saddam poses to his
people, his neighbors and the world, whether from weapons of
mass destruction or conventional weapons or from terrorism.
Despite the eagerness of some for a quick test of the new
agreement, we can't really know whether this new
inspection regime is working for a long time (although we
might learn sooner that it is not working). Despite the
eagerness of some for quick military action if the
inspectors are obstructed now, we should not be in a hurry
to take military action as pointless as what we were just
now planning to do.
What we should be doing now is preparing for the time when
we face another crisis with Saddam Hussein or another
opportunity to act to help the Iraqi people liberate
themselves. That is something that we should start doing now.
It seems to be something the Administration will not do
unless Congress forces them to. For that purpose, I would
urge the Congress to:
Urge the United States government to recognize, and assist
in all practicable ways, a provisional government of free
Iraq representing all the people of Iraq and committed to
reconciliation within Iraq and to living at peace with its
neighbors.
Appropriate $100 for the purpose of assisting the
provisional government. The administration should work to
recover these funds from blocked Iraqi assets now held by the
U.S. treasury.
Press for the United States to seek an indictment of Saddam
Hussein for war crimes and crimes against humanity in an
appropriate international tribunal.
Saddam is in a position of great weakness today. But the
weakness will only become apparent if he is pushed. If we
exaggerate his strength and thus encourage the defeatist
mentality that seems to affect Administration strategy today,
we will help him buy time for a later confrontation when he
will be much stronger and the costs in blood and lives will
be much higher. As the veteran said in Columbus:
``Are we going to do it half-assed? And then men at that
time to (sic) come back and ask my grandson and some of these
other grandsons to put their lives on the line, if we're
going to do it half-assed, the way we did before.''
Mr. KYL. Now, this document that the 28 advisers--let me indicate who
some of these people are, people like former Secretary of Defense Frank
Carlucci; and Caspar Weinberger; and Judge William Clark, former
National Security Adviser; Doug Feith, former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense; Fred C. Ikle, former Undersecretary of Defense;
Bill Kristol; Robert Kagan; Bernard Lewis; Don Rumsfeld, former
Secretary of Defense; and Paul Wolfowitz, as I said; and Richard Perle.
They are all, I think, eminently qualified to offer this kind of
advice.
I urge the President to consider the suggestions that are made here,
which revolve around preliminarily the principle that military action
alone will not force Saddam to comply, that he is the problem, that is,
no coup d'etat is likely to succeed in this country and therefore the
way to get him out is to create a series of conditions which will
enable the Iraqi people themselves to provide the insurrection that
will eventually depose him. This might include the following:
Recognizing a provincial government; restoring safe-haven both in the
northern and southern portions of Iraq so that the people there can
actually declare themselves free of his influence and control; lifting
the sanctions in those areas so that the people can benefit from the
economic end, of course, that would result; release frozen Iraqi assets
to the Iraqis in exile; facilitating broadcasts from U.S. transmitters
to the people of Iraq; removing vestiges of Saddam's ``legitimacy'' by
considering, for example, whether the United Nations should indict him
as a war criminal; an air campaign could be a part of this, launched
against the Republican Guard divisions which prop him up; and
tightening down on the embargo.
Right now we know the sanctions are of primary concern to him. And if
we tighten down on the embargo so that the black market oil sales
cannot continue to provide him with significant oil revenues, it will
squeeze him further.
All of these things could eventually create conditions under which
the Iraqi people could retake the Government of Iraq from Saddam
Hussein.
So, Mr. President, my concluding point is this: The administration
now has some time to develop a strategy which had not been developed
prior to the time that it was asking for Congress to support a bombing
campaign. If that program is developed, with the help of the Congress--
and it makes sense as a broad strategy to deal with Saddam Hussein--the
President will have all of the authority and the backing that he needs
and deserves in taking action against Saddam Hussein, I would say,
when, not if, that is called for, as a result of probable Iraqi
violation of some part of the international inspection regime.
It is a serious business, Mr. President, for us to decide to move
beyond a policy of containment to a policy of rollback. It is one which
ought to be debated by this body and by the administration. But the
time for it has come because, as we have seen, neither the American
people nor the Congress were willing to support a half-measures kind of
action against Saddam Hussein. We felt something more was required to
really deal with the problem.
As we learned in Vietnam, and as we have learned elsewhere, halfway
measures--calibrated bombing attacks, and the like--do not seem to
solve the problem. When you go to war, I think the maxim from the gulf
war, from the Vietnam war, and the new thinking of military strategists
in this country is: When you go to war, you'd better mean it; you have
to be able to succeed at what you are doing.
That probably requires the imposition of overwhelming force and it
requires a broad strategy that will get you where you are going. That
is why the administration needs to develop this policy, with the
assistance of the Congress, and be able to implement it if and when the
time for action comes.
Mr. President, I ask, how much of that remaining time do I have,
because I have one more thing I would like to say?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has consumed 16 and a half
minutes.
Mr. KYL. Fine. Mr. President, I know I can conclude these remarks in
the time allotted.
Mr. President, I want to change the subject in this remaining 2 or 3
minutes to discuss the issue of balancing the budget for American
families.
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