Center Commends Bush For Making End Of Saddam Hussein’s Regime US Policy Goal

The Center for Security Policy today applauded published press accounts reporting that, in the aftermath of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, President Bush has recognized the need for U.S. policy to address the impetus behind this act of aggression — Saddam Hussein, himself — and not simply attempt to restore the Kuwaiti status quo ante.

According to "informed sources" cited by the Washington Post, the President has "ordered U.S. government agencies to begin a secret planning effort aimed at destabilizing and eventually toppling President Saddam Hussein from power." The Center believes that such planning is long overdue and marks a particularly welcome change from the Bush Administration’s previous policy of coddling the Iraqi leader, an approach scrupulously observed up until the point when he invaded neighboring Kuwait.

"Saddam Hussein’s true character and intentions are now unmistakably clear: He is a cunning megalomaniac, bent on exercising regional hegemony and world status as an international power-broker at the expense of Western interests," Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, said. "While Saddam Hussein’s current, strong position might have been prevented had the Bush Administration and other allied nations not heretofore been at such pains to accommodate Iraq, the White House appears at last to be responding properly — by preparing to attack the Iraqi cancer itself and not just its symptoms."

One striking example of the Administration’s efforts to appease Saddam Hussein was reported on 30 March 1990 by William Safire in the New York Times. According to Safire, the Voice of America was sternly rebuked by the State Department when the Iraqis bitterly complained about the following message VOA broadcast on 15 February 1990:

• Lasting change can come to the Soviet Union when citizens no longer need to fear massive surveillance — and worse — from the KGB. Secret police are also entrenched in other countries, such as China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba and Albania.

   

 

• The rulers of these countries hold power by force and fear, not by the consent of the governed. But as East Europeans demonstrated so dramatically in 1989, the tide of history is against such rulers. The 1990’s should belong not to the dictators and secret police, but to the people.

   

Reportedly, the Iraqi leader’s agitation at what he labeled a "call to revolution" prompted Secretary Baker to reprimand the Voice and directed that henceforth all editorials would be cleared in writing with his Department.

Until recently, the Bush Administration has also taken a rather forthcoming attitude toward providing Iraq with militarily relevant technology. For example, only a last-ditch effort mounted by the Pentagon, key legislators and outside experts prevented state-of-the-art furnaces for nuclear weapons-related projects from being sold on 20 July 1990 to Saddam Hussein with the Commerce Department’s blessing.

More striking still, as recently as 31 July 1990 — within days of the invasion and even as Iraqi troops were massing on the Kuwaiti border — Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and Asian Affairs John H. Kelly urged Congress not to adopt sanctions against Iraq, citing the importance of maintaining good relations with the Saddam Hussein regime.

Gaffney added, "However chagrined President Bush might feel about the disclosure of the secret planning to topple Saddam Hussein, he must not consider abandoning pursuit of this option. The Western world has rarely, if ever, faced so propitious an environment to move against this menacing tyrant: His invasion of a peace-loving Arab state; his threat to move next against Saudi Arabia; his stated intention to use chemical weapons against Israel and acquisition of ballistic missiles with which to deliver such weapons against Israeli and many other targets; his maneuvering to disrupt the world economy with extortionary manipulation of the oil market; and the apparent aloofness of his principal sponsor, the Soviet Union — all offer both grounds and new opportunities to bring down Saddam Hussein."

As the United States moves to shore up its strategic position in the Middle East and to prepare for military contingencies on behalf of threatened allies there, the Center wishes to reiterate its view that a most urgent priority in such an effort must be the strengthening of U.S.-Israeli ties. In this connection, the Center re-released a highly relevant analysis entitled Time to Reinvigorate the U.S.-Israeli Strategic Relationship, initially published on 13 June 1990. This paper called on the Bush Administration to jettison immediately its arms-length policy toward Israel — a recommendation made all the more imperative with the prospect of more generalized hostilities in the Middle East.

The Center also has recently addressed the implications for U.S. defense programs and requirements arising from the current crisis. In a paper released on 3 August 1990, entitled ‘Do the Right Thing’: Congressional Defense Choices for a Post-Kuwait World, it examined the growing importance of systems like the B-2 bomber, Strategic Defense Initiative, the MILSTAR satellite system, the V-22 Osprey and the C-17 transport aircraft. The Center believes that these programs embody the characteristics likely to prove most vital to national security in the future — the flexibility to perform multiple missions, the utilization of advanced technology and the ability to project power over long distances.

Copies of these papers and others recently issued dealing with the Iraqi crisis may be obtained by contacting the Center.