Center Endorses Bush Commitment Of US Forces As First Stage Of Response To Iraqi Aggression

The Center for Security Policy today commended President Bush for his decision to dispatch U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf. The Center regards the President’s announcement this morning that elements of the 82nd Airborne and Air Force will shortly be in place in Saudi Arabia, joining substantial American and other nations’ naval forces in littoral waters, as a welcome — if belated — step toward containing Iraq’s recent aggression.

"Deploying U.S. military elements in Saudi Arabia is an absolutely necessarystep if Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is to be prevented from indulging still further his megalomaniacal and hegemonic ambitions," Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, said. "Of course, it very much remains to be seen if this step will be sufficient to deter new Iraqi attacks against Saudi Arabia or others in the region."

Gaffney added, "In any event, we should be under no illusion on one point: Such deployments — even when combined with the laudable international economic sanctions and arms embargoes now being put into place with American leadership — are unlikely to result in the liberation of Kuwait, to say nothing of bringing down Saddam Hussein. The latter is the only outcome compatible with long-term U.S. and Western security interests. According to press reports, President Bush agrees with this view; if so, he must go beyond the ‘defensive’ measures announced today in order to seize the unique, and possibly ephemeral, opportunity to pull it off."

The Center also noted approvingly President Bush’s stated willingness to consider a coordinated allied release of oil reserves in response to this crisis — an initiative urged upon him on the day of the invasion (see Signal Allied Willingness to Release Oil Stocks Now!: Buy Time to Forge Punitive Response Against Iraq, No. 90-P 72, 2 August 1990) and in congressional testimony delivered yesterday by Center Board member and former chief economist at the National Security Council Roger W. Robinson, Jr.

The Center continues to believe, however, that the release of at least a portion of U.S. and allied oil stocks should not await the actual disruption of oil supplies. Had the Administration at the outset of the crisis sent such an appropriate signal concerning early use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in coordination with similar allied actions, it would almost surely have helped prevent the sort of price-gouging and profiteering currently affecting world energy prices and, especially, U.S. gasoline prices.

The Center also believes that an on-going, rigorous analysis is in order concerning substance — that is, the actual performance and concrete actions — of the Soviet Union in support of stated Western objectives leading to a resolution of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis. There is a real risk that, in the absence of such an analysis, tunnel vision may set in — obscuring the important differences between words and deeds.

Such a review should consider, at the very least, the following:

Why have no Soviet citizens been detained (read, held hostage) in Iraq?

What is the status of some 8,900 Soviet advisors — the bulk of whom are military personnel — currently in Iraq and Kuwait? Did they play any role in advising their Iraqi clients on the use of vast quantities of Soviet-supplied weapons in the invasion of Kuwait? What about such weapons possibly imminent use against U.S. forces?

Is the Soviet Union requiring, as part of its arms embargo of Iraq, the withdrawal of such military advisors?

Would Moscow faithfully observe the international arms embargo should the United States and other nations engage in hostilities with Iraq? Would the U.S. be able to determine if the Soviets are not doing so — and would that critical fact be made public?