Clinton on Iraq: Wrong Question, Wrong Answer:
It’s Not the Weapons — It’s the Regime, Stupid

(Washington, D.C.): In his press conference today with British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
President Clinton once again demonstrated his unwillingness, or inability, to comprehend the real
nature of the problem with Iraq — and, therefore, the futility of his approach to dealing with it:

“I think the precise question should be — that I should have to ask and answer — is,
could any military action, if all else fails, substantially reduce or delay Saddam
Hussein’s capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and to deliver them
on his neighbors? The answer to that, I am convinced, is yes. I’m convinced there is
a yes answer there. But you have to understand that those are the criteria for me.”

This is, of course, precisely the incorrect question. As Charles
Krauthammer notes in his
syndicated column in today’s Washington Post:

“If the objective is just to attack weapons of mass destruction, we should not bomb.
Why? Because they are extraordinarily easy to hide and move, and almost impossible to
find from the air. Certainly, one of the tactical objectives of an air campaign should be
to hit as many biological and chemical sites as we can. But it cannot be the only
objective, because we cannot from the air eliminate his stockpiles.

“To merely reduce stockpiles of anthrax and nerve gas is much like reducing the
number of nukes in the old Soviet Union. It feels good, but it doesn’t solve the
problem. In the end, it is not the weapon itself but the intent of the user that
is the danger.“

Portentous Excuses

Nearly as troubling as the fact that the Clinton Administration refuses to address the problem
of
Iraq in a strategic manner — i.e., by focusing on Saddam’s regime and its malign
intentions — are
the excuses it is serving up for not doing so. For example:

‘We Would Have To Go in on the Ground’: State Department spokesman
Jamie Rubin
asserted during yesterday’s press briefing:

“…Desert Storm, the Gulf War, demonstrates that it would take hundreds of
thousands of ground troops to remove the current leadership by force. Our
current policy, preventing Iraq from threatening the region, serves the objectives and
interests of the United States, our friends and our allies. And that policy is based on
the goals of thwarting his capacity to develop or use weapons of mass destruction and
limiting his ability to threaten his neighbors. That is our view of what is the appropriate
policy at this time.”

The truth is that Desert Storm demonstrated no such thing. If anything, the Gulf War
showed that the people of Iraq were willing to rise up against Saddam Hussein even when
U.S.
military power — air power, to say nothing of ground forces — was not brought to
bear. There
is every reason to believe that the Iraqi people will readily do so again if there is
reason to
believe the United States will try to prevent an uprising from being another suicide mission.
This will require the systematic suppression using air attack of the means by which
Saddam exercises his despotic control.

As a letter now being circulated by former Representative Steve Solarz (D-NY) and former
Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle⁽¹⁾ makes clear,
such use of American military forces
should be coupled with a two-track strategy of: 1) legitimating and empowering a provisional
government of Free Iraq, under the principles and leadership of the broadly based Iraqi National
Congress, and 2) de-legitimating and undermining Saddam and his ruling clique. Specific steps
for accomplishing these objectives are outlined in the letter href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾ and are eminently achievable — if
only the will exists to undertake them.

‘We Would Have to Have the UN’s Blessing’: In the course of comments
made during a photo
op. with Prime Minister Blair on 5 February, President Clinton said:

“What is the cause of the present stand-off? It is the suspension of the inspections by
the United Nations inspectors and the restrictions on where they can inspect. Our
interest is in preventing Saddam Hussein from building biological, chemical, nuclear
weapons capability, the missiles to deliver such weapons. That is our interest.
That’s where the authority from the United Nations resolutions rests.“

In the Clinton Administration, the conjunction of the final two statements is hardly
surprising. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the team that brought us, in Madeleine
Albright’s immortal phrase, “aggressive multilateralism” believes that “our interest(s)” and “where
the authority from the United Nations…rests” are one and the same thing.

As it happens, in the case of Iraq — and in countless other cases — a more clear-eyed
view of
U.S. interests reveals that they are very often not identical to the
lowest-common-denominator product of UN deliberations. Indeed, it is quite frequently
the case that US
interests are disserved by UN resolutions that satisfy Yevgeny Primakov’s
anti-American agenda,
the great-power aspirations of Communist China, the let-them-eat-bread chauvinism of the French
and/or the tail-wag-the-dog chutzpah of banana republics (or dictatorships) that happen to occupy
temporary Security Council seats.

From the Folks Who Brought You Kyoto

Unfortunately, the mindset that subordinates American sovereignty and equities to globalist
impulses is not only evident in the present crisis with Iraq. It was also evident in the
Clinton
Administration’s recent decision to abandon an exemption for the U.S. military from the
greenhouse gas reductions regime at Kyoto. Despite a decision to that effect adopted in
time
for the run-up meeting in Bonn, at the direction of Al Gore’s National Security Advisor and
political commissar, Leon Feurth, the American delegation in Japan was obliged to agree to a
formula that exempts only those military training or combat operations approved by the UN or
some other multilateral organization. Since the Clinton-Gore Administration is busily
implementing the treaty without bothering to present it to the Senate (let alone to secure its
advice and consent), it is likely that the military will have to come up with reductions in
fossil
fuel emissions to compensate for whatever greenhouse gases its expected, non-multilaterally
authorized military action might entail.⁽³⁾

The Bottom Line

If President Clinton will not refrain from putting American lives at risk and squandering
precious
defense resources in a military operation that is doomed to fail — if anything, strikes aimed at
Saddam’s suspected weapons of mass destruction facilities might succeed in disseminating
chemical or biological agents with incalculable effects on the Iraqi people and with predictably
counterproductive effects on others in the region — then the Republican-led Congress must chart
a different course.

As the Center has previously noted,⁽⁴⁾ House
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) have already made clear that they
understand what
Clinton does not: “It’s the regime, stupid.” Now they should endorse the specific,
practical
steps recommended by the distinguished company being assembled by Messrs. Solarz and Perle —
and summarized with characteristic brilliance by Charles Krauthammer:

“Killing him would be the neatest way [of deposing Saddam], but given our difficulty
finding him during Desert Storm, unlikely. It is a mistake, however, to think that
death is the only way to bring him down. He is not invulnerable. Militarily, he is
much weaker today than he was during the Gulf War, and his regime is widely reviled
at home.

“His fall begins with an explicit American campaign to delegitimize and depose
him. How? As former undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz has argued (in a
paper presented to the Middle East Institute last May), we should long ago have
declared him a war criminal (for invading Kuwait, attacking Saudi and Israeli
cities, and eco-terrorism for starters). We should recognize an Iraqi
government-in-exile. We should give the opposition use of frozen Iraqi
assets. We should lift sanctions in those areas of Iraq not under Saddam’s
control — ‘iberated Iraq’– such as northern Iraq.

“As the air campaign begins — attacking Republican Guards, presidential palaces
and whatever weapons we can find — we might even create a new zone of
liberated Iraq by means of an attack into the sparsely populated but oil-rich desert
in the south, and offer military protection for defecting Iraqi units. And we keep
up the campaign until the regime begins to break.

“Admittedly, we might not succeed. But even if we cannot finish Saddam, our
minimal objective must be to significantly reduce his power and his control over
his country. Detaching his northern and southern provinces would be a huge
blow.

“Let’s be clear: A return to the status quo ante would be a defeat. It makes no sense to
resume this war aiming so low. After all, we are in this mess today because seven years
ago
we did exactly that.” (Emphasis added throughout.)

– 30 –

1. See “In U.S., Calls Grow Louder for Saddam Hussein’s Removal,”
by Thomas Lippman,
Washington Post, 5 February 1998.

2. These include: formally recognizing the provisional government as
the government of Iraq;
working to give it the Iraqi seat at the UN and other international forums; releasing Iraq’s frozen
assets to the provisional government; enabling it to take possession of the oil fields of southern
Iraq and lifting sanctions on the areas under its control; making the provisional government the
conduit for humanitarian assistance; assisting it in broadcasting to the Iraqi people information
and news denied them by Saddam’s regime; bringing war crimes charges against Saddam and his
clique, etc.

3. This would add to the other, serious and uncompensated costs
associated with the present
buildup detailed in the Center’s Decision Brief entitled Clinton
Legacy Watch # 17: Dangers of
a ‘Hollow Military’ (No. 98-D 23, 5 February 1998).

4. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Clinton’s Huffing-and-Puffing on Iraq — But Lack
of a Coherent Strategy — Looks Like a Formula for Disaster ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_22″>No. 98-D 22, 4 February 1998).