Time for a New ‘Hail Mary Pass’ on Iraq

(Washington, D.C.): In 1991, the coup de grâce of Operation Desert
Storm’s ground campaign
was a daring maneuver that end-run Saddam Hussein’s forces massed in Kuwait and secured their
swift defeat. General Norman Schwartzkopf used a familiar football expression to describe this
stratagem, calling it a “Hail Mary pass” — typically a desperate, last-minute, bet-the-farm play.

The Eleventh Hour, Indeed

Last weekend, a top Iraqi defector, Khidhir Abdul Abas Hamza, revealed
just how close a
thing the Gulf War actually was. In interviews with New York Times reporters
Judith Miller and
James Risen, Dr. Hamza disclosed that the covert nuclear weapons program he used to
run
for Saddam Hussein was within months of completing a crude atomic weapon when Desert
Storm was unleashed. Had those in the United States who argued that economic
sanctions be
given “a few more months to work” been heeded, Saddam may have been in a position to use
such a device — with unknown, but probably awful, consequences.

Dr. Hamza’s insights, however, take on an even greater importance in light of the current
situation in Iraq. The MIT-educated nuclear physicist warns that the team he trained and
led is still in place and prepared to respond to the combination of incentives and capricious
terror employed by Saddam to give him “the bomb” at the earliest possible moment.

When, Not If

Just how soon that will be, and how soon the Iraqi dictator’s other weapons of mass
destruction
programs (chemical and biological arms and, among other things, the ballistic missiles with which
they might be delivered) will be fully up and running again is a matter of speculation. Dr. Hamza
knows, however, that it is a question of when, not if.

Now, with the renewed interruption (if not permanent cessation) of international inspections
and
the incipient erosion (if not the formally approved easing) of UN sanctions, that “when” would
appear to be sooner, rather than later. The best that can be hoped for from the
present Clinton
policy towards Iraq — if there can be said to be a policy — is that it will postpone somewhat the
day of reckoning.

Even this seems too much to hope for given the past few days’ disclosures. It turns out that
the
United States and Britain have been discouraging Ambassador Richard Butler from pursuing
challenge inspection initiatives that might provoke Iraq.⁽¹⁾
Saddam’s carefully calibrated political
barometer would not have missed this change in the atmospheric pressure against him; without
the strong backing of the only two major nations still committed to the inspection regime, the
Iraqis knew they could trifle with it at will.

Something ‘Stupid’

Worse, the feckless international response to Iraq’s doing so has only
emboldened Saddam
further. The Clinton team has now explicitly embraced the practice of contracting out U.S.
foreign policy to the UN and its Secretary General, Kofi Anan — a practice that the President and
his Secretary of State strenuously denied when they implicitly adopted it last winter. On Friday,
the New York Times quoted an unnamed senior Administration official as saying: “In
February,
Kofi was proud of his ability to forestall a war with his personal intervention and guarantee. As
long as Iraq doesn’t do anything stupid, what’s wrong with letting him try to fix it?”

For starters, Iraq is doing something which may or may not be stupid, but
which is certainly
dangerous. It has restored conditions under which Dr. Hamza’s old program and those of his
counterparts responsible for other Iraqi WMD activities can shuffle the deck again. Even if
inspections are resumed, and even if the U.S. and Britain were to refrain from insisting that the
inspectors pull their punches, the facts on the ground would have changed. Old trails will have
grown cold; new leads will require time to develop and far more political will to pursue than is
now evident.

The Solarz-Perle Alternative

Consequently, the time has come for a new “Hail Mary pass” on Iraq.
Despite the weak and
distracted leadership that afflicts American security policy these days, as a practical matter,
the
United States has no choice but to try another end-run. This one should be aimed at
bringing
about a safe and permanent end to Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs by
removing from power the regime that is determined to pursue them at all costs. href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾

There is no mystery as to what such an effort will require. It was laid out
publicly last spring by a
bipartisan group of 40 former senior government officials and other experts in an open letter to
President Clinton circulated by former Democratic Congressman Stephen Solarz and former
Reagan Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle.⁽³⁾

The Solarz-Perle strategy is as elegantly simple in its conception as was
Schwartzkopf’s drive
through the desert. Like Desert Storm’s defining operation, it is not certain to succeed. But as
with that earlier “Hail Mary pass,” it is the only option that currently presents itself that has a
chance of succeeding on satisfactory terms and at an acceptable cost.

The essence of this new approach would be to use American military,
financial, diplomatic and
other assets to facilitate the creation and operation of a Free Iraq on territory whose airspace is
currently denied Saddam by the U.S.-enforced no-fly zone. Working with the broadly based Iraqi
National Congress (INC) to reestablish in Iraq an effective opposition to the Baghdad regime, the
United States could give both the people of Iraq and its neighbors an alternative to Saddam. An
active effort to delegitimate the regime — and ultimately to overthrow it — would be accompanied
by giving those who oppose Saddam the means to do so by, among other things, releasing to them
some of the Iraqi assets frozen when Kuwait was invaded and by the removal of economic
sanctions on Free Iraq’s oil-producing and other liberated areas.

After years of studiously ignoring, discounting and — worst of all —
actively sabotaging the
building blocks to this approach, the Administration has lately begun to respond to congressional
proponents by signaling a new interest in pursuing such a strategy. href=”#N_4_”>⁽⁴⁾ Sources on Capitol Hill
indicate, however, that the interest still seems more rhetorical than real. If so, the
result
will be to compound the present fiasco created by the Clinton Iraqi policy, not to ameliorate
it.

The Bottom Line

Let’s be clear: There is now no alternative. President Clinton must
exercise the Solarz-Perle
“long bomb” strategy against the Iraqi regime — before Saddam is in a position to throw
the genuine article at us.

– 30 –

1. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s effort in an op.ed. article in
today’s New York Times to
put the best face on this Anglo-American undercutting of Amb. Butler and his
brave team of inspectors is no more
convincing than Saddam will find the Security Council resolution slated to be debated today. It
reportedly does nothing
more in response to his announced, unilateral termination of the inspection regime than call on the
UNSCOM team to do
their jobs.

2. For more on why there can be no substitute for such a strategic
objective, see Center Decision
Briefs entitled On to Baghdad! Liberate Iraq ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=91-P_16″>No. 91-P 16, 27 February 1991); Saddam’s
‘Cheating,’ Who’s Retreating? End of His Tyranny Is Only Hope For His
Compliance (No.
92-D 83, 27 July 1992); Unfinished Business: Christopher, Perry Depart But
Saddam Abides
— Will ‘Clinton II’ Finally Put Him Out of Business? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=96-T_111″>No. 96-T 111, 8 November 1996); and
Take Out Saddam (No. 97-D
168, 10 November 1997).

3. For a copy of the Solarz-Perle letter, see ‘Serious
Consequences’: If Clinton Means It,
Here’s The Alternative To His Failed Strategy of ‘Containing’ Saddam ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_33″>No. 98-D 33, 24
February 1998).

4. A strong bipartisan, bicameral consensus has emerged since last
winter’s Anan debacle that
Saddam must be removed from power and that the sort of INC-led effort recommended by
Messrs. Solarz, Perle et.al. is the way to go. See Center Decision Briefs
entitled This Is The
Time to ‘Bash’ — Or At Least Repudiate — The U.N. ; Bipartisan Bicameral Consensus
Emerges That Saddam Must Go (No. 98-D 36, 26
February 1998); Father Of A Free Iraq?
Iraqi National Congress’ Chalabi Details A Program For Liberating His Country From
Saddam (No. 98-P 39, 4 March 1998); and
Sen. Lott Shows How And Secures Means To
Topple Saddam (No. 98-D 73, 28 April 1998).