‘Tough Love’: Gaffney Commends, Critiques Bush Performance On Iraq

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., director of the Center for Security Policy, commended President Bush for his powerful address last night to a joint session of Congress. In remarks delivered today to the Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank Symposium, entitled "Making Security Policy in the Post-Kuwait Era," Gaffney described the Bush speech as "the finest…of his presidency — if not of his political career."

Gaffney expressed concern, however, that in omitting reference to two thorny issues relating to his policy on Iraq, the President may inadvertently be substantially complicating the future prospects for popular and international support for that policy. First, President Bush has not yet explained to the public how he intends to respond to the most serious problem posed by Saddam Hussein: his growing potential for future aggression using chemical, biological and/or nuclear weapons. Gaffney noted that this is a threat that goes well beyond the menace posed by Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait — and one that is likely to remain even if Saddam Hussein ultimately withdraws from and relinquishes control over the emirate.

Second, as part of his evident effort to extol Moscow’s helpfulness in the Iraqi crisis to date, President Bush has not adequately addressed the totality of Soviet military, political and diplomatic activities in the Persian Gulf. According to Gaffney, such an accounting must reveal "the destructive aspects of that Soviet role –for example, the continued presence of a thousand or more Soviet advisers aiding Iraq’s military, Moscow’s insistence that force not be used to redress Iraqi aggression or unhelpful initiatives taken on Baghdad’s behalf."

Furthermore, the President did not disclose the extent to which he proposes to provide taxpayer-subsidized economic, financial and technological assistance to Moscow on the grounds that such help is justified by the USSR’s new, ostensibly "cooperative" attitude. Gaffney surmised that the Soviet Union’s success in securing billions from Germany at the very moment Bonn is declining to contribute meaningfully to defray the costs of Operation Desert Shield may have encouraged President Bush’s reticence on this point.

The Center for Security Policy believes these unaddressed issues — particularly when taken together with several related ones arising from the overseas diplomatic, arms control, technology transfer and burden-sharing aspects of the overseas missions of Secretaries Baker, Brady and Mosbacher — have the potential of dramatically undoing the present consensus behind the Bush approach to Iraq and, in due course, of inevitably jeopardizing U.S. national equities.

Copies of Gaffney’s remarks may be obtained by contacting the Center.