After the Bombing: Import Controls May Be The Only Hope for ‘Radically’ Improving Sanctions Enforcement Against Iraq

(Washington, D.C.): At present, it is unclear whether President Clinton’s ‘dog-wagging’
bombing
campaign against Iraq⁽¹⁾ actually did “degrade” Iraq’s
weapon of mass destruction (WMD)
programs. It certainly did not accomplish the systemic change — the toppling of Saddam
Hussein’s regime — that would be necessary for any bomb-inflicted degradation to be more than a
temporary setback for the Iraqi despot.

What the seventy-hour air campaign did do, however, is: shatter the last vestiges
of the Desert
Storm-era coalition united in opposition to Saddam and end, apparently permanently, the
on-the-ground inspections performed by the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). As a
result,
it seems likely that the United Nations’ mandated international sanctions regime — a product of
the former and renewed on the basis of unfavorable reports by the latter — will not long survive.

If so, it will be a matter of time — and probably not much time at that — before Saddam is
once
again able credibly to threaten the use of missile-delivered chemical, and biological weapons, and
possibly radiological or even nuclear ones. Such a prospect should alarm not only the likely
targets for his regional aggression but those in Europe and even the United States who will, in due
course, be placed in Saddam Hussein’s cross-hairs.

Until Saddam is Gone, Sanctions Must Remain

The international sanctions regime is a cruel hardship to the innocent Iraqi citizens most
affected
by it. Yet, the threat posed by a Saddam once again granted unconstrained access to the world
markets in WMD-related and other dual-use technologies leaves the U.S. and other responsible
nations no choice but to perpetuate the embargo. As a practical matter, therefore, unless and until
Saddam Hussein and his ruling clique are replaced with a government in Baghdad committed to
living in peace with its neighbors, President Clinton is right to seek to sustain economic sanctions
against Iraq.

More to the point, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair observed on 20 December,
“We need,
radically in my view, to improve sanction enforcement.” Unfortunately —
all other things
being equal — enforcement will probably get much worse in the coming weeks, thanks to pressure
from the Russian, French and Chinese governments (among others) and/or from their enterprises
(some of whom will do business with Iraq as officially deniable “rogue” operations).

What Can Be Done to Improve Sanction Enforcement?

The following are among the steps that should be announced unilaterally by the U.S.
government
where necessary and, where possible, in conjunction with those (presumably including the British)
who share Washington’s concerns about an emboldened, re-armed Saddam Hussein:

• Serve notice to foreign entities tempted to engage in proscribed trade and financial
  transactions
  that calibrated U.S. import controls will be imposed upon them if they do so.
  At some level,
  they will be compelled to chose between doing business with Iraq and doing it with the
  American market; they will not be allowed to do both. Such controls can be imposed for a
  finite (but extendable) period of time and can be accompanied by even more stringent penalties
  against those firms that deal, directly or indirectly, with the Iraqi military and intelligence
  services.
• Limit or deny access to the U.S. debt and equity markets to those foreign
  entities
  conducting sanctioned commercial activities with Iraq.
• Terminate the oil-for-food arrangement with Iraq unless it can be
  assiduously monitored to
  ensure that revenues from oil sales are not diverted from humanitarian purposes to
  military-rebuilding and modernization.
• Mandate that NATO’s Economic Secretariat be charged with conducting an urgent
  study of
  world-wide violations of the UN embargo against Iraq and report on Baghdad’s priority
  weapons-technology shopping lists and funding requirements.
• Make enforcement of Iraq sanctions a formal agenda item for the upcoming
  Cologne G-7
  economic summit in May of next year and Organization of Economic Cooperation and
  Development ministerial sessions in April with a view to denying Saddam’s regime
  access to
  others’ markets and taxpayer-underwritten lending institutions.
• Establish within the U.S. executive branch a Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG)
  on Iraq
  sanctions (modeled after the Reagan-era SIG on International Economic Policy
  (SIG-IEP)) —
  to be chaired by the National Security Advisor and to include among its members the Secretary
  of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of Central Intelligence.
  This group would be charged with monitoring the enforcement of the Iraq embargo and with
  developing options and recommendations for the President designed to preserve it.

The Bottom Line

American policy in the wake of President Clinton’s long-delayed, too brief and politicized use
of
military force against Iraq must be promptly reoriented toward achieving the strategic objective of
removing Saddam Hussein and his cabal from office. Toward that end, Washington should
implement the multifaceted program laid out last February by a distinguished group of U.S.
security policy-practitioners⁽²⁾ and summarized in a column
by Center for Security Policy Director
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. which appears in today’s Washington Times.

Until such time as this strategy achieves its desired result, the economic embargo on Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq must remain in place and be rigorously enforced. Toward that end, the U.S.
government must make discriminate use of American import controls and employ the other
measures described above. Given Saddam’s past record of WMD use and his perceived need to
reassert his authority, the costs of doing otherwise will vastly exceed the short-term economic and
commercial losses that might be associated with this course of action.

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1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Get on with It: Clinton’s Misguided Military
Operations, Foreign Initiatives Argue for Accelerating — Not Deferring — Impeachment
Proceedings (No. 98-D 200, 17 December 1998).

2. See ‘Serious Consequences’: If Clinton Means It,
Here’s the Alternative to His Failed
Strategy of Containing Saddam (No. 98-D 33, 24
February 1998).