Read Our Lips: It’s Not the Weapons, Stupid — It’s the Regime

(Washington, D.C.): If the past seven years have taught us nothing else, they have made one
thing painfully clear: Saddam Hussein will never permit his weapons of mass destruction
programs to be permanently eliminated. As a result, the agreement forged by UN
Secretary
General Kofi Annan in February was doomed to fail.⁽¹⁾
So will any military action
contemplated or taken by the Clinton administration in the coming days unless it addresses
the root of the problem, namely Saddam Hussein’s regime itself.

To Free Iraq

Toward this end, the United States must at last adopt a strategy long espoused by the Center
for
Security Policy⁽²⁾ and, in recent months, by the Congress href=”#N_3_”>⁽³⁾ and a influential former Cabinet and
sub-Cabinet officers⁽⁴⁾: Use American military, financial,
diplomatic and other assets to facilitate
the creation and operation of a Free Iraq, beginning with 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.

Any exercise of U.S. military power now should be tied to an effort to undermine
and
delegitimate the regime — necessary preconditions to the overthrow of such a despotic
government. It should 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. In addition, excess military equipment and training in its use should be provided to the
INC.

A Plan of Action

Specifically, President Clinton should implement the program advocated in a letter sent to him
last
February by a distinguished, bipartisan group led by former Representative Stephen Solarz
(D-NY) and President Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy,
Richard Perle:

• “Recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and
  leaders of the Iraqi
  National Congress (INC) that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq.

• “Restore and enhance the safe haven in northern Iraq to allow the provisional
  government to extend its authority there and establish a zone in southern Iraq from
  which Saddam’s ground forces would also be excluded.

• “Lift sanctions in liberated areas. Sanctions are instruments of war against
  Saddam’s regime,
  but they should be quickly lifted on those who have freed themselves from it. Also, the oil
  resources and products of the liberated areas should help fund the provisional government’s
  insurrection and humanitarian relief for the people of liberated Iraq.

• “Release frozen Iraqi assets — which amount to $1.6 billion in the United
  States and Britain
  alone — to the control of the provisional government to fund its insurrection. This could be
  done gradually and so long as the provisional government continues to promote a democratic
  Iraq.

• “Facilitate broadcasts from U.S. transmitters immediately and establish a Radio
  Free
  Iraq.

• “Help expand liberated areas of Iraq by assisting the provisional
  government’s offensive
  against Saddam Hussein’s regime logistically and through other means.

• “Remove any vestiges of Saddam’s claim to ‘legitimacy’ by, among other
  things, bringing a
  war crimes indictment against the dictator and his lieutenants and challenging Saddam’s
  credentials to fill the Iraqi seat at the United Nations.

• “Launch a systematic air campaign against the pillars of his power — the
  Republican
  Guard divisions which prop him up and the military infrastructure that sustains him.

• “Position U.S. ground force equipment in the region so that, as a last
  resort, we have the
  capacity to protect and assist the anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of
  Iraq.

The Bottom Line

Particularly noteworthy in the present circumstance is the Solarz-Perle letter’s bottom line:
“Once
you make it unambiguously clear that we are serious about eliminating the threat posed by
Saddam, and are not just engaged in tactical bombing attacks unrelated to a larger strategy
designed to topple the regime, we believe that such countries as Kuwait, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia, whose cooperation would be important for the implementation of this strategy, will
give us the political and logistical support to succeed.” (Emphasis added.)

The United States and its interests in the region will probably be better served by
not attacking
Saddam under present circumstances — as richly as he deserves it — than by doing so once again
in a feckless manner, or even in a rather more substantial way but unconnected to a larger, clear
and sustained purpose. That purpose cannot be simply be to get Saddam to “allow the UN to do
its work,” as President Clinton suggested at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. Rather, the
U.S. must have as its overarching objective the removal of Saddam and his clique from power.
Nothing less will make a lasting difference or justify the expenditure of tax dollars and the likely
sacrifice of American lives entailed in such an attack.

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1. See the Center’s Decision Brief 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).

2. See Time for a New ‘Hail Mary Pass’ on
Iraq (No. 98-D 147, 17 August 1998),
Clinton
‘Legacy’ Watch # 3: Saddam Lives to Fight Another Day ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_106″>No. 97-D 106, 28 July 1997),
Unfinished Business: Christopher, Perry Depart But Saddam Abides — Will
‘Clinton II’
Finally Put Him Out of Business? (No. 96-T
111, 8 November 1996) and On to Baghdad!
Liberate Iraq (No. 91-P 16, 27 February
1991).

3. See Bipartisan Initiative to Liberate Iraq Offers
Effective Alternative to Clinton’s
Unraveling Containment ‘Strategy’ (No. 98-D
168, 1 October 1998) and Sen. Lott Shows How
and Secures Means to Topple Saddam (No.
98-D 73, 28 April 1998).

4. 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).