WANTED: SADDAM HUSSEIN, DEAD OR ALIVE

(Washington, D.C.): The reported onset of a new campaign of genocide by Saddam Hussein against his people demands swift and decisive action on the part of the United States, if not the entire civilized world. Before Baghdad succeeds in turning the marshlands near Basra — a pathetic refuge to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites who fled their homes when U.S. inaction ensured the failure of their revolt against Saddam — into killing fields, the regime itself must be crushed.

"It is past time that the West recognized the facts of life: Only by removing Saddam Hussein and his ruling clique from power can there be any hope for lasting peace either within Iraq itself or between Iraq and its neighbors," said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "Wishful thinking must give way to concrete steps to accomplish this; indirect measures like sanctions must be augmented by direct action."

Gaffney added, "Under present circumstances, the imperative of halting the depredations of a murderous outlaw like Saddam Hussein argues for taking a page from the history of American frontier justice: A bounty should be placed on Saddam Hussein — a sizeable cash reward for anyone who can end the reign of terror he and his ruling clique are evidently determined to perpetuate indefinitely. In addition, all appropriate resources of the United States government should be devoted to removing him from power."

The incipient, if not actual, threat to the Shiite population is merely the latest item in a damning indictment against both Saddam Hussein and those who believed that his continued rule as a necessary evil following the liberation of Kuwait. The following are among the other elements of that indictment:

• Baghdad’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds (it can only be hoped that the present anti-Shiite campaign should dispel any lingering illusions on the part of the Kurdish leadership of the folly of deal-making with Saddam Hussein);

 

• the diversion of food and medical aid to Sunnis, Takritis and other preferred beneficiaries of the government’s distribution system;

 

• the concerted effort to rebuild Iraq’s military, notwithstanding the international embargo and UN-imposed trade sanctions and at the expense of an all-out program to relieve the suffering of the population (e.g., the desperate sanitation and health conditions that threaten uncontrollable epidemics);

 

• the cynical use of the continued, and to some extent unnecessary, suffering of the Iraqi people to coerce the international community into ending trade sanctions, thereby facilitating Saddam’s campaign to secure new armaments and military-related industrial capabilities;

 

• the reportedly ongoing work on acquiring an Iraqi nuclear weapons capability at covert facilities unknown to, and therefore untargeted by, allied bombers; and

 

• the accumulated consequences of war crimes, notably those associated with the ongoing ecoterrorism precipitated by the destruction of Kuwait’s oil fields.

The Center for Security Policy has long believed that the liberation of Iraq was every bit as important strategically as was the liberation of Kuwait. The grievous error involved in the Bush Administration’s decision to stop the war short of accomplishing that objective has been measured in tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives lost as Saddam Hussein has sought to consolidate his tyrannical rule. A recent Time Magazine-CNN poll of the American people suggests that as many as 78% percent of the public agree that, as a result, the war with Iraq was less than "totally successful."

As elsewhere, the subordination of respect for human rights, self-determination and democracy to the perceived need to "preserve the territorial integrity" of Iraq has not enhanced the prospects for long-term stability. For that matter, it has not done much to promote even short-term stability in the region. This misbegotten policy should be replaced at once with one guided by a commitment to freedom in Iraq accompanied by the U.S.-sponsored actions necessary to give it a chance to take hold.