4. AR 5)2:4:991-92179
[H.A.S.C. No. 102-79]
OPTIONS FOR DEALING WITH IRAQ
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
DEFENSE POLICY PANEL
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SECOND CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
HEARINGS HELD
AUGUST 10 AND 11, 1992
PENNSYLVANIA STATE
UNIVERSITY
JULI 1993
DOCUMENTS COLLECTION
U.S. Depositor Copy
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1993
66–736 CC
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-040933-0


DEFENSE POLICY PANEL
LES ASPIN, Wisconsin, Chairman
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
WILLIAM L. DICKINSON, Alabama
DAVE MCCURDY, Oklahoma
FLOYD SPENCE, South Carolina
THOMAS M. FOGLIETTA, Pennsylvania BOB STUMP, Arizona
NORMAN SISISKY, Virginia
LARRY J. HOPKINS, Kentucky
RICHARD RAY, Georgia
ROBERT W. DAVIS, Michigan
JOHN M. SPRATT, JR., South Carolina DUNCAN HUNTER, California
FRANK MCCLOSKEY, Indiana
DAVID O'B. MARTIN, New York
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
JOHN R. KASICH, Ohio
GEORGE (BUDDY) DARDEN, Georgia
HERBERT H. BATEMAN, Virginia
H. MARTIN LANCASTER, North Carolina BEN BLAZ, Guam
LANE EVANS. Illinois
ANDY IRELAND, Florida
MICHAEL R. MCNULTY, New York
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
GLEN BROWDER, Alabama
JON KYL, Arizona
CHARLES E. BENNETT, Florida
ARTHUR RAVENEL, JR., South Carolina
RONALD V. DELLUMS, California
ROBERT K. DORNAN, California
PATRICIA SCHROEDER, Colorado
BEVERLY B. BYRON, Maryland
NICHOLAS MAVROULES, Massachusetts
EARL HUTTO, Florida
CLARK A. MURDOCK, Professional Staff Member
REBECCA K. HERSMAN, Professional Staff Member
MARY E. COTTEN, Staff Assistant
MARY C. REDFERN, Staff Assistant
(II)


CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
1992
Page
Monday, August 10, Non-Military Options for Dealing with Iraq ..........
Tuesday, August 11, Military Options for Dealing with Iraq ...
61
raq ............
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Aspin, Hon. Les, a Representative from Wisconsin, Chairman, House Commit-
tee on Armed Services ...........
................................... 1, 61
Spence, Hon. Floyd, a Representative from South Carolina .............
................................... 61
PRINCIPAL WITNESSES WHO APPEARED IN PERSON OR SUBMITTED
WRITTEN STATEMENTS
...
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Boco
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Clawson, Dr. Patrick, Resident Scholar, Foreign Policy Research Institute:
Statement ........
Prepared statement ........
Kemp, Dr. Geoffrey, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace .............
McNaugher, Dr. Thomas L., Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution:
Statement ..
Prepared statement
Murphy, Hon. Richard, Senior Fellow for the Middle East, Council on Foreign
Relations ...........
Mylroie, Laurie, Washington Institute for Near East Policy:
Statement.
Prepared statement ........
Trainor, Lt. Gen. Bernard, USMC (Retired), Director, National Security Pro-
gram, and Adjutant Lecturer of the Kennedy School of Government
co
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(III)





NON-MILITARY OPTIONS FOR DEALING WITH
IRAQ
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,
DEFENSE POLICY PANEL,
Washington, DC, Monday, August 10, 1992.
The panel met, pursuant to call, at 2:10 p.m., in room 2118, Ray-
burn House Office Building, Hon. Les Aspin (chairman of the
panel) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LES ASPIN, A REPRESENTA-
TIVE FROM WISCONSIN, CHAIRMAN, DEFENSE POLICY
PANEL
The CHAIRMAN. The meeting will come to order. Today we are
going to have a hearing on the issue of Iraq, and we welcome the
witnesses that have appeared before us.
Saddam Hussein has belligerently resisted complying with the
U.N. resolutions on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and treat-
ment of minority groups. His “cheat and retreat” strategy has been
met with the "threat and forget” from President Bush.
This "threat and forget” has done little to ensure that Iraq com-
plies with the resolutions. The Defense Policy Panel today begins
a couple of days of hearings to explore options that the United
States might pursue more successfully to achieve the goal of com-
pliance.
We begin by concentrating on non military actions, such as aiding
the Iraqi opposition, strengthening sanctions and other possibili-
ties. Tomorrow we will explore military options.
Throughout the hearings, we will also ask which options might
help remove Saddam from power and whether the advantages of
such action outweigh the risk. We today welcome a very distin-
guished panel of witnesses. Ms. Laurie Mylroie, a fellow at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Dr. Patrick Clawson,
the resident scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute; and
the Honorable Richard Murphy, the former Assistant Secretary of
State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, and currently sen-
ior fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Lady and gentlemen, we welcome you here this afternoon. Let's
have opening statements in the order in which I introduced the
panel, and then we would like to ask some questions at the end of
all of the opening statements.
Laurie, why don't you start.
(1)


STATEMENT OF LAURIE MYLROIE, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE
FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
Ms. MYLROIE. OK. Thank you. I would like to thank the panel
and the chairman for the opportunity to speak here today. I will
be submitting a written statement for the record.
Saddam Hussein, as you know, is in flagrant violation of the key
U.N. resolutions on Iraq. Chairman Aspin recently put out a state-
ment to that effect, so I won't go into any detail about those viola-
tions. I will remind you of the key resolutions: Resolution 687, the
formal cease-fire to the war; Resolution 688, which demands that
Iraq cease the repression of its population; and Resolution 706,
which requires Iraq to sell oil under U.N. supervision. All of these
resolutions were passed over a year ago.
What are we to make of this situation? That we have to be more
vigorous in forcing Saddam Hussein to comply with the resolu-
tions? I don't think so. I don't think that Saddam Hussein can be
made to comply with the U.N. resolutions.
I think that the current situation indicates that the U.N. resolu-
tions are impossible to enforce with Saddam Hussein in power.
Therefore, I think it appropriate for the United States and the
United Nations to declare simply that he is in hopeless violation
of the resolutions and that they will be supporting the ouster of
Saddam Hussein.
To pretend that the U.N. resolutions are being enforced when
that is not the case, only weakens the U.N. and the New World
order to which this country aspires.
There is another reason why ousting Saddam and his regime
should be the U.S. goal. As long as the United States is committed
to the territorial integrity of Iraq, it is impossible to address the
Kurdish problem with Saddam Hussein and his regime in power.
If Saddam is allowed to reassert his authority over the north, he
will renew the Kurdish genocide.
The Kurds will resist, by armed force, the reassertion of Bagh-
dad's authority in the north unless the Government in Baghdad
can provide assurances about how they will be treated with guar-
antees for human rights. The current regime in Baghdad can never
provide those assurances.
The administration has recently shifted its policy on Iraq by re-
ceiving a delegation from the opposition of the Iraqi National Con-
gress. That shift, in effect, entails a policy whose logical end is
Saddam's overthrow. The Iraqi National Congress, the INC, pro-
poses to establish an alternative Iraqi Government-in the north-
in the Kurdish territories, to gain international support, and even-
tually, to extend the liberated part of Iraq southwards from the
north.
The administration promised that the high level contacts with
the INC will continue. Saddam Hussein may react to this new situ-
ation with the determined effort to re-take the north before devel-
opments there become a real threat to him; the Kurds are only
lightly armed.
I recently visited northern Iraq and met the officers of the allied
Military Coordinating Commission, the MCC. They were concerned
about the military situation and felt that they were not getting
enough support from allied capitals.


Northern Iraq has oil. That oil can be pumped and refined, and
it would largely meet the domestic needs. Moreover, the money
from the local sale of that oil can be used to fund local administra-
tion in the north.
Fuel reserves for heating were largely consumed last winter. The
chief oil engineer in the town of Erbil explained the general situa-
tion in terms of his personal position. Last year he began the win-
ter with six barrels of kerosene in reserve. When I spoke to him
last month, he had half-a-barrel.
Addressing the economic situation in the north should be done
for its own sake. But additionally, the better the situation in north-
ern Iraq, compared to the rest of Iraq, the more the pressures on
Saddam Hussein will intensify.
Three, indict Saddam Hussein for war crimes and crimes against
humanity. The European Community called last year for war
crimes trials. It was the administration that turned that call aside.
It believed, and still does believe, that war crimes might inhibit
a palace coup. That was what the Iraqi delegation was told that
visited Washington. But it should be clear by now that no palace
coup is likely to occur in Iraq.
Four, enforce 688. The enforcement of 688 weakens Saddam's
hold on power. Among the elements to enforcing 688 are, A, ground
all Iraqi military aircraft, particularly in the south where Saddam
is launching a genocidal campaign against Shiite guerrillas, par-
alleling the campaign he conducted in the north; B, demand Sad-
dam lift the embargo he imposed on northern Iraq; C, prevent Iraqi
forces from shelling Kurdish towns along the demarcation lines as
Baghdad does from time to time; D, demand that Baghdad renew
the memorandum of understanding that regulates relief work in
Iraq. Or better yet, dictate to Baghdad a new agreement that is
much tougher than the accommodating understanding that was
originally reached
Specifically, one, relief workers have to get visas from Baghdad.
Baghdad has been withholding the visas, attriting the relief force.
The U.N. should have the authority to send in anyone it designates
whenever it chooses.
Two, the U.N. exchanges all money it spends in Iraq at the offi-
cial exchange rate. The official exchange rate is 60 times the Iraqi
dinar's real market value. That makes U.N. operations in Iraq un-
necessarily expensive and puts foreign exchange in Saddam's pock-
et.
Three, the movement of U.N. personnel in Iraq is subject to the
approval of Baghdad. They should be able to move freely.
Four, the U.N. is generally too accommodating to Baghdad be-
cause it believes it needs Baghdad's approval to carry out urgent
relief work in areas under Iraqi control in the south. For example,
when I visited northern Iraq, relief workers there complained to me
that the U.N. was asking them to provide details on the local staff
that worked for them. Such inquiries could only be intended to in-
timidate and harass those working with the relief agencies. The
particular people that I talked with refused to comply with the
U.N. request.
Five, if, as part of the renewed drive to enforce the U.N. resolu-
tions, allied military action is contemplated, such action will be


most effective if it is targeted against that which allows Saddam
Hussein to stay in power. For example, attacking the helicopters
which have suppressed the Iraqi population would be a legitimate
target. By destroying the helicopters you will also weaken
Saddam's rule.
Finally, if these inspections become too onerous, in all honesty,
they can be dropped. What are they accomplishing at this point?
The real goal, after all, is to see an Iraqi Government prepared
to cooperate with the U.N. and the international community. Sad-
dam Hussein is constitutionally incapable of that.
Thank you.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF LAURIE MYLROIE
REDEFINING U.S. GOALS: THE OVERTHROW OF SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME
It should be clear by now that the enforcement of the U.N. resolutions concerning
Iraq cannot be achieved with Saddam Hussein in power. The United States has
spent 18 months trying to get him to comply with one resolution, 687. Yet, as Chair-
man Aspin recently detailed, Saddam is in violation of many provisions of 687, in
addition to other resolutions notably, 688 which demands Iraq not repress its popu-
lation and 706 and 712 which require Iraq to sell oil under U.N. supervision to pay
for U.N. activities in Iraq, including humanitarian assistance.
Why the Ouster of Saddam Hussein and his Regime Should be the U.S. Goal in Iraq
The regime of international constraints imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War is be-
coming a joke, making a mockery of the "new world order.” It is nearly 18 months
since the key U.N. resolutions were passed. Saddam flouts them all. There are
ample grounds for declaring that as Saddam Hussein has demonstrated that he will
not comply with the U.N. resolutions, we seek his ouster in order to implement
them. There is another important reason for seeking the ouster of Saddam and his
regime. Regional stability is impossible to promote otherwise.
The Kurds have established an effective local administration in northern Iraq,
controlling a territory the size of Belgium. They will forcefully resist the return of
any Iraqi authority to the North, unless they have assurances that Baghdad will
not repress and abuse them. The present regime in Baghdad, even without Saddam,
cannot provide such assurances.
Yet senior officials, including the President, continue to formulate U.S. goal in
Iraq as forcing Saddam to comply with all U.N. resolutions. That lack of clarity
could become dangerous. The administration has recently shifted its Iraq policy. In
doing so, it has started down a path whose logical end is Saddam's ouster. Saddam
will likely perceive the new U.S. policy as such and could respond in ways that
Washington is not prepared for.
The Tacit Shift in the Administration's Iraq Policy
Senior officials just completed a series of meetings with a visiting delegation of
the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC). Previously, the administration held
aloof from the Iraqi opposition, placing its bets on a palace coup.
Yet elements of the old policy continue. The INC delegation was told that an im-
portant reason why the United States did not support war crimes trials was that
it did not want to cause those around Saddam to feel they might be included and
refrain from moving against him. It fell to a Sunni member of the delegation, a
former Iraqi prime minister and head of the air force to explain why a coup would
not occur.
Such U.S. thinking, in effect conciliating and appealing to those around Saddam,
has been a key factor contributing to Saddam's endurance. Saddam's colleagues are
not about to move against him, while conciliating them strengthens Saddam and his
regime.
The administration endorsed elements of the INC program and promised to con-
tinue high level contacts. This in effect represents a strategic change in policy.
The INC plans to establish an administrative base in northern Iraq. The optimis-
tic scenario is that such an Iraqi administration in the north, enjoying international
support and recognition, will attract many Iraqis who oppose Saddam, but are un-
able to take action and that this will precipitate the collapse of his regime. The pes-
simistic scenario is that an Iraqi Liberation Army, including Arab soldiers now in


A
was the first time is resolute and he United States consequence of the
addish populatie let you do you most biedeStates will explained,
exile, deserters to the North, and the Kurdish militias will have to retake Iraq mili-
tarily, expanding southward from the Kurdish-held zone.
Yet it is not clear that the administration recognizes that it has undertaken a
strategic shift. Serious problems can arise if Washington does not recognize the full
implications of its new position on Iraq.
The Need to Fortify Northern Iraq
(1) Saddam will recognize the new U.S. policy as a strategic shift and may re-
spond. The most serious possibility is that he might make a determined effort to
retake the north. Two-thirds of Saddam's army is concentrated along the demarca-
tion line with the lightly armed Kurdish forces. Officers of the allied Military Co-
ordinating Commission (MCC) in Zakho believe that Saddam could retake that terri.
tory almost as easily as he took Kuwait.
But the Kurdish leaders are less pessimistic. They place more weight on the
army's low morale. Recent experience suggests their assessment is probably more
likely to be correct than the MCC's. Once allied forces prohibited Iraqi aircraft from
flying north of the 36th parallel, Kurdish forces were able to recover considerable
Kurdish territory outside the allied-designated safe haven zone. In that fighting,
which occurred last year, there was such a high level of desertion from the Iraqi
army, that Saddam withdrew his forces, rather than see them melt away.
However, Baghdad has had a year to recover. The Kurdish leaders would feel
more confident if their troops were better armed, specifically if they had anti-tank
weapons and artillery to counter Baghdad's.
This would be controversial. But it is the logical consequence of the administra-
tion's new policy toward Iraq. The United States cannot approach Saddam with
half-measures. He is resolute and determined. It would be a worse disaster than it
was the first time, if Saddam again assaulted the north, recovered significant terri-
tory, and sent the Kurdish population fleeing. Gen. Brent Scowcroft promised
Massoud Barzani personally, "We won't let you down."
(2) The Kurdish assessment that they could hold most of their territory against
an Iraqi attack is premised on the assumption that the United States will continue
to keep Iraqi aircraft, including helicopters, out of the north. As Barzani explained,
the aircraft are “70 percent of the problem.” Are the Joint Chiefs prepared to con-
tinue enforcing the present ban on Iraqi aircraft in the north under combat condi-
tions?
Turkish cooperation would be required to arm the north, because supply lines
would run through Turkish territory. But Ankara may well find such a policy ac-
ceptable. Ankara is very dissatisfied with the ill-defined status quo, which leaves
a Kurdish authority in the North with no prospect of change in sight. The INC in-
corporates Kurdish aims within an Iraqi framework, and it has begun to develop
relations with Ankara.
Moreover, because Washington had not appeared serious in dealing with Saddam,
Turkey followed a two-track policy, agreeing to western requests to extend "Poised
Hammer," while making contradictory approaches to Baghdad. It has recently re-
opened its embassy there and the speaker of parliament has announced that he will
invite an Iraqi National Assembly delegation to Ankara. A coherent U.S. policy will
ease Turkey's anxieties that it needs to repair relations with Baghdad because it
will have to learn to live with Saddam as its neighbor. That will promote co-oper-
ation with an American-led effort against Saddam.
Fortifying the north is the most essential element in any coherent anti-Saddam
strategy. But there are other important steps, several of which were presented last
week by the INC:
Other Steps to Oust Saddam
(1) Ease the U.N. embargo on the North:
(a) The economic situation in the north is particularly difficult, because in ad-
dition to the U.N. embargo, the north also suffers from an embargo imposed by
Baghdad. Northern Iraq is a fertile region. But the crop this year was half what
it should have been. Because of the embargoes, peasants did not have fertilizer,
or pesticides, while they used old seed for the last harvest. The Kurdish peas-
ants urgently need the agricultural basics before the next planting season.
(b) There is some quantity of oil under Kurdish control. Ease the embargo so
that the Kurds can begin pumping and refining their own oil. They estimate
they can meet 75 percent of their domestic needs and use the money from oil
sales to fund the local administration.
The Kurds largely consumed their supplies for heating last winter. They urgently
need fuel for heating before the next winter.
the incre
Other


(2) Release some frozen Iraqi assets to the INC administration in northern Iraq.
To attract defectors from Saddam's regime the INC has to be able to care for their
basic needs, including food and housing. Both are in short supply in the north and
money is needed to provide them. Also, if the 15,000 Arab soldiers currently in exile
are to be brought to the north to liberate the country, they will need food and hous-
ing too.
(3) The indictment of Saddam Hussein and his cronies for war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
This will not impose a burden on the United States to "get" Saddam. But it will
increase the pressure on him and isolate his regime. It is also the right thing to
do. One unstated reason for the administration's hesitation may be that publicizing
Saddam's atrocities would increase its embarrassment at having left Saddam in
power.
(4) Enforce 688, as the administration told the INC it intends to do. The enforce-
ment of 688 is critical, because that weakens Saddam's regime. It is also the prin-
cipled and humane thing to do. Until recently, Washington subordinated 688 to 687.
It feared that enforcing 688 would undermine Iraqi “co-operation" on 687.
However, Iraq is not co-operating on 687 anyway. Besides, the CIA estimates that
as soon as sanctions and the inspections regime ends, all Iraq's prohibited weapons
programs can be relatively quickly rebuilt. Yet it is difficult to believe that the in-
spection regime can be maintained indefinitely. As Chairman Aspin detailed in his
July 28 floor statement, the U.N. regime is already eroding.
Among the elements to enforcing 688:
(a) Ground all Iraqi military aircraft, particularly in the south. That can be
easily done, attacking them in flight or afterwards, on the ground. The downing
of a few helicopters or planes would likely produce a big effect, as many pilots
would be unwilling to fly.
(b) Make Saddam lift the embargo on the north. Those forces maintaining the
embargo, would likely melt away after a few air attacks.
(c) Occasionally, Iraqi forces shell Kurdish towns near the demarcation line.
Again, if the United States responded with an air attack, they would likely de-
sist.
(5) Encourage the U.N. to show more backbone in its Iraq operations:
(a) Currently, all the money that the U.N. spends in Iraq is exchanged at the
official rate, $3 to the Iraqi dinar. But the real exchange rate is 20 dinars to
the dollar. U.N. operations are funding Saddam's regime and cost much more
than they should.
(b) Closely monitor the activities of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq,
charged with finding and destroying Iraqi weapons prohibited by 687. There
may be grounds for concern that it is beginning to exercise self-censorship in
order to avoid confrontation with Baghdad. For example, the August 8 inspec-
tion was intended to demonstrate that the fiasco at the Agricultural Ministry
set no precedents. However, a Russian was appointed to head the team, provid.
ing no assurances that the terms Baghdad succeeded in imposing on the Agri-
cultural Ministry inspection are not, in fact, continuing in one form or another.
However, the attempt to enforce 687 should not be at the expense of other key
elements in a strategy aiming to overthrow Saddam. If the inspections prove trou-
blesome and dangerous for the inspectors, and if Washington is ready to declare
that it seeks Saddam's ouster because he has demonstrated that he is incapable of
implementing the resolutions, then inspections could even be discontinued, and re-
newed only after Saddam is overthrown, with a successor government. That might
be more advisable than continuing the present farce, which is eroding the credibility
of the United States, the U.N., and "new world order," the laudable effort to estab-
lish new principles to govern dealing between states in the wake of communism's
collapse.
(6) Military Action. Any military action against Iraq, it should not be to "teach
Saddam a lesson" or "send him a message.” Desert Storm did not leave the expected
impression on him, and no limited air strike will teach Saddam anything.
However, if the United States judges military action against Iraq to be appro-
priate, then the most useful targets to hit are those elements which help him stay
in power—i.e., the barracks of his internal security forces, the helicopters, which
were scarcely touched during the war, etc.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Clawson.


A third source is other exports, besides gold and oil, which will
earn Iraq between $200 million and $400 million. Iraq has been ex-
porting dates to Jordan and to Turkey. Iraq has also been export-
ing goods seized from Kuwait, especially automobiles, primarily to
Iran, and it has also exported some used construction equipment
that it no longer needs. All of these sources will, again, last for at
least another 5 years.
Iraq has also used its bank accounts to the tune of $100 million
to $200 million this year. The U.N. Sanctions Committee has au-
thorized governments to release frozen bank funds to finance hu-
manitarian imports. Under this provision, the British Government,
for example, agreed to release $125 million frozen in Britain in as-
sociation with the release of a Britain who had been held on cor-
ruption charges dating from well before the crisis. Reports suggest
that various Northern European governments have also released
many, many millions of dollars.
Finally, there are grants and loans which will earn Iraq $200
million to $400 million this year. Libya has exported roughly a
$100 million of food aid since April of 1991 to Iraq. The U.Ñ. sys-
tem agencies are spending roughly a similar amount each year. As
for loans, some traders are reported to be extending loans to Iraq
which has promised to be generous in the future to those who pro-
vide aid in the hour of need.
Furthermore, let me point out that Saddam has an easily avail-
able option if he wants to loosen the sanction's choke hold. In Au-
gust 1991, the Security Council authorized the sale of Iraqi oil up
to the amount of $1.6 billion over a 6-month period, subject to de-
ductions for reparations and the cost of U.N. operations in Iraq.
As mandated by the Security Council, the U.N. Secretary Gen-
eral calculated those costs and determined that Iraq would get
$933 million out of the oil sales. If Saddam is feeling a need for
additional foreign exchange, he need only make a few
few concessions
to start the flow of oil exports under the U.N.-approved procedures.
Let me turn to the question of how economic pressure could be
made_tougher and more sustained. However, first a word of cau-
tion. Economic sanctions may weaken Saddam and leave him pre-
occupied. They are not going to lead to Saddam's overthrow.
It is hard to see any scenario in which economic sanctions di-
rectly lead soon to a coup. A coup would have to be organized by
the Irad i elite. But the current level of imports is sufficient to sus-
tain the consumption of that elite at a comfortable level.
Furthermore, Saddam can reasonably argue to his subordinates
that his policies are working. The sanctions regime is eroding with-
out Iraq bending its neck. To be sure, the sanctions may undermine
the regime's economic control mechanisms and may contribute to
popular dissatisfaction. These economic factors may weaken the re-
gime, but it is quite unlikely that they would lead to Saddam's
overthrow.
Getting rid of Saddam is going to require a political opposition
that can take advantage of the popular discontent caused by the
economic pressure. With that note of caution, what can be done to
increase the economic pressure?
A major step would be to tighten the sanctions. Ideally, all the
routes into Iraq should be controlled equally strictly. However,


11
We also might wish to begin to accumulate a fund that could be
earmarked for a more cooperative Iraqi Government as soon as it
took power. We could secure Iraqi money for these purposes
through a variety of steps. One step would be to reverse the Sanc-
tions Committee decision which permits each country to unfreeze
Iraqi assets for humanitarian purposes. We could direct, or excuse
me, we could request the United Nations, to direct instead that
these frozen Iraqi funds be used to pay for the U.N. relief oper-
ations and for humanitarian-excuse me, and for enforcement ef-
forts.
We could also simply directly seize the $4 billion remaining in
Iraq's foreign assets. However, the commercial banks would object
to this. In many cases those funds were deposited in commercial
banks before the banks agreed to extend letters of credit to the
Iraqis.
So the banks are now stuck with the loans to the Iraqis, and we
are coming along and saying to the banks, we are going to take the
assets which you made the Iraqis put in your bank before you ex-
tended them a loan. In the banks' view, that is rather unfair, be-
cause we are sticking them with the bad debt while taking away
the assets which they insisted the Iraqis deposit before they ex-
tended the loan.
A more far-reaching step that we could take to penalize Saddam
Hussein would be to export Iraqi oil directly if Saddam refuses to
cooperate with the U.N. scheme for exporting Iraqi oil.
Miss Mylroie mentioned the Kurdish proposal. The Kurds would
like U.N. permission to export Iraq's oil. We could agree to that,
or we could also begin exporting oil from the oil field which over-
laps the border between Iraq and Kuwait. That Rumaila oil field
has the potential to produce oil worth nearly $10 billion a year. So
we could just export a small amount of oil from that, and we would
have ample amounts to pay for the U.N. relief operations.
In conclusion, the most dangerous aspect of the situation in Iraq
today is that Saddam evidently thinks that time is on his side. The
sanctions are eroding the allies engaged in "threat and forget," and
Arab and Third World opinion is losing interest in the U.N. inspec-
tions regime. Saddam can reasonably argue to his people that his
postwar policies have stabilized the economic situation, while pre-
serving Iraqi pride in resisting foreign pressure.
Furthermore, he can point to the erosion of the sanctions as evi-
dence that persistence in an obdurate stance has paid off, and that
there is no reason to change the Iraqi policy. Under present trends,
Iraq's economic situation will steadily improve without Saddam
having to bend his neck.
The exact steps taken to pressure Saddam, be they economic, po-
litical or military, are less important than the demonstration of a
clear determination to stay the course. If the U.N. resolutions are
to be enforced successfully, then the West must be more patient
with Saddam. Thank you.


12
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. PATRICK CLAWSON
TIGHTENING SANCTIONS AGAINST SADDAM: WHAT CAN BE DONE AND WHAT EFFECT WILL
IT HAVE?
The evidence does not support the post-war optimism that, in the words of Henry
Kissinger, "sanctions are more likely to work now than before hostilities” because
“the war has ravaged Iraq's economy and military capacity" (Washington Post, May
5, 1991). The sanctions against Iraq are eroding. Without a change in current
trends, Iraq will be able to import about $2 billion in 1992, equal to one-third or
one-fourth of the pre-war civilian imports.
The most dangerous aspect of the situation in Iraq today is that Saddam evidently
thinks that time is on his side: the sanctions are eroding, the allies engage in
"threat and forget," and Arab and Third World opinion is losing interest in the U.N.
inspections regime. Saddam can reasonably argue to his people that his post-war
policies have stabilized the economic situation while preserving Iraqi pride in resist-
ing foreign pressure. Furthermore, he can point to the erosion of the sanctions as
evidence that persistence in his obdurate stance has paid off and that there is no
reason to change Iraqi policy: under present trends, Iraq's economic situation will
steadily improve without Saddam having to bend his neck.
Compelling Baghdad's compliance with the U.N. resolutions, much less accom-
plishing other U.S. goals with regards to Iraq, will require a sustained multi-front
campaign. The United States must tread with caution lest unrealistic assessments
about what one specific action could accomplish lead to disillusionment and loss of
will to stay the course. It is implausible that any one military strike, much less any
measure to deepen Iraq's political or economic isolation, will bring a change in Iraqi
policy. However, each step becomes more powerful when reinforced with steps on
other fronts.
Can Sanctions Lead to Saddam's Overthrow?
Much as additional measures against Saddam may be useful in the medium term,
caution is in order about what any such steps could achieve in the short term. It
is hard to see any scenario in which economic sanctions directly lead soon to
Saddam's overthrow. That overthrow would have to come from a popular rebellion
or a coup, or some messy combination of the two. A coup would have to be organized
by the elite. But the level of imports is sufficient to sustain their consumption at
a comfortable level. Furthermore, Saddam could reasonably argue to his subordi-
nates that his policies are working: the sanctions regime is eroding without Iraq
bending its neck. It is unclear why a general would want to make a coup that could
lead him to be castigated as an American stooge who gave up Iraq's independence
just as the brave nation had come through its darkest hour and the dawn was
breaking.
As for a popular rebellion, it would be difficult to stir up in a situation in which
the poor are receiving their daily bread from the regime, which provides them with
ration coupons more valuable than their cash wages. In addition, the economic situ-
ation has stabilized and seems to be improving slowly—again, hardly the ideal con-
ditions for provoking a popular rebellion. To be sure, the sanctions may undermine
the regime's economic control mechanisms and may contribute to popular dis-
satisfaction. These can be powerful forces in the long run, but are unlikely to lead
to revolt within the next year.
Furthermore, there is undoubtedly rage in Iraq at the tough times, but at whom
is it directed? The Iraqi Government has devoted great effort to directing the anger
against the West. Iraqi propaganda constantly repeats that the sanctions were de-
signed to get Iraq out of Kuwait and Iraq is now out of Kuwait, so the sanctions
accomplished their announced purpose and are now being maintained only to make
Iraqis suffer. It is not possible to know the state of Iraqi public opinion, as should
be clear after the civil war of March and April 1991 which erupted against the ex-
pectations of every U.S. observer. Nevertheless, to the extent that visitors can judge,
it seems that the Iraqi regime's propaganda campaign to blame the West for the
recent suffering inside Iraq has had some success. To be sure, Saddam's decision
to invade Kuwait appears to be recognized by Iraqis to have been a monumental
error. Nevertheless, in recent months, outside observers have not seen evidence
street graffiti, popular jokes, spontaneous demonstrations—blaming Saddam's post-
war policies for the shortages.
Another factor mitigating against a change of government is that the hardest hit
group has been the middle class—the 10 percent below the elite 1 percent and above
the lower 89 percent. Unlike the elite, they have little access to imported niceties;
unlike the lower 89 percent, the rations do not begin to provide them with a diet
as varied and flavorful as they expect. The middle class is in the depressing situa-


13
tion of seeing the shops full but lacking the income to buy. It is hard to mobilize
the middle class for change: they can not lead a coup, and they have neither the
numbers nor the inclination to engage in street fighting in a popular rebellion. Plus
the middle class is disproportionately Sunni Arab and therefore inclined to support
Saddam for ethnic reasons. Their one safety valve is emigration, an option that
quite a number have taken or are trying to take.
What is the State of the Iraqi Economy?
The war period formed in the public mind an image of Iraqi starvation and priva-
tion. That image was fed by the dramatic report of the Secretary Generals envoy,
Martti Ahtisaari, who visited Iraq in March 1991. Under Secretary General
Ahtisaari concluded “Iraq has, for some time to come, been relegated to a pre-indus-
trial age, but with all the disabilities of a post-industrial dependency on an inten-
sive use of energy and technology."1 He warned, "the Iraqi people may soon face
a further imminent catastrophe, which could include epidemic (sic) and famine, if
massive life-supporting needs are not rapidly met." Perhaps the dramatic language
about the poor situation of the moment was justified, though that seems doubtful.
For instance, Mr. Ahtisaari made a plea to permit emergency imports of fuel and
parts for trucks to move food and medical supplies, but as U.S. authorities pointed
out, he made no mention of the trucks and fuel being used in profusion by the Iraqi
Army to fight a war against rebels. Be that as it may, the forecast about Iraq's re-
covery abilities turned out to be vastly too pessimistic; the Iraqi economy has been
able to restore services much more rapidly than Ahtisaari forecast.
The image of an imminent public health catastrophe has persisted long after its
reality has faded. One factor in the improvement was that on March 22, 1991, the
U.N. Security Council voted to permit humanitarian shipments to Iraq on a “no ob-
jections” basis. While the text of Resolution 657 referred to expediting imports of
the broad range of goods classified as humanitarian in the Ahtisaari report, in prac-
tice, because of skepticism by some governments about the humanitarian character
of many non-food shipments, licenses were readily granted for food and medicine im-
ports but fewer licenses were issued for other items. Thanks to this change in policy,
the Iraqi Government was able to begin regular and large-scale food imports by
early summer 1991. The regular distribution of rations, which had in practice
stopped from mid-January through April, began from May or June 1991. The gov-
ernment provided a minimum diet, the exact composition of which changed month
to month. Families could supplement the rations with purchases on the free mar-
ket.2 The wage of one low-skill worker would have been roughly sufficient to provide
a family of six with 1,800 calories per person per day, through a combination of ra-
tioned goods and free-market domestically grown goods.3 In other words, in the un-
likely event that a household had to rely on only one income-earner at a low-level
job, it could still afford a diet that meets bare minimum needs.
ports baqi Governgg 1. The main rough Apriexact compoith purchasesufficient tion of ra-
early su mom mid-Januaryum diet, the exactions with pure
stopped fromvided a minimsupplement theuld have been through a combas, in the un;
ernment pros amilies could skill worker werson per day, 5.) In other
The food situation has been quite typical of other vital sectors. Regular water
service was restored in spring 1991 in Baghdad and summer in areas hit by the
civil disturbances. Electricity by July 1991 was sufficient to meet the 1989 level of
demand for all purposes other than industry. The July 1991 Aga Khan mission of
experts warned that the electrical situation would deteriorate because of the ab-
sence of spare parts. 4 In fact, exactly the opposite occurred: the situation improved
month-by-month. In short, there was no evidence by the end of the second year of
sanctions of the peaking followed by slow deterioration expected by each of these
teams. The common wisdom that has proved to be wrong was, “Overall, the Amer-
ican analysts say, the Iraqis are struggling precariously under a patchwork of short-
term fixes and remedies that will probably deteriorate in the months ahead if the
Bush administration maintains trade sanctions." (New York Times, June 3, 1991).
By the end of first year of sanctions, the Iraqi economy had stabilized at a low
standard of living. The standard was not only sufficient to sustain human life; it
1 Report to the Secretary General on Humanitarian Needs in Iraq in the Immediate Post-Crisis
Environment by a Mission to the Area led by Mr. Marti Ahtisaari, Under Secretary General for
Administration and Management, March 20, 1991.
2 A detailed analysis of the food distribution system is Jean Dreze and Harris Gazdar, Hunger
in Iraq, 1991, Development Economics Research Programme Discussion Paper 32, Suntory-Toy-
ota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines, London School of Economics.
They write, “It may seem surprising that a regime as repressive and intolerant as that of Sad-
dam Hussein should turn out to be so considerate and impartial in food distribution” but this
fits a pattern of some authoritarian rulers using food to contain dissent and stifle tension.
3 For calculations, see Patrick Clawson, "Year Two of Sanctions Against Iraq: Can Saddam
Hussein Survive?”, study prepared for DOD, December 1991.
4 Report to the Secretary General dated 15 July 1991 on Humanitarian Needs in Iraq Prepared
by a Mission Led by Sadruddin Aga Khan, S/22799.


14
was probably as good as today's global average. Furthermore, the evidence suggests
that the main source of economic damage was the war, not the sanctions.
Iraq should provide an important lesson to those who evaluate vulnerability to
sanctions. While Iraq would seem remarkably vulnerable to sanctions for technical
reasons such as dependence on export income and ease of blocking trade routes, 5
politics was much more important than economics in determining how Iraq would
react to sanctions. On the political level, Iraq was not especially vulnerable to sanc-
tions. The Baath Government did not care particularly about welfare of the people,
so suffering for the masses would cause the country's leaders few qualms. Indeed,
as subsequent events showed, Western public opinion appears to be at least as con-
cerned about famine and epidemics in Iraq as are the leaders in Baghdad. It was
not clear how the sanctions would cause suffering to the elite, given that they had
myriad ways to divert whatever supplies were available to their own use. Even if
people became discontent because of declining living standards, they had few oppor-
tunities to influence government policy. Saddam had organized an extensive secu.
rity apparatus to detect and eliminate dissent, so those opposed to his policies could
not express their viewpoints much less act on them. The elite had found that Sad.
dam was not open to criticism, as evidenced by the famous 1954 episode in which
Saddam had invited criticism at a cabinet meeting only to kill the one minister who
voiced mild complaints. Saddam had acquired a world-class expertise at avoiding as-
sassination and coups.
Furthermore, Iraq's history at stubborn confrontations demonstrates its people's
deep nationalistic, if not xenophobic, streak. Iraqis seem proud that their govern-
ments—royal, liberal, and Baath-deprived Iraq of badly needed oil revenues
through two decade-long confrontations with international oil companies, one in the
1930s and one over the southern fields in the 1960s. Indeed, modern Iraqi history
is a succession of one political obstacle to growth after another. A summary of Iraq's
economic history by the Economist Intelligence Unit (1990/91 Country Profile: Iraq)
lists some of the disputes other than the last two wars, which were of course the
biggest drains on the economy:
Growth of national income has been erratic and generally poor for an oil econ-
omy. Much of the problem arose from political events which caused prolonged
pauses in the rate of economic advance. An oil dispute with the Iraq Petroleum
Company began in 1960 and persisted in a variety of forms until 1973, inhibit-
ing capital formation and value added in oil. The revolution of 1958 brought
land reforms and other changes in the ownership of productive factors that ad-
versely affected the private sector and left individual enterprise all but stul-
tified. Perennial fighting in Kurdistan has been a further retardant on growth,
while bad relations with Syria have interrupted use of pipeline facilities to the
eastern Mediterranean ports and made Iraqi oil exports unreliable and de-
pressed.
How is Iraq Evading Sanctions?
Iraq will probably import goods worth about $2 billion in 1992. The bulk of the
money for these imports will not come from secret bank accounts, but from readily
identifiable sources. Saddam is surviving economically not thanks to some wizardry
on his part, but because smuggling is hard to stop and because the world's govern-
ments, including that of the United States, have not placed high priority on closing
mentis relief valves.curces of foreign exchanging 60,000 to 100.ccording to Petroleum
The identifiable sources of foreign exchange will be:
Oil sales: $400–800 million. Iraq is exporting 60,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil per
day, most of that to Jordan but with some to Turkey and, according to Petroleum
Intelligence Weekly, to Syria. When Jordan notified the sanctions committee in June
1991 of its intention to import the oil, Jordan stated that no payments would be
made to Iraq; the value of the oil would be used only to reduce Iraq's debt to Jordan.
On this basis, the sanctions committee “took note" of Jordan's declaration, without
expressing approval or disapproval. However, Jordan evidently made no commit-
ments about refraining from new loans to Iraq. Therefore, Jordan can comply with
the letter of the sanctions while it may be violating the spirit: it can import Iraqi
oil to repay old Iraqi debts while extending new loans to Iraq, in a transaction that
amounts to the same thing as paying Iraq directly for the oil. In addition, at least
5,000 barrels per day are smuggled into Turkey, in order to take advantage of a
6 However, information about the Iraqi economy was extremely scarce. Iraqi Governments
have been as secretive as any in the world. Outside analysts therefore had only the vaguest
idea of what Iraq had in the way of stocks and of adjustment capacity when the sanctions start-
ed. Indeed, the U.S. Government seriously underestimated up until the start of the war Iraq's
stocks of foodstuffs.


17.
cooperate with Yes to provide Saddam getting from the oil an expo
How Could Economic Pressure Be Made Tougher and More Sustained?
Some of Iraq's escape valves cannot be closed: there is no practical way to stop
gold sales or to completely eliminate smuggling. But more can be done to increase
the economic pressure. If such steps are taken, they may weaken Saddam and leave
him preoccupied; they are not going to lead to his overthrow. The measures outlined
below to increase the economic pressure are not going to solve U.S. problems with
Saddam, though they could make a contribution to a coordinated campaign of eco-
nomic, political, and military pressure.
A major step to make economic pressure tougher and more sustained would be
to tighten the sanctions. Ideally, all routes into Iraq should be controlled equally
strictly. However, some of the borders are easier to control than others for strictly
technical, geographic reasons. The hardest to monitor is the Iranian border, because
there are dozens of roads that cross the relatively short distance between villages
on each side of the frontier. The Turkish and Syrian borders have some of this prob-
lem, but less so. The easy borders to monitor are those in mid-desert, where there
are few roads and any traffic is obviously headed for Iraq. For this reason, acceler-
ated monitoring should focus on the road to Jordan, which is an important route
for trade with Iraq.
First, the sanctions committee could order a stop to oil exports to Jordan. This
would dry up any money Saddam is getting from the oil and would reduce the Jor-
danian Incentive to provide Saddam with credits. Jordan would be more likely to
cooperate with such a step if alternative sources of oil were secured, especially if
the oil were available at a concessional price.
Second, the allies may wish to consider placing inspectors on the Iraqi side of the
border. The road is less than 70 miles from Saudi Arabia, through which the inspec-
tors could enter Iraq. This option would require a continuing presence of U.S.
ground forces to back up the inspectors, which would run the risk of U.S. casualties.
However, Iraq could not easily harass the inspectors, who could rely on logistic sup-
port from the Saudi side and the inspection post would be 250 miles across barren
desert from the nearest Iraqi population center, giving ample warning of Iraqi move-
ments.
Third, the allies could consider closing the road through Jordan by denying ap-
proval for any humanitarian imports via Jordan, insisting that the Turkish route
be used instead. Humanitarian aid that went via Turkey could be better monitored,
as it would pass through Poised Hammer territory, and would have to pass through
the Kurdish areas, giving Saddam an incentive to ease up on the Kurds. Once all
traffic on the Jordan road was in violation of the U.N. sanctions, then military ac-
tion could be taken to close the road in Iraq. However, this could require sustained
air strikes and/or a relatively large ground presence.
Fourth, economic pressure could be applied to Jordan to cooperate more closely.
Reports suggest that Jordan has recently been applying the sanctions regime more
strictly, a trend which should be encouraged with some combination of carrots and
sticks. In particular, Jordan has benefited from the repatriation of about $3 billion
in foreign exchange from Kuwait's action to release funds of the departing Palestin-
ians. If the Jordanians will not cooperate with the sanctions, Kuwait may wish to
reconsider the release of funds.
In addition to enforcing the sanctions more stringently, the West could take addi-
tional steps to deprive Saddam of resources. Iraqi funds could be used to reduce the
financial burden being imposed on the U.N., fund ample humanitarian operations,
and permit accumulation of funds that would be earmarked for a more cooperative
Iraqi Government as soon as it took power.
One step would be for the sanctions committee to reverse its decision to permit
each country to unfreeze Iraqi assets for humanitarian purposes, permission which
several countries have made use of already. The funds could be used instead to pay
for U.N. relief and enforcement efforts. The disadvantage would be that this would
decrease the flow of humanitarian goods into Iraq; however, such goods do not ap-
pear to be in short supply.
In addition, the U.N. could seize the approximately four billion in Iraqi frozen as-
sets, including bank accounts and money for oil that was in transit when the inva-
sion took place. This, however, would mean taking money from banks which have
outstanding loans to Iraq, often made only on condition that Iraq maintain offset-
ting balances that would now be seized.
A more far-reaching step would be to export Iraqi oil directly. There are several
possibilities. Some oil is under the control of the Kurdish regional government,
which could be permitted to export at will for humanitarian needs. Alternatively,
production could be restarted in the Rumaila field which overlaps the Iraqi-Kuwaiti
border. If indeed Saddam has nullified the cease-fire, then moving the cease-fire line
roughly 10 miles would allow the allied side to control the 2 million barrels per day


18
capacity, worth $10 billion a year. However, restarting production would entail re.
introducing foreign experts, and forces to protect them.
Many of the steps to reinforce economic pressure on Saddam require the threat
of military force as a backup. However, the force would be applied to support inspec-
tors or oil workers operating in the middle of the desert along Iraq's borders, where
the danger of civilian casualties is much less than in the urban areas where the
U.N. inspectors operate. Paradoxically, a clear commitment to use force when nec-
essary may minimize casualties. If Saddam understands that the United States has
the will to bring to bear the force necessary to back up the U.N. inspectors, he may
avoid confrontation, in which case no one, Iraqi or American, will be killed. Air
strikes, by contrast, are sure to kill (at the least) Iraqis.
The exact steps taken to increase pressure on Saddam-be they economic, politi-
cal, or military-are less important than the demonstration of a clear determination
to stay the course. If the U.N. resolutions are to be enforced, the West must be more
patient than Saddam.
Within that context, economic measures can be used to keep Saddam weak and
preoccupied. Economic steps are unlikely, however, to be sufficient to bring down
Saddam.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Murphy.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD MURPHY, SENIOR FELLOW
FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Your hearings are time-
ly in light of Saddam Hussein's continued flaunting of the U.N. au-
thority. In opening, I think it is appropriate just to remind our-
selves that a number of misjudgments have been made by Middle
Eastern specialists, including myself, in predicting Iraqi develop-
ments over the last several years.
So I approach today's hearing with a certain humility. I agree
with much of what has been said in specific terms by Ms. Mylroie
and Mr. Clawson. I will be touching on some of the costs and the
tradeoffs in their proposals.
It seems to me there are two objectives which are dominating our
thinking about Iraq. First, how to enforce the Security Council res-
olutions, particularly on destruction of Iraq's unconventional weap-
ons systems. Second, how to get rid of Saddam Hussein, the unre-
pentant invader of Kuwait and the brutal master of his own coun-
try.
Now, the program of inspection and destruction of Iraq's
nonconventional weapons, is in the hands of the U.N. While Bagh-
dad has repeatedly sought to frustrate the U.N.'s work, its person-
nel are undeniably making progress.
The second objective, to bring about the end of Saddam's leader-
ship, has proven elusive. There is a lot of debate about what form
a successor leadership and regime for Iraq ideally should take.
Both of these objectives can be reached only if there is a con-
certed and persistent campaign from inside and outside Iraq. U.N.
representative Rolf Ekeus has stressed the need for a "steady
course” to implement last year's cease-fire resolutions. I agree that
steadiness is a must if Iraq is to be able to go beyond mere rhetori-
cal threats against its own people and against its neighbors.
I fully agree with the views of the representatives from the Iraqi
National Congress who, 2 weeks ago in this city, argued that re-
mov
of Saddam and est
shment of a more democratic pro-West
regime will be a sustained process and not just a series of events.
Unfortunately, one difficulty in maintaining the campaign against


19
Saddam is that his domestic opponents are disunited and the re-
gional powers' policies toward him are uncoordinated.
Three brief comments on renewing military action, although I re-
alize that is the hearing tomorrow, but I think it does bear on what
we are saying today. First, an attack by coalition forces or by the
U.S. acting unilaterally, if not coordinated with his domestic adver-
saries, would not significantly hasten Saddam's departure; they
might well be counterproductive.
Second, renewed military action would jeopardize the ongoing
U.N. and IAEA inspections. As Ekeus implied in his article pub-
lished in the New York Times, the Special Commission has done
more to destroy Iraq's missile and non-conventional weapons sys-
tems than did last year's massive air and ground campaign. The
U.N.'s highly intrusive inspections also serve to remind the Iraqi
people that Saddam is not master in his own house. The way he
is resisting this intrusiveness is the measure of the embarrassment
that it's causing him.
Third, there will be political cost in the region to resume military
attacks. For example, Egypt has made plain that it is increasingly
skeptical about punishing Iraq further. A resumption will, in vary-
ing degrees, exacerbate anti-Western, anti-American feeling in all
Arab countries.
Continuation of economic sanctions. As Patrick has pointed out,
the sanctions show our continued resolve, even though they prin-
cipally serve to add to the index of popular misery in Iraq. The du-
ration has far exceeded the time thought necessary to trigger reac-
tions which would bring down the regime.
This is having a negative impact on the Iraqi people's attitude
toward the United States. Regrettably, this is not sufficient. In
fact, it is no reason to scrap the pressures of the sanctions. But it
is a political reality.
Tightening the sanctions may well be worthwhile, but we must
recognize this is a double-edged sword. Iraqis take pride in having
survived many deprivations over the generations. There is a point
when "the sole leader who has succeeded in facing down the
world,” as he likes to call himself, will be able to exploit Iraqi na-
tional pride and personal toughness to his advantage. The impact
of the attacks and sanctions may eventually stimulate more loyalty
than anger toward the regime.
It may well be possible to ease the embargo on the Kurdish-con-
trolled region in the north, where, because of Operation Provide
Comfort, Saddam's writ does not run. Humanitarian assistance,
medicine, building materials, spare parts, all these would go a long
way to ease the refugee and economic problems and provide psy-
chological support to the rebels.
The Baker-Scowcroft meetings with the Iraqi opposition 2 weeks
ago were one step toward greater American involvement in Iraq's
domestic politics. Those meetings have added to the international
legitimacy the opposition has been seeking. But how much is
Washington committed to see a democratic alternative succeed in
Iraq?
I urge caution in our dealings with the opposition, lest they as-
sume we are ready to do more to support them than appears to me
likely. Frankly speaking, the United States lacks the capability, let


21
aq.
On the positive side, Saudi concerns over the Iranian-based Shia
opposition seem to be receding. This may create new areas of co-
operation helpful to the opposition. Syria's position is less clear.
One of the main reasons for the failure of last year's uprising,
and this is the reason cited by the opposition itself, was the lack
of communication, the lack of coordination between south and
north. They have urged that the United States play a significant
role in helping facilitate communication and cooperation among the
regional patron states. There are indications that the opposition
groups—those which are supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, and
they boycotted the meeting of the National Congress in Vienna last
month—may now be willing to cooperate and to establish a base in
northern Iraq.
This should be encouraged, although the still-existing ill-will felt
by Tehran toward Washington suggests we might not be the right
party to do the encouraging.
On the question of releasing the frozen assets, I hope that they
could be transferred to the opposition and used for humanitarian
aid to both south and north. It won't be done easily because our
allies oppose the release of those funds to anyone but the recog-
nized government. They argue such transactions would compromise
the traditional banking system. We should examine, as an alter-
native, the opposition's idea to allow them to borrow against these
frozen assets.
Recognition of a provisional government made up of all opposi-
tion elements would confer additional legitimacy and help in the
transition after Saddam's departure, and could help to bring it
about. A consultative assembly, the term used by the Iraqi Na-
tional Congress, comprised of opposition leaders could be estab-
lished in the north.
As far as the war crimes trial issue is concerned, there are con-
stantly new efforts coming-new evidence coming to light-docu-
menting the brutal nature of the regime. Why don't we use Iraq as
a case study to stimulate thinking about creating a tribunal to try
international criminals? Our effort to this end could further
imize the government, no matter whether we can get agree-
ment within the United Nations framework. It would underscore
an emerging global commitment to keeping pressure on Iraq, at
least until his removal from office. This display of international re-
solve cou uld help break the barrier—the fear of retribution by Sad-
dam among the Iraqi people, particularly in his military.
There is a downside. The possibility it would harden the regime's
attitude against further U.N. disarmament efforts in Iraq.
So to support Kurdish aspirations, to provide safe haven in the
south, to arrange for the release of frozen assets to opposition
hands, these are all options that will add pressures on the Baghdad
regime. For that reason alone they are worth pursuing, but each
also risks increasing the prospect of a breakup of Iraq.
I believe the Balkanization of that country not to be in our best
interests, basically because of its unpredictable but likely spreading
results region-wide. I take summary note of the concerns of some
of Iraq's neighbors.
Turkey. The Kurds in Turkey are no longer called mountain
Turks, and the government seems intent on liberalizing restrictions


25
What worries me the most is that Saddam's's relatives may de-
cide to dump Saddam and bring in a clone who is in many ways
worse. Some of his relatives are more thuggish, more cruel and
nasty than he.
I would not want to personalize this against Saddam. Not be-
cause I think we can live with Saddam, but because I am worried
that we may find that one of his relatives bumps him off and takes
power for himself.
I think we have to say we want some kind of change in system
in Iraq. Not that we want to bring parliamentary democracy to
Iraq, but we have to see some degree of popular participation, some
opening of the system. I will be happy to go back to the situation
ate 1960s. Iraq had an authoritarian government, but
it had some semblance of popular consultation and at least it was
not openly flaunting public opinion as this current regime is pre-
pared to do.
Mr. MURPHY. He certainly showed that he had more resilience
than any of us assumed when the war ended. He did not die in the
bunkers; he was supposed to. He did not fade away in 6 months,
which the war plus the sanctions were supposed to accomplish.
a clone succeeding him. I think it is important that he
go. I don't know that we can bring it about. However, I do believe
that the day he is gone there will be no one of his capabilities in
power.
It took him 23 years to build that machine, that personality. It
is not that there will be other brutal men around Iraq hoping to
seize power, but they will not have the controls, presumably the
charisma, peculiar as it is in our eyes, to play the role as President
of the Iraq that he has done.
I think, if I may say, thus far I am glad to see that it is not a
major issue in our campaign because I think that he is hoping to
benefit by our campaign for the presidency. I think basically that
the statements are mutually supportive thus far. I hope it will con-
tinue.
Ms. MYLROIE. I believe that Iraq is the largest military power in
the Persian Gulf. Much of what was destroyed in terms of conven-
tional weapons production has been rebuilt, 70 to 80 percent. Those
involved in the conventional arms industry were employed round
the clock, initially, to take out the equipment that had not been
damaged, and then subsequently, to rebuild what had been dam-
aged.
I think there is no doubt that militarily, he is stronger than he
was when the war ended. I think also politically, he feels stronger.
I would point to the crowds in Baghdad that were harassing and
intimidating the U.N. inspectors. When the war ended there were
no demonstrations in Baghdad for some months. Whenever those
demonstrations began, it was women, school teachers, and children
involved, as if Saddam didn't trust having large numbers of men
in the street. Now he does. He is not afraid of it.
As to the questions of time being on his side in the sense that
it seems that he survived the worst of it. An example to illustrate
that is what the Iraqis told the Kurds when they were negotiating
with them immediately after the war ended. Husayn Kamil,
Saddam's son-in-law, said to the Kurdish delegation, "How long


26
will the United States stay there, 1 year, 2 years or 5 years? Even-
tually they will go and we will know how to take care of you.” That,
I believe, is a reflection of Saddam Hussein's and his cronies' atti-
tude toward the situation.
Finally, I think it appropriate to ask what is U.S. policy. We
have to think through this clearly. General Scowcroft told Massoud
Barzani, who came here with great hesitation, remember what had
happened in 1975 to his father, and in that meeting General Scow-
croft told him, “We won't let you down.” Well, that is fine. But
what does that mean? What will the United States do if Saddam
Hussein launches a determined assault on the Kurds?
The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask Laurie about the version of the state-
ment that Patrick Clawson had there. You say that getting rid of
Saddam Hussein is kind of the sine qua non of being able to get
some enforcement of these resolutions.
Suppose you had the Patrick Clawson phenomenon. Suppose
Hussein goes but is replaced with somebody just as thuggish and
who has the same objectives?
Let me put another spin on it. As soon as Saddam Hussein goes,
my guess is the world heaves a sigh of relief and turns to other is-
sues. One of the advantages of keeping the pressure on is that Sad-
dam Hussein, at least from a public opinion standpoint, is still
there, so it is relatively easy for people in the United States and,
perhaps, in the U.N. to believe that there is still mischief going on.
I would guess that if Saddam Hussein goes, people will think the
mischief has stopped. However, the mischief does not stop, accord-
ing to the Patrick Clawson theory. .
Dick Murphy says, “But the man will not have the same power,
charisma, experience and whatnot.”
Could you actually have a more dangerous situation with Sad-
dam Hussein gone than with Saddam Hussein in place?
Ms. MYLROIE. I don't think the situation would be more dan-
gerous with Saddam Hussein gone, but I don't think it will solve
the problem. A Suni member of the INC delegation told American
officials that we can't have war crimes trials because then there
won't be a palace coup. This fellow, who was once an Iraqi Prime
Minister and Chief of the Air Force, explained to the American offi-
cials why there would not be a coup in Iraq in any case: It is incon-
ceivable that Saddam's cronies would move against him; and two,
even if they did it would not solve Iraq's problems. I believe that
is absolutely correct. In my testimony I gave an example of that.
Kurds will resist—with the arms they have the restoration
of Baghdad's authority in the north unless it is accompanied by
guarantees of human rights for them. None of Saddam's cronies
can possibly provide those guarantees. So you will have the same
Kurdish problem even if one thug ousts the other and they get rid
of Saddam.
One option is to turn to Turkey and say if you want northern
Iraq, fine, take it, because Baghdad's sovereignty over them means
genocide and we don't accept genocide as an implied part of our
policy. However, that runs up against the U.S. commitment to
Iraq's territorial integrity. That brings me back to where I began.


27
If the United States intends to maintain its commitment to Iraq's
territorial integrity, the only way the problems of Iraq can be re-
solved is by the ouster of this entire regime.
The CHAIRMAN. This is my last question. I will then yield to my
colleagues here.
In a minute I want to get to the question of the break up of the
country. There was a report that there was an attempt on Saddam
Hussein, or some kind of coup attempt a couple of months ago.
Do any of you know anything about it? What do we know about
this report of an attempt on Saddam Hussein?
Mr. CLAWSON. I think we know there will be repeated attempts
to get rid of Saddam Hussein; that has happened over the years
and will continue to happen. The general method of changing gov-
ernments in Iraq is by coup. It would not be surprising if there
were people who wanted to be President of Iraq who attempted
this.
We also know Saddam is a master at putting down such coups.
Sometimes he puts them down even before the people thought of
doing them.
The policy of killing those who are planning to eliminate you,
even before they realize they want to eliminate you, is remarkably
self-fulfilling.
Saddam is a master at that. This is a man who every time he
makes a bold move, his first impulse is to think who would oppose
that move and let me now eliminate them.
I have no particular information about this episode, but I think
we should anticipate that there will be repeated claims by Saddam
that there were such episodes and he will repeatedly purge the
elite.
Ms. MYLROIE. My information is that there was something of a
coup attempt but that it was very early in the coup. I think that
is typical.
Furthermore, I think that the more there is a focus on promoting
a coup in Iraq, the more you set yourself up to be manipulated by
Saddam Hussein, because he certainly has much more experience
with coups than any American.
One of the things I am currently exploring is what happened at
the end of the Gulf War. Schwarzkopf gave Iraqi helicopters per-
mission to fly without any restrictions. That was evident in the
Safwan transcripts. There is some reason to believe that he was
acting on information that these helicopters were going to launch
a coup.
When I was in northern Iraq, I spoke with many people who per-
sonally knew the head of the helicopter squadrons, who identified
that fellow as a man very loyal to Saddam Hussein, who would
never in his life move against him.
I use the example because the more the idea is to promote a
coup, the more Saddam can manipulate it by sending out people
who will tell you I have a list of officers and I can promote a coup.
But they are, in fact, acting on Saddam's instructions. It seems
to me that is one of the things that is happening in the context of
this crisis and that several players, not only the United States, but
the Syrians as well, and others, fell for that.


28
Mr. MURPHY. That rather argues for not talking so much about
getting rid of him.
Ms. MYLROIE. No. I think it argues for getting rid of him not by
a coup. What you need is a broad-based movement like the Iraqi
on which is not subject to the same sort of manipulation by
a fellow who knows more about coups than anyone else.
The CHAIRMAN. Does anybody else have a question?
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is hindsight time. Each of you, either in your testimony or on
the television news programs, touched on the matter—you dis-
cussed your advice during the Desert Shield-Desert Storm era. I
would like to ask each of you, A, what was your advice and rec-
ommendation; B, how accurate were you?
Ms. Mylroie.
Ms. MYLROIE. OK, confession time.
I will confess to being absolutely wrong about Iraq prior to, say,
1989–1990. I understand why the administration believed that
Saddam was a kind of dictator they could work with, that the Mid-
dle East was a very difficult place and there were not many people
you could work with.
Further, in retrospect I've come to understand better the extent
of deception in that regime. I would compare it somewhat to Stalin,
an Arab version of Stalin.
For example, in conversations that I had with a senior Saudi, we
were looking back at what Saddam had intended. I suggested that
in 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, Saddam had in mind as a maxi-
mum goal to control the oil in the Persian Gulf. Because if he had
defeated Iran—the Shah had just fallen—who could have protected
the States of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia?
Only over the past years with the big American defense buildup
was Desert Storm possible. Controlling the Gulf's oil is what I
think Saddam had in mind in 1990 when he invaded Kuwait. The
old goal came up when the opportunity seemed to come up.
As I suggested that the Saudi said to me, “Yes, in fact, I used
to meet Saddam Hussein and he would confess, I thought that in
1980, but I learned my lesson.” Well now, that is kind of a manipu-
lation of individuals. He manipulated many people, the administra-
tion, myself as well.
However, in the spring of 1990, I began to feel that something
was very wrong because it was apparent to me that Saddam was
unnecessarily picking a fight with the United States.
When the invasion of Kuwait came, I think that the administra-
tion, by its misreading of what had gone on previously in the
sense that it reassured Saddam prior to the invasion of Kuwait
that it had no hostile intentions—failed to do anything that might
have deterred Saddam. But I am not sure that would have been
possible because he was bent on invading Kuwait.
I supported the war. I supported the administration up until the
end of the war.
I believed that Saddam would fall as a result of the war. I still
think had Schwarzkopf stuck to what seemed to have been the
original policy, to ground all the Iraqi aircraft, Saddam might have
fallen because the population revolted against Saddam.


29
Furthermore, the helicopters played a very important role in sup-
pressing the revolt, particularly in northern Iraq. The helicopters
were able to individually target fleeing civilians in a way that artil-
lery could not.
When the uprisings broke out, I went on the public record saying
the United States should support those uprisings.
I believe if the United States supported those uprisings, even in
the most minimal way, we would not have Saddam Hussein here
today.
There were many options. One was to shoot at a few helicopters
which would have had a chilling effect on all other helicopters. An-
other would have been to demand that Saddam Hussein's army
stay in place. However, the administration made another decision
which was to stay out of what it called, “Iraq's internal affairs.”
Furthermore, on the 26th of March, after a month of this, it
made what became, obviously, a big mistake in clarifying an ambi-
guity that had developed about helicopters by announcing they
would not shoot down helicopters. I believe the reason for that was
they thought it would precipitate a coup that everyone expected
and thought would happen.
That announcement on the 26th of March 1991, by the White
House Press Secretary that the United States would not shoot
down helicopters was, in effect, a green light for Saddam Hussein
to repress the revolts. But it precipitated the Kurdish exodus.
The President tried to close his eyes to that, he went to Florida
for a fishing vacation, but because of the media and the attention
given to it, it became too much and we ended up with a safe ha-
vens program. Since that time, I have taken the position that Sad-
dam Hussein must go and that a coup is not very likely to happen.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Clawson.
Mr. CLAWSON. I confess that during the crisis I foolishly agreed
to answer some questions about military matters—a subject on
which I know very little and most of my comments were not in-
sightful at all. I was worried that Saddam would find some way to
win a political victory despite a military defeat, and to this day, I
don't think he has been able to do that.
So, when I stuck to the ground which I knew best, which is about
economics, the subject I spoke most often about, I think my fore-
casts were pretty accurate. I was a vigorous defender of the posi-
tion that economic sanctions were unlikely to bring about a change
in the Iraqi regime behavior, and that the effects of sanctions on
reducing the living standards in Iraq would not particularly im-
press Saddam and cause him to change his behavior.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Murphy.
Mr. MURPHY. How far back did you want me to go? Seriously, are
you talking about Desert Storm and the buildup?
Mr. SKELTON. Desert Shield, I would say from the moment of in-
vasion.
Mr. MURPHY. I thought that he would blink as the forces started
gathering in Kuwait and that he would have been wise enough to
make at least a partial withdrawal and thereby block what became
Desert Storm. I misread him. I still don't believe I understand the
psychology.
66–736 0 - 93 - 2


30
I know him very slightly from my own service. Of course I have
to remember that he ordered the movement against Iran 10 years
before which was considered a strategic mistake in retrospect and
the same man made the same dumb power play against Kuwait.
Something is missing in his analysis of his capabilities and Iraq's
capabilities. But I did think that he would blink and that we would
r. I advocated sanctions publicly in the fall, coupled
with the assumption that this would bring him to blink, that plus
the military buildup, and he did not.
He appears towell, it has been said that he felt that we would
have been out to get him in any case and this may have all have
been an enormous entrapment of Iraq. I think he was quite wrong
on that. I don't think we were nearly that farseeing in the 1980s
or as the buildup started in the spring of 1990 with his increas-
ingly hostile and negative stands.
Since he did not die in the bunker, I think he has shown predict-
able interests in day-to-day survival and telling his own people that
he in effect won and he is managing to succeed by getting rises out
of us, not in defense of the U.N. intrusiveness, but of expressions
of anger and we will show you, and all. I think we have to be very
careful to not let him jerk us around or the U.N. around.
Mr. SKELTON. That is what concerns me a great deal, Mr. Mur-
little reading of history shows that this is somewhat deja
vu with the League of Nations back in 1935. If the United Nations
can't enforce its resolutions against someone like Saddam Hussein
who, relatively speaking is not a major figure on the world scene
insofar as past tyrants are concerned, what happens when another
Adolph Hitler comes along?
Mr. Clawson mentioned that economic sanctions will not over-
throw Saddam Hussein. Ms. Mylroie said the resolutions are im-
possible to enforce with Saddam Hussein in power.
Mr. MURPHY. That is where I disagree. I would take issue with
Ms. Mylroie on that. I think they are enforceable. What I see in
the case that is proceeding is trying to win that way to get the job
done to enforce those
ions.
Mr. SKELTON. I have one last question, really procedural. Does
the U.N. need to pass another resolution to enforce 688 or 687?
What is your judgment on that? Do they have to go through the
same thing again?
Ms. MYLROTE. The 687 is under chapter 7 and the authorization
for military action exists. The 688 is not under chapter 7.
Mr. SKELTON. So they could proceed under 687 to enforce sanc-
tions without further resolution?
Ms. MYLROIE. Yes, that is in the resolution itself.
The CHAIRMAN. Pat.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses who are providing very interesting testimony. It is also
an interesting day in that the Attorney General turned down the
House Judiciary Committee's request for an independent counsel
vis-a-vis the Iraqi investigation that three full committees asked
for. I think that is very troubling as to how well we can deal with
our own background and where we are..
Part of my concern is I have always felt our weakness as a cul-
ture is that we personalize all this too much. We tend to make Sad-
TASOIULIUI.


33
perceive different world leaders. We are rarely right when we start
perceiving different world leaders.
Mr. Murphy said something that I thought was important and I
want to make sure I got it right. I am troubled by pursuing the
Kurd policy, particularly when you look at Yugoslavia and when
you look at the potential of the world continuing to break apart in
this New World order or, rather disorder.
I think that maybe part of the reason Turkey is pursuing the
two-track policy is not so much because they are afraid of America
leaving the region but that they are afraid of where the Kurdish
policy may go vis-a-vis Turkey and vis-a-vis the region for further
disassemblance. The fear is that at some future time in order to
get at Saddam Hussein, we may adopt a policy that unleashes
other forces we have not thought about that will affect other areas.
So I like very much the war crimes aspect. One, because I think
it fits across every part of the globe and especially with TV and
CNN. I think that war crimes trials done by the wo)
e world community
can be very, very important. That is not a policy that gets us into
lots of trouble.
I would be interested in your analysis of that. I also want to go
back for one followup on my prior question. That is, what is the
biggest problem of enforcing sanctions? If it is money, and I think
a lot of it is the commitment of resources by the U.N. because the
U.N. seems tapped out. It is also being used by Iraq; Iraq is tap-
ng them out by charging them for everything, yet the U.N.
doesn't go against their assets. You could also make a very logical
policy similar to the war crimes policy where you could access
against the frozen assets the running of the U.N. sanctions or the
enforcement of the sanctions. Why couldn't you get that kind of
mechanism going? I think that is one of the reasons it is so hard
to keep the money coming to the U.N.
Mr. MURPHY. This is to start using the frozen assets?
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Right.
Mr. CLAWSON. Let me address the second part of your problem,
if I may. I suggest the biggest problem in the enforcement of sanc-
tions is the political will, particularly the political will of the Unit-
ed States. We have sent mixed signals to the Jordanian Govern-
ment in part because of the high priority we placed upon Jordan's
participation in the Arab/Israeli peace process. We have at times
turned a blind eye to their practices and encouraged the Jor-
danians to think we would turn a blind eye if only they complained
loud enough.
There are a fair number of people in the administration who are
very much of two minds about how vigorously we should push Jor-
dan on the sanctions front because of concern about the Arab/Is-
raeli peace process. That seems to be an overwhelming factor in ex-
plaining Jordan's behavior on sanctions enforcement. The mixed
signals they are getting from the United States combined with
their own mixed impulses, which is on the one hand to cooperate
with the U.N. and then on the other hand a considerable amount
of sympathy with the Iraqi situation.
While there are many advantages to seizing the Iraqi assets, let
me note that one disadvantage—which I am sure you come up
against often-is that if we seize the Iraqi assets to use for these


38
you to use it. So they, as some commentators I read in Europe
today as saying, look, we overdosed last year on Iraq, we have had
it. It is yours. We will think about some European problems now,
but you can handle it. So it is not just our arrogance at work here.
Not that we aren't, but people do expect a lot from us, because we
are so much more powerful than they are.
Mr. DELLUMS. Thank you, sir. Mr. Clawson.
Mr. CLAWSON. I would just add to what my colleagues have said
that the family of nations can arrive at a decision only if each
member of that family speaks vigorously its mind and argues vigor-
ously for the policies that it prefers, and if I have directed my com-
ments at the U.S. Government, it is to urge that Government to
take a position within the family of nations for the positions that
it should advocate. I would certainly agree that to the extent pos-
sible, we should coordinate all of our actions with our allies, and
that wherever possible, and I think in this case that means almost
always, we can act within the framework of the United Nations.
Mr. DELLUMS. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
generosity, and I thank each of you for your answers to both ques-
tions that I raised.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sisisky.
Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We talk about sanctions.
Obviously, the sanctions are doing some good and some bad. But
nothing is really happening. I agree with you. They can get things
across the border. Smuggling is a way of life out there, to get-and
gold, to block that, you can always smuggle gold, and the other
sanctions you talked about seem not to be working, but there is one
thing, particularly you, Mr. Clawson, had mentioned, and the
chairman just mentioned it just a few minutes ago that makes
more sense to me than anything else.
In business, if you lose business because there is a recession or
a depression, or you have cut back on your people, that is one
thing. But when you see somebody else getting you business, that
is another thing, and the drilling for oil in the south, if you want
to tweak anybody's nose or get somebody's attention, it seems to
me that that would be the proper way to get their attention. Plus
in the North, you could do the same thing.
Now, obviously, that is going to imply, and to reply to you, that
that is going to be military and sanctions, because obviously some-
body is going to have to protect that, because I don't think they
would be met with much favor, but it just seems to me that that
idea is so stimulating, to get somebody's attention, you take $10
billion a year just in one oil field. I mean you are really taking
I mean this is no small feat, and I am sure the United
Nations can do a lot with that $10 billion, particularly in countries
like Somalia and former Lithuania, just providing food alone.
We could find some good purposes to use for it, and it just seems
to me that that is the thing we should explore, but the risk is that
it would take military action to protect it. It may or may not; I
don't know if they would do it, but let me just ask something else,
because I should know, but I don't know. We have grounded all
their commercial aircraft; am I correct in that? Are they still flying
to any countries? .
Mr. MURPHY. No..


39
Mr. CLAWSON. They are not flying to any countries, no.
Mr. SISISKY. How about the embassies, Iraqi embassies around
the world. Have we closed most of the countries?
Mr. CLAWSON. No, we have allowed the Iraqis to continue to op-
erate embassies.
Mr. SISISKY. There is none operating in the United States?
Mr. CLAWSON. No, but we have
Mr. SISISKY. That seems to be one sanction that that—that
would be a face-losing type of thing, and particularly expulsion
from the United Nations. The expulsion seems to be something
that-I mean we give their ambassador television time. Every time
there is a crisis, he is on television talking about the crisis, and we
are giving him television time, and obviously, that builds up Iraq.
But somebody also made a statement that there is progress in the
inspection.
Now, maybe I am missing something. But when you keep people
out of the agriculture building, time enough to get things out of
there, and then somebody is going to inspect another building, and
they say, well, it is a holiday, you can't inspect. I don't know how
much progress is being made, but maybe it is some intelligence
that they are catc
catching these Scud missiles, I don't know. But I
don't think I have read anywhere where they are finding them.
Maybe you could elaborate on the progress.
Mr. MURPHY. Just on the progress issue, Congressman, I think
the fact is they have done a great deal of uncovering of missile
sites and equipment. I am talking about back over the period since
the inspection teams went in there, the Agricultural Ministry over
the last few days, no, that certainly hasn't been progress. But what
I submit is the returns aren't in that the U.N. will be unable to
continue making progress.
Mr. SISISKY. I hope you are right, because we discovered the mis-
sile sites. The problem is that they were mobile missiles, and they
moved them around. That is the only reason I bring it up.
Another thing. Someone also made a statement that their arms
were rebuilt 70 to 80 percent? I don't know who made that. Are you
sure of that figure? Does that include air power, aircraft also, or
are you just talking about numbers of people?
Ms. MYLROIE. I, to be precise, I meant to say their conventional
military production capacity has been restored something like 70,
80 percent. Furthermore, it is my impression that they have recon-
structed the ability to build fixed Scud launchers, and sort of
moved the site from where it was. So I am not sure what it means
for the U.N. to destroy their Scud launchers, if in fact they are ca-
pable of building more Scud launchers.
Mr. SISISKY. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MURPHY. Just, if I may make one small point, Mr. Chair-
man.
The CHAIRMAN. Sure.
Mr. MURPHY. Could I just add that you will have to reconcile the
project of drilling with Kumaila with Mr. Dellum's concerns about
going it alone, because I will wager that you won't get Security
Council backing for military force to go in and protect an oil rig.
I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.


41
+ it?
for you month by month. That, I think, would send a powerful les-
son to his elite that this crisis is not fading; that, in fact, it is going
to get more acute, and that therefore they can't just wait us out.
On the other hand, as Mr. Murphy suggested earlier, we are not
likely to get anywhere near the consensus in the United Nations
for these kind of measures that we got with some of the earlier
steps. It is going to be more difficult to construct a consensus the
more we propose vigorous measures. I would frankly suggest that
we begin by saying that we want to pump that oil to pay the rep-
arations that has already been mandated from the Iraqis, and to
pay for relief efforts. I think that there is broad international sup-
port that Saddam should pay those reparations, and that those re-
lief efforts should not be such a heavy burden on the United Na-
tions system, which has got so many financial pressures on it.
Mr. BENNETT. What would the U.N. worry about? What would
disturb the U.N.? It looks like it is all beneficial to the U.N. Why
would they have any cold feet about it?
Mr. CLAWSON. I think that some countries are already concerned
that we are infringing upon the sovereignty of the Iraqis more than
we should.
Mr. BENNETT. We are still at war with them. When you are at
war with some country you are infringing upon their sovereignty.
WSON. It is indeed an infringement on their sovereignty.
It is just a question of what forms of infringement on sovereignty
are acceptable to our U.N. partners or not.
Mr. BENNETT. I think if we made a statement that we wanted
to do all of these things and put as many of them as we could at
one time instead of just drifting into it, I think we would probably
have a turnaround at that point. At the moment Saddam can say
he won the war and his people don't understand how he won it, but
anyway, he won it, and he is getting by with it. He ought to pay
a lot of penalty. He ought to pay the penalty of knowing that he
is going to be captured like Noriega and he is going to be tried and
executed. He ought to know that the Kurds are going to be well
armed and they are going to take out oil and pay reparations, and
on the border line of Kuwait, the same thing is going to take place.
In other words, we are not offering enough pain to the other side,
and we ought to be taking this leadership. We ought not to be drift-
ing along with it. I was not enthusiastic about going into the war
to begin with. One other point I want to make is that early on in
this conversation there was something said about being surprised
that Saddam went into Kuwait. Well, after watching that video and
after reading the transcript, I don't know how anybody would be
surprised. I know people told him that he didn't have to worry
about it, so how could we be surprised.
Maybe you didn't know that at the time. But looking back into
history of what you didn't know at that time, but now we do know.
Now we do know that we told Saddam, that he didn't have to worry
about the Kuwaiti border, and why would he think that we were
going to fight him about it, having just told him we wouldn't? I
don't want to thresh that out, because that is yesterday's problem.
That doesn't solve anything for today. But for today I am just irri-
tated about the fact that we seem to be just drifting in ineptitude


42
and inability to make diplomatic decisions, and we have a lot of al-
ternatives out there that are pretty good ones, it seems to me.
As Mr. Sisisky pointed out, they are getting billions of dollars
worth of oil that we are getting out of the oil, not that somebody
gives us out of the ground, but we get it out with armed Kurds sit-
ting there protecting it and armed Kuwaitis sitting there protecting
it. It seems like a pretty good idea to me. I think if I were Saddam
I would kind of worry about something like that. Any reason why
this philosophy is not a good philosophy?
Ms. MYLROIE. If I may, I believe that if there is an indictment
of Saddam Hussein on war crimes, the whole international atmos-
phere at the U.N. would change. Things that do not seem possible
to get a coalition consensus on now would become possible. That is
why I think an indictment on war crimes is so important.
Also, I think your point about arming the Kurdish people, but
not only the Kurdish people and not within a Kurdish framework,
because Turkey will get very nervous about that. However, there
are 1,000 Iraqi-Arab officers in exile-mostly in Saudi camps-who
are either participating in the uprising, or POWs who refused to
return, 15,000 soldiers. You have the nucleus there of an Iraqi lib-
eration army which can be brought quickly to the north and
merged with the Kurdish militias. That I believe should
wrote an article to this effect, and General Haig called me up after-
wards and said it was an example of very clear thinking. I cite him
because he is a man of such experience.
These are very important to make sure that Saddam pulls no
tricks on us now, that we are half-hearted and he is decisive, and
we lose what we have. But I think you are absolutely right to say
that once Washington starts to think in a problem solving mode,
there are many options for the United States.
Mr. BENNETT. Thank you.
Mr. MURPHY. I don't think the votes are there, Congressman. I
think we are the closest, in a proposition like that, to getting a Chi-
nese veto within the Security Council than we have ever been.
Now, it hasn't happened yet, but I think you are getting into an
area where you just might see that veto.
Mr. BENNETT. Well, I am worried about the alternative. In other
words, we always have to worry in politics about wh
native is. It seems to me that an aggressive position, like the one
I suggested—which could be souped up with other things that I
haven't mentioned-is preferable to the drift, which runs down the
United States, runs down the United Nations, makes the whole
Desert Storm look like a disaster, rather than a success. A failure
to know when you have to lead, and a failure to have the courage
to lead in those circumstances, is almost as bad as losing a war of
ammunition fired at each other. That is what worries me. It wor-
ries me, the fact that the alternative to doing something positive
and promptly and substantial, the alternative seems to be a drift
toward death, toward failure.
I think it would be preferable to have a courageous operation to-
ward success. Even if it failed, it would be preferable to a drift to-
ward failure.
Mr. MURPHY. Well, that is your perception that it is a drift to-
ward failure, and that is something I think that the administration


43
has got to talk to you about. I don't have any—we don't have any
inside information about how well or badly the U.N. is doing in its
current pressures to get its hands on the weapons systems and
move ahead. There is a public perception of failure, which you have
addressed, Congressman, and I hope it is wrong. But I think maybe
that is something the administration-
The CHAIRMAN. Richard, how can you say this? You said it sev-
eral times today. I think it is self-evident that Saddam is eroding
the authority of the U.N.; that he is cheating and retreating, and,
as Marlin Fitzwater says, with enormous skill and with a great
deal of success. How can you say that we wanted to inspect the Ag-
riculture Ministry, and then he chased everybody away so that he
can take out whatever documents he had. What was it, 3 to 5 days
to take out those documents?
Mr. MURPHY. Seventeen days.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, first of all, there was a showdown for 17
days. Then they finally caused such a commotion and lack of police
protection against the mob that they pulled the forces out. God
knows what they took out. Then, of course, they let everybody in
and, lo and behold, there was nothing there. The whole war was
fought over the issue of would they or would they not recognize the
existence of Kuwait. They have boycotted the commission meetings.
It seems to me to be self-evidently true that he has had an enor-
mous success here. I am puzzled by why you say we have to find
out whether the U.N. thinks that we are succeeding or not.
It seems to me that he is succeeding in ways that are-
Mr. MURPHY. He is alive. He is alive.
The CHAIRMAN. More than alive, more than alive, Richard.
Mr. MURPHY. I think he could be doing a heck of a lot better
than he is doing—he has done some unusual things in getting the
country back on its feet much more quickly than anyone predicted.
But Iraq is not about to go on the war path against Kuwait or any
other state in the region.
The CHAIRMAN. But that was true in April of 1991. I don't know
whether Laurie is right. Those numbers—70 to 80 percent rebuild-
ing—sound high to me. But it seems to me that there clearly has
been some rebuilding of his capability. I mean I just think that it
is self-evidently true that he has succeeded beyond all reasonable
expectations since April of 1991. The resolution said that the U.N.
inspectors can go anywhere any time. There isn't a little asterisk
that says “except the Agriculture Ministry” or another little aster-
isk that says "except on the 8th anniversary of the war with Iran.”
You know, he is widdling away. He is chipping away at it, and he
is succeeding.
Mr. MURPHY. Well, that is what we can't allow. He is chipping
away at it. He is scoring one propaganda point after another for his
own people, yes. I am alive, I am well and I am facing them all
down. We don't have to believe that. We have got to find ways to
surround him with continuing pressures. Whether it is drilling the
Rumaila oil field or not, I don't know. If we can get support for
that, fine. Let's go and see, let's push to find what support we can
get, because I don't think we are going to do it unilaterally.
Mr. CLAWSON. May I suggest, it is not just what we believe, but
it is also what people in the region believe, when they see the


45
expected for Washington and the international community to re-
main so focused on Iraq, so much of their energy and attention di-
verted to it to maintain an international arms limitation regime in
the face of a government resolvedly and determinedly aiming at
undermining that regime. You need a more cooperative government
in Baghdad in order for this regime to work.
Mr. BENNETT. Well, I am not going to ask any more questions.
But left unsaid at the end of your answers to my question was why
is this such a big deal if China did veto it? After all, our country
went to war, we declared war. Congress declared war like the Con-
stitution said. The chairman and I and others saw to it that we
had that kind of a vote. We had that kind of a vote, so we are at
war with Iraq. So being at war, why do we have to worry about
China?
If we can threaten them, if we can threaten Saddam with being
tried and being brought back to this country like Noriega and tried,
and when we threaten the billions and billions of oil which they
now possess and are not turning into reparations, and we can
threaten them with regard to arming the Kurds, and I realize the
asterisk you put on that, you have to be very careful how you do
that, because of the fact you don't want to disturb our imperiled
allies, but if you could do all those things, why do we have to worry
about a Chinese veto?
· I mean even if we don't carry it all out-suppose the U.N. says
you can't do it. United States. Well, that is better than just letting
it drift and failing by drifting, it seems to me; if nothing occurred.
In other words, if the U.N. said don't do it. But I don't see how the
U.N. can say don't do it.
Our country, the United States of America, the greatest country
on earth, has declared war on them, and the U.N. doesn't control
that. The U.N. does not tell the United States to declare war. He
doesn't tell them to undeclare war. It is only by treaties between
ourselves and other countries that wars are ended. It is only by the
action of Congress itself do we actually go to war under the Con-
stitution. We have done so in this particular instance. We did, in
fact, declare war.
Mr. MURPHY. I don't want us to fail by drift. I don't want us to
luff, either. You are up against a leader who is exception-
ally capable at sniffing out bluffing.
Mr. BENNETT. If you fail bluff, how are you badly hurt if you
show your macho strength on something that is righteous and you
fail to succeed? It seems to me you are worse off if you are not able
to stand up and do what you were supposed to be doing, because
we have sold the world on the idea we were protecting Kuwait as
an independent country. That is a little difficult to do in view of
the statements that were made earlier on in the war about protect-
ing our national interests and jobs and oil, which was the thing
that people said until that was not very widely appreciated in the
United States, and then we visited the thing about protecting Ku-
wait—the borders. But we are at war with Iraq, and we have not
ended that war, and therefore, we have a right to do something
about it.
It would seem like to me we could arm the Kurds on their bound-
aries and arm the Kuwaitis and take the oil in those boundary
faili


46
areas by our own oil-producing people. I mean that is something
we could do without anybody stopping us. So why don't we do it,
particularly if it is done for international objectives for paying rep-
arations and things like that? Why isn't that doable?
Mr. MURPHY. That is physically doable.
Mr. BENNETT. Well, I am inclined to think it is the thing to do.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Browder.
Mr. BROWDER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield my position
to Mrs. Byron.
The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Byron.
Mrs. BYRON. Thank you, Mr. Browder. I appreciate that. I have
a 4 o'clock meeting in my office, but I do have some questions that
I think need to be defined a little bit better. The panel has been
extremely helpful so far.
As to the U.N. objective that this Congress voted to support 19
months ago: Do you feel it currently is being met? I know there are
some people, surprisingly, who have made the statement that the
inspection teams are witch hunts. I cannot agree with them at all.
I would like the opinion of the other two whether they think we
should have gone to Baghdad. I agree with Mr. Murphy and the
chairman that I do not think we should have, but I think for the
record I would like the opinion of the other two, whether they feel
we should have gone to Baghdad.
The other issue is I think we looked over so many years to that
part of the world for so many problems. This Nation got, I won't
say bogged down in Lebanon—but deeply, deeply involved in Leb-
anon for a short period of time. I probably would have to say that
we took our losses and we cut and ran. Lebanon today is not much
more stable than it was at that time. The only difference is that
we are not as deeply involved as we were 10 years ago. What would
it take to get into that same type of a situation in Iraq? Is that
an objective that we could foresee in the future, of a so-called same
type of situation?
Dick, you said that the Turkish will accept their Kurds. If that
is the case what happens then to the remaining Kurdish popu-
lation? Then looking at Turkey, which has lived for so many cen-
turies with Iraq and the Soviet on its and Iran's borders, what is
their position going to be when a nation such as ours from many
miles away is calling the shots, when their borders are going to be
the same ones that have been there for centuries and will be there
for centuries in the future?
Mr. CLAWSON. On the question about whether or not we should
have gone to Baghdad—at the time I said on the record—I thought
it was a difficult call, and that we had to decide either we would
live with Saddam Hussein, or we should proceed to Baghdad. I still
think that those were the basic choices. Especially after April 1991,
we said that we wanted to get rid of Saddam. Frankly, it was too
late to have taken that
We should either have gone on to Baghdad if we wanted to get
rid of Saddam or decide to live with him on a sustained basis, con-
tain him within his own borders and his own authoritarian regime
and keep him over the long term. The policy we opted for, it seems
to me, combines the worst of both worlds. That policy is we say we
want to get rid of him, yet on the other hand we did not use the


force that was available at that time to accomplish that means. The
quandary we find ourselves in now is because when we had the op-
portunity to get rid of Saddam, in March 1991, we said that that
is not our aim. Yet, once it no longer became possible for us to ex-
ercise force to accomplish that aim, we then suddenly in April 1991
proclaimed that indeed we had changed our mind and our aim was
to get rid of Saddam.
Ms. MYLROIE. There were many other options other than going
to Baghdad. It reminds me of what Margaret Thatcher said on the
news yesterday, that she had never heard Valkay sending U.S.
troops to Bosnia, except from the U.S. administration. There are all
sorts of parallels.
Mrs. BYRON. That is why I go back to Lebanon, because I see
similar parallels.
Ms. MYLROIE. I think Lebanon is a different case. I would urge
you to consider the parallels between Iraq and Yugoslavia, how in
both cases the administration was committed, or not committed,
but associated with an authority which had grown illegitimate, I
mean, this relationship with Saddam Hussein.
Mrs. BYRON. Iraq had a commodity, oil, that played another part
in that equation.
Ms. MYLROIE. I beg to urge on you, to see the similarity, because
Melosevic had good ties with Secretary Eagleburger. There was
this inclination to support the existing authority in Yugoslavia, al-
though now this existing authority looks like a latter day Saddam
Hussein. So I think it was the administration's orientation to ac-
commodate these authorities, even though their legitimacy col-
lapsed with the worldwide collapse of authoritarianism and then
give sanction to the use of that authority in the name of a country's
territorial integrity, even though one might question whether that
country could or should be kept together.
In any event, I will also suggest that rather than operate in a
problem solving mode, as Mrs. Thatcher urged the United States
ng Bosnia yesterday, there is a tendency to avoid that
by saying, we won't do the most extreme version of problem-solv-
ing, i.e., send ground troops to Bosnia, send ground troops to Bagh-
dad.
The issue was not simply going to Baghdad. There were many
options that existed for the United States at the end of the war.
One was simply to make Saddam Hussein surrender, as a term of
the negotiated cessation of hostilities.
A second was to make a move toward Baghdad, without an-
nouncing you are going to Baghdad and without even going there,
to make a move as if you were about to do so, and see what hap-
pened, whether that would precipitate a revolt in Baghdad. In-
stead, General Schwarzkopf said we are not going to Baghdad,
which was of some help to Saddam Hussein.
A third option was to ban all Iraqi military aircraft from flying.
Instead, General Schwarzkopf explicitly allowed helicopters to fly
almost without condition.
A fourth option was to support, in some way or another, the Iraqi
uprising that the President called upon the population to make.
One could have done that minimally, by shooting down a few heli-
copters, which would have had a chilling effect on the rest of the
to


50
the expertise, according to Gates—could be rebuilt in a few, rather
than many years.
So I ask, what is the purpose of all of this? Even if we were suc-
cessful, which we don't seem to be, what is the meaning of that
success? Are we not deluding ourselves in substituting a formal
process for a substantive goal, if all this can be rebuilt in a rel-
atively short time?
Mr. BROWDER. Then, I will pursue my second question a little
further.
If the purpose of the inspections is to find and destroy, their ca-
pabilities for chemical and biological weapons if it is true, what you
are saying, then, the chemical and biological weapons capabilities
are still there. What are we to learn about their future use either
by Iraq or the capabilities being developed by other countries?
Should other countries then say, "Well, we can do the same thing
and we will never get caught?”
Ms. MYLROIE. I think what you are suggesting is right, that Iraq
will be able to develop this stuff, and other countries will learn a
lesson.
I will give you an anecdote related to this. I was in the Middle
East in the summer, flying from, I don't know, Turkey to Europe.
There were some Iraqis sitting in front of me. We all started talk-
ing about Iraq. Who is this fellow? He is a student studying biol-
ogy; he is going to a German technical institute. I can tell you that
when he graduates from that German technical institute the Iraqi
Government will take him, what did you learn in Germany? If
there is any utility in what he is learning from the study of biology
at this German technical institute in terms of Iraq's weapons pro-
gram, that is where he is going and he has no say in what he is
going to do. I thought, my God, hasn't anything changed?
Mr. BROWDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will just close by noting we should be very careful in devising
our response to the crisis. We should be careful and monitor the
inspections of the United Nations Commission. They were sent
there for a purpose, and I don't know whether they are achieving
that purpose. I just don't know how much use they will be to us
in deciding what course of action we take.
Thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lancaster.
Mr. LANCASTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Two quick questions. One is along the same lines that Mr.
Browder was pursuing, if any of you have an answer for it. It deals
with chemical weapons.
By the end of this month, we anticipate that a chemical weapons
convention will probably be signed. That convention will have a
verification regime much less intrusive than what has been at least
theoretically possible in Iraq. It also will have sanctions in place
or provided for for proliferators.
Have we learned lessons in Iraq that perhaps we have not made
adequate accounting for in the CWC? Are we going to experience
problems in executing, implementing and ultimately keeping a
chemical weapons convention viable in light of the problems we
have seen here in Iraq-inspections that are very intrusive by the-


51
ory and sanctions that are very onerous, if in fact they were lived
up to?
Mr. MURPHY. If I could have a crack at it, Congressman.
The IAEA procedures were found to be inadequate. But I don't
see the point of pitting us against the U.N. We are the U.N. We
are part of it. We are responsible for devising methods, which are
going to be strong enough and effective enough to do the job that
needs doing.
For years, we did accept that the IAEA-on its atomic inspec-
tions—was getting the necessary answers, and Iraq was a classic
case study that it wasn't. I am not saying the U.N. succeeded and
that the job is over, but it is in progress. If they haven't found the
chemical, if they haven't found the biological, they are going to stay
there until they find it, and we are going to find ways to keep them
there until they find it.
But you are right—I don't know the shape of the convention, but
if this chemical weapons convention is inadequate, then it is going
to have to be strengthened, it is going to have to be constantly
under review and demand for amendments.
The fact that a university graduate in chemistry can become a
specialist in chemical warfare is a given. You are not going to be
able to forbid Iraqis to study chemistry, obviously. But you have to
keep after Rambo regimes like Saddam Hussein's constantly. You
can't-I absolutely agree with both the Congressmen—you cannot
just rely on the fact that it has a U.N. seal of good housekeeping.
But let's not phrase it in terms of the weak U.N. and the strong
U.S. We are part of the problem, if there is a U.N. problem.
Mr. CLAWSON. The magazine which I edit, Orbis, recently had
some articles that argued that the aim of eliminating chemical and
biological weapons would best be achieved not through a conven-
tion to ban these kinds of weapons for precisely the reasons that
you are asking about; namely, how intrusive an inspection regime
would be required in order to achieve this, and also how similar
these weapons systems are to so many ordinary civilian purposes,
such as pesticide programs which inherently produce things that
kill. Instead, we could probably achieve that goal that we all hold
of eliminating the threat of chemical and biological warfare better
by a vigorous program of retaliation against those who use such
weapons. We are not talking about weapons that are like nuclear
weapons where the one use of it is such a horror that we have to
make sure that these weapons aren't in the hands of rogue states.
Furthermore, we aren't talking about weapons like nuclear weap-
ons, where a massive infrastructure is required to produce them
which cannot be used for any other civilian purposes. So, frankly,
I am skeptical that the inspection regime that will be acquired to
make chemical and biological weapons ban work is worth the effort.
I wonder if there aren't better ways to achieve the goal that we
all hold of eliminating the threat of chemical and biological war-
fare.
Mr. LANCASTER. Did you care to comment, madam?
Ms. MYLROIE. No, thank you.
Mr. LANCASTER. OK. That leads me to my concluding question.
I think we will all stipulate that what has happened since the war
has been less successful than what happened during the prosecu-


52
tion of the war. The question then becomes, does the problem lie
with Resolutions 687 and 688, and the terms thereof, the regimes
that were set up as the basis for these inspections, or is there some
problem with the execution of these resolutions? Has the commis-
sion been ineffective itself in carrying out its duties? Or, third, is
this simply the nature of Saddam Hussein? No matter how good
the resolutions were, no matter how tight the terms of the resolu-
tions, and no matter how effective the execution of those resolu-
tions by the commission, would we still be in the same situation
we are because Saddam Hussein is who he is?
Ms. MYLROIE. Well, I think my position would be the latter. I
mean, Saddam Hussein has a defiant character. He aspires to some
kind of glory. He is ambitious. He is just not going to abide by the
U.N. resolutions and it is almost impossible to make him do so. We
can threaten the use of force, but you cannot use threats every day.
He is single-minded and we have many issues. So it is the nature
of Saddam Hussein. I also think there is another issue behind this
problem, a little theoretical, but that has to do with whether there
is any authority that is illegitimate or not. Is the United States,
the administration, prepared to say that some thugs who have
managed to seize some palaces in some capital cities are beyond
the pale?
I guess the problem that I have had with this administration in
its policies since the war's end is it has not been willing to say
that. I mean, the President led the country into war. he did a bril-
liant job and he did so by using, in part, the moral authority that
came by labeling Saddam Hussein as Hitler. I think it was abso-
lutely justified, because Saddam Hussein was a modern Iitler.
But the speed with which it was dropped was astonishing. I
think it set a very bad precedent. So I really think the issue, on
an abstract level is illegitimate. It won't obey the rules—the mini-
mal rules of international order, and the appropriate action in my
view is in very egregious cases like Saddam Hussein and perhaps
in Serbia as well. You declare it illegitimate and establish a forum
for its indictment under war crimes, and you put it beyond the
pale.
Mr. LANCASTER. Does anyone else care to comment on whether
we got a bad deal in the resolutions, or whether it is the way they
have been carried out, or whether it is simply Saddam Hussein,
and no matter how good a deal we got, we would still be in this
same boat?
Mr. CLAWSON. I would generally agree with Ms. Mylroie that the
problem is not the resolutions; although there were imperfections
of the resolutions, some rather peculiar features.
I don't understand, for instance, why we said we wanted to elimi-
nate his ballistic missiles, why we stuck in the word "ballistic,” so
we allowed him to keep his cruise missiles, which he does have,
and including some which can strike Israel. That is not the major
problem.
I think the major problem is that there are some leaders who,
frankly, we just cannot tolerate. I would be tempted to put Pol Pot
and Saddam Hussein in that category. I don't think the problem is
just one individual. The problem is, as Ms. Mylroie said, that there


53
are some leaders that the international community has to be pre-
pared to declare to be beyond the pale.
Mr. LANCASTER. Of course, Ambassador Murphy indicated that
that was beyond the charter that we went into this operation.
Mr. CLAWSON. True.
Mr. LANCASTER. That our charter was to remove him from Ku-
wait, which we did. Perhaps then, our mistake was in the charter
in which we undertook this action. Perhaps our first mistake was
at that level, not at the level at the conclusion.
Would it have been illegitimate, on our part, to have allowed
General Schwarzkopf the additional time that he needed to do the
job militarily that would have guaranteed Saddam's fall, even if he
were not himself taken or eliminated?
Mr. MURPHY. Well, it is. I think the three of us agree that there
is a real problem with Saddam Hussein. Could we have gotten a
resolution that called for his removal from power, his indictment
as a war criminal, removal from power after we got him out of Ku-
wait? I don't know. honestly. Congressman. If we had that chance
and muffed it, I doubt if we had it, but it is a fair question. The
fact of his survival suggests that we have to be more careful about
pre-war rhetoric, because Hitler wasn't supposed to survive the
bunker, and we weren't ready to go after him. My understanding
was at that time, February of last year, that he had kept for the
defense of Baghdad some 130,000, 150,000 of Iraq's best forces not
committed to the south. More equipment could have been taken,
more prisoners could have been taken in the south, and that might
have kept them from moving against the Shia and the Kurds. But
to get them out of Baghdad, it would have been quite a fight.
Mr. LANCASTER. Could that not have been supported under inter-
national law?
Mr. MURPHY. I don't know, Congressman.
Ms. MYLROIE. If I may comment.
As you rightly say, we helped shape the mandate; it wasn't some-
thing imposed on us. Second, it is a matter of the historical record
that in April 1991, the European Community-after Saddam had
launched this terrible offensive against the Kurds-voted for a war
crimes trial. It was the American Government that waylaid that
call.
So it is not that there was Washington cheerleading the cause of
removing Saddam Hussein. It was standing in the way of efforts
which might have been more effective in isolating his regime and
removing him.
Mr. LANCASTER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Let me ask one followup question that goes to this issue of the
breakup of Iraq itself. One of the reasons why we did not go on to
Baghdad, was that we were, as I understand it, concerned about
what would happen to the integrity of Iraq, the country. As I un-
derstand it, we were aided and abetted in that concern by our
Saudi allies, who also did not want to worry about a Shia alliance
in the southern part of Iraq, the Shia alliance with Iran. Also our
allies, our Turkish allies, who were concerned about a breakup of
Iraq in an independent Kurdistan.


54
My question is, in retrospect, are we having second thoughts
about that, and are our allies having second thoughts about that?
There was an article in the New York Times that implied that
the continued intransigence about Iraq looking on Kuwait as the
19th province showed that this is not just Saddam Hussein, this is
the whole country of Iraq, or at least the Sunni population in Iraq
that still thinks this way. Therefore, this is a problem that goes be-
yond Saddam Hussein; it goes to the whole being of Iraq. Maybe
we ought to think again about whether we are worried about the
breakup of Iraq into a Kurdish north and a Shia south and maybe
something in the middle—which is Sunni. Are our allies in the re-
gion beginning to look more favorably upon the breakup of Iraq?
Šecond, should the United States look more favorably on the notion
of a breakup of Iraq?
Ms. MYLROIE. Well, I don't think that we necessarily have to
favor the so-called breakup of Iraq. But at the same time, I think
of dedicated commitment to Iraq's territorial integrity may
not be warranted, particularly with regard to keeping northern
Iraq as part of Iraq. Let me explain.
I think one can say, with more authority now than a year ago,
that Saddam Hussein is a threat to Iraq's territorial integrity. You
cannot restore Baghdad's authority over the north without endors-
ing a Kurdish genocide, which we are not prepared to do. So the
longer Saddam is in power, the more you have this problem of,
whether we call it a problem or not, but the more there is a de
oping Kurdish authority in the north.
You have a guerrilla war in the south backed to some extent by
Iran, which the Iraqi Government is incapable of ending anyhow,
and then meanwhile, in order to suppress that revolt, is carrying
on a fearsome campaign aimed at depopulating the areas that the
guerrillas use. So I think the first point is Saddam himself is the
greatest threat to Iraq's territorial integrity.
On the question of Turkey, that was always a very complicated
position. You know that the Turkish President, and Prime Minister
at the time, Turgut Ozal, was the figure principally responsible for
quickly bringing Turkey to support the United States after the in-
vasion of Kuwait. His defense minister and his foreign minister re-
signed on him. However, he made that decision. He had what we
would call a rather enlightened attitude toward the Kurds, both
within Turkey and in Iraq. Not without some element of guile
there, but I understand that he saw the possibility that northern
Iraq would not be able to return to Baghdad's authority, that it
might fall under a Turkish sphere of influence.
As I understand, that so alarmed the administration, that it sort
of-at least I know bureaucrats who looked suddenly to the defense
and foreign ministry, and the Turkish general staff against Ozal,
when before it had been Ozal's authority that had prevailed when
the pressure was to go to war.
So there is in Turkey two lines of thought. One is, we don't want
the Iraqi Kurds, and they must remain a part of Baghdad, no mat-
ter what. The other is the situation is problematic. Perhaps one
way to address it, and in some aspects to Turkey's advantage, be-
cause the Kurdish area is a fertile area with oil, that somehow that
area should fall under Turkey's sphere of influence. There are two


55
ha
opinions in Turkey, and there have always been, and it was not en-
tirely accurate to portray Turkey under Turgut Ozal as apprehend-
ing during the war the breakup of Iraq.
To the extent that Saudi Arabia did, it was my impression as
well, that the Saudis were very concerned about the so-called
of Iraq. But there is some ambiguity about it. The head
of Saudi intelligence urged the United States to support the Iraqis.
The United States did not, partly because of the fear of getting
sucked into a quagmire.
There were at least two opinions in Saudi Arabia. Certainly by
now, with the expectation that Iraq would be weak, that Saddam
would be gone, all of that dissipated, because Saddam isn't doing
what it was only a year and a half ago, he is not doing what people
thought would happen. Certainly, it is the case that there is more
concern about his survival among our allies, and I think in Wash-
ington, than before. However, the allies have two responses. One,
the Saudis are more concerned, at least for the moment. The other,
the elements within Turkey say, we are going to have to learn to
live with Saddam, so let's begin to make our peace with him.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Chairman, I don't know any government in the
area that is interested in the breakup of Iraq. I suggest it is be-
cause their own history, their own borders are equally open to chal-
lenge. Plus, some of the doctrines that have sunk in on the Arab
side over the years of nationalism at the identification of that flag,
that state. Maybe they weren't comfortable with it in the 1920s and
the 1930s, and they have gotten increasingly comfortable with cer-
tain political lines on the map over the last generation. So I don't,
I don't see it is in our interest to favor a breakup, it just seems
illogical if a region is against it, why should we be intruding to say
this is the way it should go? Just basically driven to get rid of one
man, or maybe one party, the Baath regime.
Mr. CLAWSON. I think it is a sad commentary on our current poli-
cies that we are driven to the point where we, in fact, have to con-
sider this question about the breakup of Iraq. Ms. Mylroie put it
very well when she said that Saddam Hussein's continued rule is
the biggest threat to the territorial integrity of Iraq, that this is a
man who is so bitterly hated by the great majority of the popu-
lation, by nearly everyone in the two ethnic groups that make up
the bulk of the population, that we have to say that he is indeed
a threat to this country's continued existence.
The CHAIRMAN. Last question. What is your read on the opposi-
tion groups? Serious? Possible? Not very serious? Not possible?
Let's start with Mr. Clawson and go the other way this time.
Mr. CLAWSON. The Kurdish opposition groups are clearly very se-
rious, and have great legitimacy in the Kurdish areas. The Shia op-
position groups have generally done a bad job. With the death 2
days ago of Ayatollah Khoi, there really is no respected figure in
the Shia community that can draw that community together.
I think the chances of the opposition being successful are de-
creasing as time goes on.
In the Sunni areas, there is nobody who has demonstrated that
they have a basis of support whatsoever.
The CHAIRMAN. Dick Murphy.


56
Mr. MURPHY. All that said, and I don't disagree with it, there are
things that they have done that deserve our support. I think it is
important to be honest with them. We have not been known for
that in dealing with some of these elements in past years. It has
been to our discredit. .
They shouldn't assume too much of us. I don't believe that is
where I started in my own statement-that we have a consensus
in this country, be it with you in the Congress, between you and
the administration—to go all out and make an opposition viable
that has not been viable on its own. Many of the leaders are men
who had to leave the country, pushed out, exiled under serious
threat as long ago as 20 years. Some of them have gotten caught
as clients of other powers, which doesn't help their reputation back
home. Yet they deserve our support. As long as we are honest with
them as to how much we are ready to give, fair enough. I think
we can be of some help, and particularly I think counseling our
friends in the region to be helpful.
Ms. MYLROIE. It strikes me as a question that people raise about
the Iraqi opposition, but it was not raised with the PLO. I mean,
I never heard people coming and saying, the Palestinians are too
divided and they lack a leadership, and the other Arab countries
play in their politics, so don't deal with them. When the U.S. Gov-
ernment decided it wanted to deal with Palestinians, the Secretary
of State went to Jerusalem, the West Bank, and said, I like you,
and I like you.
Hanan Ashrawi who is a wonderfully articulate woman and I
have a great deal of admiration for her, but tell me how a Chris-
tian woman in that society represents a constituency. Fine. The
Secretary of State likes to talk to her, fine; I endorse it. Well, it
seems to me that there is a lot more scepticism toward dealing
with these Iraqis than there is in other issues when we decide here
is a lem and how can we address it. I personally doubt that
the United States is going to succeed in a coup that will both oust
Saddam and remove the thugs from that regime. I doubt it very
much. I think that we need the opposition as the best way to get
rid of Saddam.
Furthermore, having begun on this policy by meeting with the
INC, promising continuing contacts and to explore ways of support,
as well as the specific promise made by General Scowcroft to
Massoud Barzani, we won't let you down. The Kurdish involvement
with the INC is provocative to Saddam. One of the reasons why
Massoud Barzani, in particular, hesitated was his memory of what
happened in 1975 when the U.S. Government, in fact, let the
Kurds down.
Now, I think it is necessary to ask what did Scowcroft mean, we
won't let you down. What are we going to do if Saddam-worst case
scenario—if Saddam responds to that forcefully? I don't think that
half-measures are appropriate—we will support you to here and
not to there, because Saddam will respond with full measures.
My last point, I think an Afghan strategy is entirely appropriate
for the situation in Iraq; it worked in Afghanistan. I believe it
would be even more successful in Iraq for two reasons: One, be-
cause the error was made in Afghanistan to let Pakistan have con-
trol over everything and Pakistan President Zia's view toward the


57
thing to water to keep them divi
Afghans was to keep them divided so they would never pose a
threat to Pakistan.
They probably didn't need his help in being divided and we have
this lack of coherence within Afghanistan today; although they did
get rid of the Soviets and Najibullah, and one can approach this
issue with a political component as well as a military component.
The second reason, I believe they would be successful. I will share
with you the opinion that Massoud Barzani gave me—and he is a
man whose opinions one should consider; he is a thoughtful man.
That if the INC were to establish an administration in the north
which was recognized and supported by the international commu-
nity, if the Iraqi opposition, including Kurdish militias, were ade-
quately armed, his assessment was that morale inside Iraq would
be so low that you would have a flood of defectors to the north, and
that it was quite reasonable to expect that it would simply collapse
from within, that that alone would be sufficient to cause the col-
lapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Now, that is the optimistic scenario. But even if that didn't hap-
pen and all they did was establish a functioning Iraqi administra-
tion in the north, that would still be a significant blow to Saddam.
That area could be extended southward by Iraqis themselves doing
the fighting at the time of their choosing when circumstances are
to their advantage.
The idea is not to replace one group with another; you can't do
that. What is being proposed is a replacement of one group by a
system, set of principles and institution, a constitutional system.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all for being here. You have been very
generous with your time, and we appreciate it. Very helpful. Thank
you.
[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the panel was recessed.]
[The following material was submitted for the record:]


SUNDAT, JUNE 28, 1992
Thewashingtonpost ||
EDITORIALS/COLUMNISTS
C1
E

Iraq's Real Coup
Iraq's Real Coup
Did Saddam Snooker Schwarzkopf?
IRAQ I CI
and that is a wory important point, and I
want to make sure ikat's recorded that
The new orleace begins with the cesse military helicopters een Neuer Iraq. (Av.
ftre talks' transcripc recently declensi thor's italics.) Not Gghters, not bomben.
fied by the Pentagon. Information has Ahmad: So you mean eron the
ale come from veteria Inagi vichen helicopten... ermed in the long skies
deeply experienced la Suddan's derious aan My, but not the fighters. Because the
wan. Although further lavestigation is helicopter are the wine, they transfer
niended, known facu and taformed con- somebody.....
Jocture secrest chat deper ressoas exist Schwarzkopf: Yeah I will instruct our !
chan so far known about how the war left Air Force not to shoot at any helicopters
that are flying over the territory of Iraq
Saddan la porer despite his defere
where we are not located. If they must
m he surring polne is the declassified fly over the wa we are located in, i pro
transcript of the March 3. 1991, fer that they not be gunshlor, armed
moocias la Sunan between heloo, and I would prefer that they have
Schwarzkope leader & coalition forces, 10 orange tag on the side us to extra:
and Iragis led by Gear Sultaa Hashim ufety measure.
Ahread The crucial exchange began Ahored: Not to be ve any confusion
when Ahmed cold Schreckopt: Helloop
these will not come to this territory.
Schwarzkopt: Good
ter Alighaus rogationes no needed to any
some of the oldala government och
But in a relevised incarries with David
dinle s my weber...
* Frost og Merda 27, 1994, with the true
to be cates of the Safwan talla sinertl and
: :cransported from one place to soothes
unavallabla to, de Arasarica public,
bonne che condenado dous ano s . Schwarzkopf recounted the archange
..Sa m pl.dben told, Akumid how to very differendy. He wild baked bred or
· must helicopeerito eroid helisbot sl", dered 20 dictate richer eroas
Abroad. Tihto hos oibhi's to do wione: terms. So when the regio il to
Eroat Masa Tuta la legido
:: By Laurie Mytroia.
VT HEN SADDAM Hus
Schwarzkopt dalmed Iraqi
ceardlice negotiaton'uckered
him vinaing his permission loc
careport rigtits, then using
functions againge Inqi und Kur
ush drillons. But now evidence
shows Schwarzkopl hirmsalt see
Do helicopter Imits Other in
foracion rises question about
whether he acted la che mistik
a belid tal the hello
forces would lead in anels Seed
dern coup and whether such a
ful miscalculation we planeed
in the minds of the U.S. high
commund by Iragi agents.
me, you know, We would the to a het
Sching depth long ait boi over icopters," I said not over og forte ohi,
the part wheels aboolutely no ne bo, definitely bol over your force
problemiSo we'w let the belicopters, just over Ing, because for the transpor
sein's helicopters
strated rebels bro sub
mission after the Perolas Caill
War lixt year, superior US
forces did nothlag despite Pret
Idene Bush's appeal to Iragis to
overthrow the diastor.
US comerunder Normaa
Launis Mimis is an associele o
Hohe Washington lastitute for
Mar Puigen cutkoro
the neNCOM, The Futuro
Inq.publisid last year.
Svo IRQ Co. Col 1
ution of governarent officiale' That
semed like a reasonable request.
But the declassified Safwaa transcript
shows that as the ceasefire meeting
ended. Schwarzkopf emphasized the
points he wanted the leagis es resember,
beginniag: 'From our side, we will aot
attack say helicopters inside laag.
Ithough the transcript and the la-
A verchange with Frost make dear !
Schwarzkopl wus Intent upon the
terms of Iragi helicopter operations,
Whira House spokesman Marlin Fierna
ter in a press briefing put a very different
character on the exchange. He described
it as 'n side, oral discussion nothing in
writing. When i reporter sought some
clarification, Ficowater responded inac.
curately.
Reporter: Schwarzkopf says. okay. you
can use (helicopters for transportation,
but that's it?
Filtwater. Riche.
Was this a White House attempt to
mischaracterize the Salwan talks because
Schwarzkopf had been pursuing a secret
asenda that failed?
Analysis of the Salwan talks, raises
these questions:
. When Schwarzkopt said he preferred
chat runships not ay over allied positions.
he was also saying that they could fly
anywhere else. Why did he make that
concession?
• Why did Schwarzkopf only 'prefer
that gunships not ny over coalition posi.
tions! Why not forbid them to do so 10
insure that allied troops were protected.
Schwarzkopf claimed on thic Frost
show to have done!
. When Ahmiad asked if even aringd hel.
iconects could fly. why didn't Schwarz.
kopit say no?


09
I WSJ
72792
Planning Saddam's Ouster
By LACRIE MYLRONE
Whether or not this weekend's Irag
crisis is past, The Bush administration still
underestimates Saddam Hussein. 11
Ihreatens military action against Iraq "Lo
force conipliance with the U.N.," as one
White House spokesman declared. But the
White House might as well try to make pigs
fy. It is impossible to enfonce U.N. resolu
tions with Saddam In power.
Iraq's United Nations ambassador said
i Sunday that the issue that triggered the
most recent crisis - Iraq's refusal to allow
U.N, inspectors into Baghdad's agricul.
tural ministry - was "over." But the agri-
cultural ministry problem is one of count-
less infractions by Iraqor U.N. resolutions.
Por example, Aprü, 1991's Resolution 07-
the resolution at issue in the case of the
agricultural ministry - required Irag de
clare all items related to its medium-range
missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Nearly 500 days later, critical Items re
main unaccounted for. These include hun
dreds of SCUD missiles. Baghdad has even
reconstructed its capacity to manulacture
fixed SCUD launchers.
Another resolution, 688, demands loul
Irag end the repression of its population
and provides the basis for the U.N. bruman
Ilarian presence lo traq Baghdad does
no beller by 63 than it does by 687, Among
its more outrageous violations are re
pealed assaults on U.N. personnel and the
alteropled bombing of Mr. Mitterrand's
m a de in North to in the sum
Baghdad is conducting a genocidal attack,
similar to its notorious Anfal campaigo lo
Kurdistao. Bagtedad alms to depopulate
the marshes, where some 100.000 Shites
took refuge aner last year's uprising and
whence guerrillas are fighting Baghdad
Key Pre-War Mistakes ..
Belore the agricultural ministry con-
frontation became acule, Washington sald
little about Baghdad's Doutlog of 68.
Consistent with its Impulse to deal with
any tyrant in power, Washington focuses
on getting Iraq to honor its Internet-
tional treaty obligations us embodied in
687.
Yer chis policy continues towy mistakes
of pre-war policy. The drainlaindon was
always concerned about Iraq's drive to
acquire weapons of mass destruction. But ple, the European Community called for armed Kurds need anti-tank and anti-air:
as a 1989 State Department memo noted war crimes trials last year. Wasbington Fall weapons now. What will Washington
about guidelines regulating the U.S. export turned that call aside, believing trials do if Bagtidad responds to a punitive air
of dual-use commodities, "the problem is would interfere with an anticipated woup strike aimed at enforcing 687 with a thrust
not that we lack a policy on Iraq: we have a t is time to make public evidence of against the Kurds?
policy... However the policy has proven Saddam's war crimes, as well as the Iraqi The return of Baghdad's authority to
very hard to implement." Indeod, many intelligence files now in Washington. northern Iraq means a renewal of Kurdish
such exports ended up in Iraq's military These documents provide the basis for genocide. As Hussein Kamil, Saddam's
programs. .
charges agains! Saddam under the U.N. 202-in-law, threatened the Kurds last year.
Resolution 687 "has proven very hard to convention on genocide.
"How long will the US, slayOne wear?
implement." Air strikes against suspected But the grealest challenge to Saddam's Two years? Five years? They'll go and
then we'll know how to take care of you."
If the Bush administration hesitates, Saddam will ex- Congress's Job
ploit that. He likely, aspires to do to George Bush what
Turkish-Iraqi relations will not relum
lo slalus quo ante bellum, when the two
Ayatollah Khomenei did to Jimmy Carter.
co operated against Kurdish insurgents.
In fact, it is probably easier for Turkey lo
weapons sites may be salutary in the short nude lies in recent developments among reach an understanding on controlling the
run, but are unlikely to produce enduring Iraqis themselves. Combined U.N. and terrorist PKK Kurds in Turkey with the
change. Even though Saddam may appear allied work created a sale haven zone for existing Kurdish authorities than for il lo
to be badding dowo this time, he remains Kurds in northern Iraq. On that and other reach one with Saddam Hussein.
bon gross wholation of U.N. resolutions. A territory, the Kurds held elections in May. When a policy is decided, Mr. Bush
strategte policy revision is necessary, consolidating their administration of a sticks fixedly to it. This served him bril-
aimed at reventing the many misjudg: territory the size of Belgium. There now liandy in leading a reluctant nation into a
iments since the Gul War's end that have exist two Iraqi administrations - one in necessary wr. But that same stubborn
allowed Saddam to survive.
Baghdad, the other in the north. The ness may now portend disaster, particu-
· The only way to entorce the U.N. Kurds' administration is, by any standard, larly if the administration's rigidity leads
resolutions is to increase the pressure on more legitimate than Baghdad's. The for to a situation in which Saddam is allowed
Saddasn's regtime with the ultimate goal or mer is derrocaball
ly elected and
d and enjoys to return to Northern Iraq.
ousting Wo. Striking targets which allow the population's calidence. The latter is a Congress for its part must become more
him to continue la power - such as bis criminal regime, hated by those il rules. Involved in present policy loward Iraq. So
special security forces' buracks-is more Northera Iraq could provide the terrike loo must Burope. Strong Kurdish lobbies
woeful than alucing targets Unted to rial base for an opposition government. aist in Germany, France, and Britain.
Ing Volations of 887. Iragt violations of last month, a broad-based Iraqi Dational They must pressure their governments
. me . DUNG TOT Macking Sad Congress, Including the Kurds. met in now to help ensure Saddam is never
daim's leutenants because they are per Vienna. There the proup wled on a demo allowed to return to the north,
sonalities lovalved in the regime's flagrant cratic, pluralistic platform for Iraq A The U.S. administration likely leels
violations d the resolution. That would delegation is set to meet with Secretary of that campaign season is no time for any
help strengthen Saddam's locs.
Stale James Baker this week. Such an Iraqi mafor new initiative, particularly one
But Whie main thing is for the U.S. to sel government could become the sovereign that could underscore its failure to finish
the agenda bere. This weekend, Saddam authority in Northern Iraq. An Iraqi Hbera. the foo last year. But if the administration
mohed, and the U.S. and U.N. responded. tion army could be made up of Kurdish hesitales, Saddam will exploit thal. He
Whether the U.S. chooses a military option forces and Iraqi Arabs in exile (this group likely aspires to do to George Bush what
now or not, that decision should be on the includes some 1.000 formet officers and Ayalollah Khomenei did to Jimmy Carter.
basts of our Sennent what a milltary 15.000 soldiers).
The only way for the administration to
strike can achieve, and at what cost. I the The Kurds have accomplished already pre-copt the potentially humiliating
Judgment is that the results would not be what Mr. Bush wanted, but failed to months ahead is io seize the initialive and
worth the rets, so be tt. Other options achieve, elsewhere in Iraq. But they are set its Iraq policy right.
exist, Including diplomaatte options. But we vulnerable. Saddam bus two-thirds of his
must declare that the ultimate goal is array conoentrated in the North. With a Ms. Myrore is an associale of the Wash-
Saddam's outer.
determined effort Baghdad might now be ington hastitute for Near East Policy, where
Let's look at the diplomatic options for able to overrun Kurdish forces, despite the shie wrale e monograph, "The Future of
moreal Theme option could stand alone alled alr umbrella that keeps tragl alrerast brag." She recently relunned from a visit to
or complement military actions. Por amor south of the oth paralel. The lightly Iraqi Kurdistan.


64
In other words, it did not overturn the regime. So it failed to
achieve a political end, although it did achieve a military end.
The same, of course, cannot be said of ground forces. If ground
forces had gone into Baghdad, certainly there would have been a
change in the political scene also. I think we have to keep this in
mind when we talk about using air power against Saddam Hus-
sein, particularly on the basis of the experience that we have had
in the past.
Now air power, nonetheless, appears to be, if we are looking to
a military option, the way to break his opposition to complete com-
pliance with the U.N. resolutions. Then you have to say what are
the options for air power? One option, of course, is what I would
call the Tripoli alternative where you go in selectively and carry
out strikes against specific targets as a warning to Saddam Hus-
sein and to show him if he does not comply, that it will be painful
for him.
The other option is to conduct a comprehensive campaign to sig-
nificantly damage the war-making potential and the political com-
mand and control apparatus of the Iraqis. Both have advantages
and disadvantages; and perhaps during the Q&A, we can discuss
those. But in general, I would say that the so-called Tripoli option,
the surgical sort of strike, will be of little value.
Saddam Hussein withstood tremendous bombardment during the
war. As I say, he is still in power. We tried this sort of surgical
approach during the early days of the Vietnamese war. The North
Vietnamese laughed at us and upped the ante. I think in this in-
stance Saddam Hussein would probably laugh at us too. It would
probably serve his purposes because it would show the impotence
of the coalition and, more than that, probably tend to split the coa-
lition. It would have no real effect on Saddam Hussein's regime but
probably would get the Arab world riled at us.
It would probably also get the Europeans completely upset and
might even cause some dissension here in the United States, all of
which would serve his purpose without any concurrent benefit to
us.
On the other hand, a major air strike or series of strikes, a major
air campaign, which would not take weeks but probably a matter
of days would put him back to where he was in March of 1991. We
would still have the problem of Arab opposition and probably the
problem of a European reaction. Indeed, possible problems in our
own country; but the results would be significant.
A major air campaign would take out his Republican Guards;
take out his air defenses again so that we could, without any prob-
lem, freely fly all over the skies; take out what was left of air
force; take out his electric grid and his command and control proc-
ess. So, once again, the Iraqis, after 2 years of reconstruction,
would be back where they were in the spring of 1992.
Now that is going to get a message across not only to Saddam
Hussein, but more importantly, to the Iraqi people and moi
more im-
portant still, to those in Baghdad who can exercise leverage over
the decisionmaking process and the very existence of Saddam Hus-
sein.
So while there are downsides to both options, I would say that
if the challenge to the United States and to the United Nations is


65
such that the decision is made that military force should be used,
then it should be used properly. The force should be air, and it
should be—I hate to use the term massive, but in the context of
which I described it, I think you will understand what I am getting
at. We should go after legitimate military targets, but do it exten-
sively so that we once again cripple him and put him back to where
he was 2 years ago. That certainly will have an influence on his
behavior and possibly even his survival.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mick.
Tom McNaugher.
STATEMENT OF DR. THOMAS L. McNAUGHER, SENIOR
FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Dr. McNAUGHER. It is a honor to be here. I would like to say it
is a pleasure to be here, but it has long since ceased to be a pleas-
ure to talk about this subject. I doubt I am alone in feeling that
way.
I would like to have a statement inserted in the record. I finished
it last night.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, any statement by any of the
witnesses this morning will be inserted in the record.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. THOMAS L. McNAUGHER
DEALING WITH IRAQ: THE HARD PART OF DESERT STORM
There seems to be broad agreement that the most recent confrontation with Sad-
dam Hussein, this one over the right of U.N. inspectors to enter Iraq's agricultural
ministry to search for evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, was won handily by the
Iraqi president. The strong feeling is that the time for action has arrived; Saddam's
next misstep will provoke the use of force by whatever remains of the original coali-
tion that defeated Saddam's forces so handily over a year ago.
So we return to the hard part of Desert Storm—the continuing effort to "enhance
the prospects for stability in the region,” the murkiest of the goals set for coalition
forces nearly 2 years ago. By comparison, the liberation of Kuwait was easy; politi-
cal and military goals were the same, and achieving them required of conventional
forces precisely what they are designed to do-seize and hold territory. Having liber-
ated Kuwait, partially disarming Iraq in the process, we find ourselves still con-
fronting the prospect of instability. This is partly because Iraq is believed to retain
large forces and stock piles of destructive weapons, but also because Saddam himself
seems as volatile, devious, and unrepentant as ever.
It is no easier now than it was when the coalition deployed half a million troops
around the Gulf to agree on practical political objectives that "enhance stability” in
the region, or to relate military objectives to whatever political objectives one pre-
fers. The latter task is made more difficult still by the absence of most of the forces
available to the coalition a year and a half ago; at this point the only conceivable
military objectives are those that can be achieved with air power. If force is used
in some upcoming confrontation with Saddam, it will be in fundamentally different
ways than it was when Kuwait was liberated.
This is not to say that force should not be used in this case. It should and very
likely will be used, perhaps in the near future. But we ought to go into this with
limited expectations, and with a heightened understanding of the long-term under-
taking in which we and our allies are engaged.
Objectives
Amidst the substantial uncertainties that always surround the decision to use
force, those facing such a decision should at least be certain of what they want to
achieve. Objectives may change, but the only way to do this sensibly is to start with
a clear idea of original goals. In this case, and in sharp contrast to the situation
that existed as the coalition went to war in January 1991, there is no clear agree-
ment on goals. This makes a difference in choosing military objectives, as well as
in knowing when we have succeeded.
** relate military objectives to Whave her absence of me
eonit was whentant apons, but alse Iraq is
nise that and a ut still hateveves that half
Thi than it was whenfrontation wican be achieve at this point the most of the f pre-
Kuwait was libSaddam, it will be air power. If %conceivable


Disarming Saddam
Technically, we are trying to ensure Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions, espe-
cially Resolution 687, the formal cease-fire resolution, which calls for identifying and
destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and SCUD missiles, and the means
to produce such things. Although U.N. Resolution 687 calls for the elimination of
all such items, its legalisms can only be pushed so far. The intrusive inspection re-
gime that Resolution 687 established reflected the coalition's strength in the imme-
diate aftermath of Iraq's defeat. Yet the resolution calls for goals that could only
have been fully achieved by invading and occupying Iraq, things no one among the
coalition was willing to do. Thus, in reality Resolution 687 set up a negotiation in
which the coalition, under cover of the U.N., seeks to achieve goals it hadn't the
stomach to take when it could, while Iraq seeks to limit intrusions it hadn't the
strength to resist when the resolutions were first negotiated. At best, this negotia-
tion will produce the partial disarming of Iraq.
Seen from this perspective, it is hardly surprising that we come back, again and
again, to the possible use of force. It's not just that Saddam only understands force;
while this is true enough, it is difficult to imagine any Iraqi leader accepting the
intrusiveness of Resolution 687 (and other post-Desert Storm U.N. resolutions) with
equanimity. Rather, the whole basis for the resolution was force, pure and simple.
The balance of forces has changed dramatically since March of 1991. Not only have
most of the coalition's forces left the Gulf region, but the action has moved from Ku-
wait and the world stage into Iraq, where Saddam is better able to set the rules.
Under these circumstances, what is surprising, perhaps, is the extent to which
UNSCOM has been able to do its job. The commission has discovered and destroyed
parts of Iraq's weapons programs that were not known to exist before it began its
inspections. It has also destroyed at least some items that the coalition incorrectly
thought it had destroyed during Desert Storm. Even if UNSCOM were to disband
tomorrow, Iraq would be less well-armed than it was at the end of Desert Storm.
Two problems remain. First, important elements of Iraq's weapons programs-
missiles, nuclear production capabilities, and so forth-may still exist, carefully hid-
den from UNSCOM inspectors. Rolf Ekeus, UNSCOM's chairman, disagrees, argu-
ing recently that his inspection teams have now accounted for all but "a minor part”
of Iraq's weapons programs. Yet strong suspicions remain that Saddam has hidden
key components and production tools and, with U.N. inspectors operating on his own
turf, has been adept at screening what remains from U.N. personnel. There is no
way to know who is right, but I for one side with the skeptics, and thus find good
reasons to continue pressuring Iraq to comply with Resolution 687.
Second, it is becoming increasingly clear that disarming Iraq is not a road to sta.
bility in the Gulf, at least in the near term. Iraq will always be in a position to
seize Kuwait; population disparities alone make this fact incontrovertible. Saddam
himself is completely unrepentant; in particular (but not surprisingly) he has vehe-
mently rejected the newly drawn border between Iraq and Kuwait.
Short of going after Saddam himself-about which more in a moment—the situa-
tion calls for a twofold strategy. On the one hand, U.S. and coalition policy should
continue to support UNSCOM, using force if necessary both to destroy weapons sites
Iraq refuses to destroy and, more importantly, to coerce Iraq into granting U.N. in-
spectors short-notice access to all of Iraq. The goal here is to maximize the prospect
that, over the long haul, U.N. inspectors will stumble over information that leads
them to as yet undisclosed portions of Iraq's weapons programs.
On the other hand, the coalition needs a longer-term strategy to contain Iraq. The
Arab-Israeli peace process is surely part of that strategy, as are closer security ties
to the Gulf Arab states. It may be that as Iran rearms and reasserts itself in the
Gulf, Saddam will be forced to moderate his behavior toward his Arab neighbors;
this is essentially what happened during the Iran-Iraq war. But that day lies a
some distance into the future, if it arrives at all.
Toppling Saddam
To the extent that the stability problem appears to have less to do with Iraq's
arms than with Iraq's leadership, many Americans have concluded that stability can
only be achieved by toppling Saddam. President Bush led this charge from the mo-
ment he compared the Iraqi leader to Hitler (forgetting, perhaps, that it took the
invasion of Germany to finally eliminate Hitler). In the months since Desert Storm
it has become an explicit goal of U.S. policy.
Even if the logic of this policy were impeccable, however, the goal of toppling Sad-
dam faces the practical problem, with which by this time we are all familiar, that
Saddam is a survivor of the first order. Setting unachievable goals is of questionable
wisdom even when the goals are desirable. At the very least we might have pursued
this goal quietly rather than explicitly.
ition needs a weapons programinformation


69
available before Desert Storm, enhancing the coalition's ability to destroy such tar-
gets from the air. Given that confrontations between Iraq and UNSCOM inspection
teams will probably be the basis for using force, such targets no doubt should be
hit. Besides marginally disarming Iraq, however, these do little more than make the
point that the coalition is still willing to use force. That point needs to be made,
and making it may have a substantial motivating effect on Saddam. Because it is
a “minimalist" target set, however, he could take it as evidence of waning coalition
will.
Saddam's Protection
Key Iraqi forces protect Saddam himself; reportedly he just created a “presidential
Guard” unit, for example. U.S. officials have also referred to special police targets
relevant to Saddam's protection. Unquestionably these are the best targets, both for
motivating Saddam's compliance or for toppling him. Saddam knows this, however,
and it is my understanding that most of these forces are carefully dispersed, de-
ployed to populated suburbs of Baghdad, and otherwise protected from air strike.
It's not clear what targets remain in this category. But those that do should be top
priority.
Military Targets
Two general distinctions are worth making here. The first is between what I call
"one-time" targets (ammo dumps, air defense sites, etc.) and “process” targets
(roads, bridges and other targets usually associated with interdiction). The latter
usually have to be hit repeatedly to sustain the desired effect. Concern with commit-
ments and casualties would seem to favor fixed, one-time targets, at least margin-
ally—these can be hit by cruise missiles, and once hit they can't be rebuilt or re-
placed.
The second and more important distinction is a geographical one, between targets
associated with Iraq's general military power and those specifically engaged in the
north and south. Within limits, strikes on general military targets represent a cost
to Saddam, and may also encourage the military to try, yet again, to overthrow him.
But such strikes could also strengthen Saddam, at least in Baghdad, if they support
dissidents and thus imply to citizens of Baghdad that the coalition has chosen
(again) to encourage civil war. Insofar as the military is likely to help hold Iraq to-
gether should Saddam actually fall, at some point weakening it increases the
chances of chaos and balkanization. Although we are a good ways from damaging
Iraq's military sufficiently to induce civil war, to be on the safe side the coalition
should strike forces around Baghdad before it goes after forces chasing down Shiites
in the south. It could also attack sophisticated weaponry that has little to do with
Iraqi cohesion-air defenses, for example.
I realize that what I'm saying here runs against the current thrust of U.N. con-
cern with the security of Shiites in southern Iraq. Humanitarian considerations
alone make it necessary to consider possible military action against Iraqi forces now
squeezing the Shiite community. If force is to be used in this case, however, the op-
eration ought to have full Security Council approval. The use of force should be part
of a broader political effort to tie the Shiites, and the Kurds as well, into a different,
but nonetheless whole, Iraq.
Infrastructure
Many of Iraq's bridges, railheads, roads, generators, refineries, and so forth, were
hit during Desert Storm. Many have been rebuilt. All are vulnerable. Nonetheless,
I think these targets should be off limits. I question whether the coalition needed
to hit as many of these as it did during Desert Storm, but at least then such strikes
were arguably part of a broad campaign to "decapitate” and cut off forces in Kuwait.
Hitting such targets now would hurt innocent Iraqis, which is not our purpose, and
is something Saddam would no doubt turn to his advantage.
Conclusions
Although I think force should and probably will be used against Iraq, it should
be clear that I am not entirely comfortable with the prospect. Coalition goals are
complicated, and in some cases internally contradictory. The forces available are not
entirely appropriate, and will be used in different and probably less decisive ways
than was the case during the liberation of Kuwait. Targets are few and difficult to
hit. All of these factors make me considerably less optimistic about the use of force
in an upcoming confrontation than I was about Desert Storm itself.
At the very least the Nation's political leadership could do a better job of explain-
ing the strategic context in which military operations will occur. We are engaged
in a long-term effort to fit Iraq peacefully into its place in the Gulf. U.N. resolutions
provide tools for doing this, but they are blunt instruments at best and virtually
66–736 0 - 93 - 4


70
every one of them has the potential to backfire. The effort may never topple Sad-
dam, but more importantly it won't end—and may even become more difficult-if
he suddenly falls.
All of this is bad news, especially in the aftermath of a quick, decisive, and almost
painless victory. So the administration tends to handle the engagement a day at a
time, implicitly sustaining the emotionally satisfying notion that Saddam is the vil-
lain, and Saddam's fall is the solution. The danger is that by doing so it risks the
collapse of public support for U.S. and U.N. efforts in Iraq just when it may be need.
ed most.
Dr. McNAUGHER. I brought it in on a floppy only to discover none
of my computers at Brookings would read it. The lesson, I presume,
is that high-tech worked for Desert Storm but it still doesn't work
for me. I will get it in tomorrow and would like to have it in the
record.
I entitled my statement “Desert Storm II: The Hard Part.” It
seems to me that we tend to see what is going on now as separate
and distinct from the war we had a year-and-a-half ago.
Yet, I think it is simply the tough, murky hard part of an under-
taking we set in motion with that war. The easy part of Desert
Storm was liberating Kuwait. Political and military objectives were
coincident, and achieving them asked conventional forces to do
what they are supposed to do, namely seize and hold territory.
There was never any question we could retake Kuwait.
The hard part of Desert Storm fell out of that other goal the
President set, that of enhancing the prospects for stability in the
Middle East.
It seems to me that defeating Iraq, destroying part of its mili-
tary, helped enhance the prospects for stability, but was simply a
necessary rather than a sufficient condition for ensuring stability.
Iraq still seems to be reasonably well-armed, while Saddam is as
unrepentant as ever and rejects any formal settlement, not to men-
tion any formal demarkation of the border with Kuwait.
So we are returning, once again, to Desert Storm when we talk
about using force. But it is a hard part of Desert Storm because
there is no direct physical connection between strategic objectives
and the use of force. To make matters worse, the forces that I think
would be appropriate for doing what we really need to do aren't
even in the region any more.
I am not saying we shouldn't use force. I will talk about how to
use it in a moment. But I do think we ought to work harder to set
the political context here, and to make clear to the American peo-
ple that this is a long-term engagement with Iraq. Using force once
or twice doesn't change the problem, and might make it worse. So
there is going to be a requirement for long-term support for what
is going on here.
Let me talk a little about objectives. It seems to me that when
you get into the question of using force, inevitably everything is un-
certain. War has a logic all its own once you set it in motion. You
never know where it will go.
My sense, from studying military history, is that the one thing
you ought to be sure of is what you are trying to do. We had a con-
sensus on a clear objective in Desert Storm the first time around:
liberate Kuwait. Not surprisingly, when you talk about enhancing
stability it is harder to get a set of objectives that are clear and
unambiguously good.


71
We seem to be pursuing two different kinds of objectives; nobody
separates them very much. The first and very modest objective is
to disarm Saddam. It seems to me this is what Rolf Ekeus is seek-
ing.
At best, we can partially disarm Saddam. Resolution 678 calls for
the complete disarmament in terms of his weapons of mass de-
struction, but you can only get so far with legalities. In the end,
it seems to me, 687 reflects the strength of the coalition in the im-
mediate aftermath of the war but also its weakness. It specifies ob-
jectives you can only get if you are willing to go in and occupy the
country the way we occupied Japan after World War II. Nobody
had the stomach for that.
What we have in 687 is the basis for negotiation where the coali-
tion tries to get things that it didn't have the stomach to take when
it could have and Saddam tries to resist a set of intrusio
couldn't resist in the immediate aftermath of Desert Storm. It is
not surprising that we keep coming back to the use of force. The
whole thing was born out of a balance of force which has changed
since then.
As controversial as Mr. Ekeus has become, we ought to have a
few cheers for the Special Commission. Despite the radical change
in the balance of force—the removal of most of the coalition's power
from the region-Iraq is less well-armed today than it was on
March 1, 1991.
Two problems remain. Although we don't know what we don't
know, I remain fairly skeptical of the notion that we have discov-
ered all but a minor part of Iraq's capabilities. My own sense is
that Saddam may very well have snookered the Special Commis-
sion, successfully screening it out of important parts of his arsenal.
The second problem is that even if the UNSCOM mission contin-
ues, Iraq will still be a threat, especially to Kuwait. Take away the
special weapons and there still is a problem there, built into the
demographic disparities of the region.
If our objective is to disarm Saddam, we ought to use force in
limited ways that make the point that the coalition is still there.
But we shouldn't disrupt the elaborate inspection regime Ekeus
has created over the last year.
The broader strategy ought to be that of containing Iraq, and
that means more visible security ties with Saudi Arabia and Ku-
wait. Maybe, over the long term, a reemerging Iran will give Iraq
enough of a problem to its east that it will behave more moderately
toward its major Arab neighbors. I think that is what happened
during the Iran Iraq war, and it may happen again. But that is a
long way off.
The other goal that people are pursuing, of course, is Saddam's
fall. That is Mr. Bush's policy, has been for quite sometime, and
so it is a U.S. goal. I think the world would no doubt be a better
place without Saddam.
Still, I see two problems. One is that it is very hard to get him.
Frankly, even if you wanted to get him I wondered why we had to
set this goal so explicitly. It makes no sense to set explicit,
unachievable goals. We could have done it quietly, but that wasn't
the way the President chose.


73
What this means is that on the margins where there is a debate
about whether we should go ahead and do something unilaterally
or wait for some kind of U.N. authorization, I think we have to
take the latter option.
This has less to do with Resolution 687 where I think the lan-
guage is pretty clear, than with Resolution 688, which opens up a
whole different venue of approaches to Iraq-human rights, ethnic
minorities, and so forth. The relationship of this resolution to the
cease-fire resolution and its relationship to the authority to use
force are not clear.
I think we need a U.N. resolution to support the use of force
under those particular incidents.
A note on capabilities. My feeling is that, insofar as we are try-
ing to get things that really can only be gotten by invading and oc-
cupying, ground forces are the appropriate force to achieve these
objectives. But they are gone, they are not going to go back. Nobody
wants that kind of commitment or casualties.
We will use air power. That sounds well and good because it did
so well in Desert Storm. Still, I would raise two qualifications.
First, my own personal feeling is that we are beginning to dis-
cover that air power wasn't quite so effective as we thought, espe-
cially in the close air support role. I was in Desert Storm as a mo-
bilized reservist. I was in the Army. We thought the air force was
just taking out the Republican Guards day after day. The more I
hear, the more people I interview, the more I talk to people in-
volved, the less I think that is true.
Part of the reason, is that the Republican Guards were dug in
and defended by guns. We have always had trouble with guns. You
can't spoof them. You can't blank them out. What that forced us
to do was lift the offense up to 10,000 feet, not what I call close
air support, and use B-52s which were never good for taking out
dug-in armored units. We ought not get too carried away with air
power.
The more important point is this: In Desert Storm, in January
and February of 1991, we used air power to physically effect the
achievement of our goals. We decapitated Iraq's force posture, de-
stroyed Saddam's forces, cut logistics off, physical things that al-
lowed us to take Iraq and take Kuwait back.
Except for a very few targets, what we are using air power for
here is compellance. We are going to hurt somebody until they do
what we want them to do. It is a fundamentally different game and
one with which we have had fairly mixed results. From bombing
during the Vietnam War we learned that we had less tolerance for
inflicting pain than North Vietnam's leadership had for absorbing
it.
I'm not sure that is true of Iraq. Given the way Saddam backed
down over the last several months, I think air strikes probably will
be effective. But we ought to recognize that we aren't physically
going in and taking anything. The gap between what we will do
and what we want to do could lead to failure, a lot of public frus-
tration. Nobody has made this point.
As for targets, I would list four kinds. I am not real comfortable
with General Trainor's notion of a comprehensive campaign. On


74
the other hand, I understand his discomfort with sort of picking
and choosing targets.
Let me list the targets and talk about how to put it together.
The first targets are those directly associated with the UNSCOM
mission. IAEA officials have been quoted as saying that there are
several targets identified for destruction that haven't yet been de-
stroyed. If you get rid of those, you make the point that they are
what is provoking us at the moment. You also make the point you
will use force. I cannot see not going after those. The problem is
that taking those out alone doesn't change the situation at all.
My second and actually top priority targets are the forces that
directly protect Saddam or that can be related to his personal secu-
rity. There are special military units. He created a Presidential
Guards unit a few weeks ago. There are also police units and po-
lice-related targets that can be hit. Hitting these targets imposes
a direct cost on Saddam. Either they motivate him to cooperate
with the Special Commission or maybe they weaken him and lead
to his fall. They don't penalize Iraqi society.
The problem is, of course, that Saddam knows this, too. Those
forces are fairly well dispersed. They are deployed to suburbs
where collateral damage is likely to be high. These are hard targets
to get. Still, I think they are very much worth going after.
The third priority is military targets. I already suggested I don't
think we should go after targets that weaken Iraq's cohesion. I
would rather start with Baghdad and work out.
Let me be clear, I don't think we are anywhere close to weaken-
ing Iraq to the point of civil war. I think the military has reassem-
bled itself. We are not dealing with the immediate aftermath of
Desert Storm and a fragmented military.
There is plenty of bombing that can be done on Iraq's conven-
tional forces that can raise the pain in Baghdad and create incen-
tives on all sides. I think, though, that at some point if you go after
forces that are related to holding Iraq together, you risk chaos. You
also risk strengthening Saddam's hand in Baghdad. That is what
I think happened in March and April of 1991. I would start in Bag-
dad and work out.
Fourth, infrastructure. Here I think General Trainor and I prob-
ably do have a disagreement. I was uncomfortable with the extent
to which we destroyed Iraq's infrastructure in Desert Storm. Presi-
dent Bush made the statement all along that he wasn't at war with
the Iraqi people, but was at war with Saddam. When you looked
at Baghdad after Desert Storm it sure looked like we were mad at
everybody.
You can justify hitting infrastructure in the name of decapitating
the military of Iraq. But that is not an issue now. I think infra-
structure-bridges, roads, electric facilities ought to be off-limits.
That is not what we are about. I think in the end if we do a com-
prehensive campaign that includes those targets, it would strength-
en rather than weaken Saddam. At this point I don't think the
Iraqis are going to blame Saddam for their problems; I think they
are going to blame us.
In conclusion, it ought to be clear I am pretty uncomfortable with
using force in this situation. That is all right. I am never com-


76
those elements of the apparatus that are clearly identified with his
personal power structure.
For instance, it would be preferable to target those elements of
the Republican Guards and the elite security forces who guard Sad-
dam Hussein rather than those elements of the army who are, at
best, passive supporters of the regime and who might, under the
right circumstances, be encouraged to join in a coup d'etat or a
counterrevolution.
Every effort should be made to destroy the remaining Iraqi air
assets, though destroying Iraqi helicopters may be difficult. It
would be unwise, in my judgment, to bomb Iraqi supply routes in
and out of Jordan and Turkey since foreign civilians might be
killed.
Every effort should be made to avoid targeting civilians or any
installations that have predominantly civilian applications, such as
the electrical grid system. The exception would be Iraqi television.
We do not want Saddam's face grinning on TV the day, or the
week, after new attacks.
There is no guarantee that a sustained and accurate bombing
campaign will dislodge Saddam Hussein from power. Other
downsides of military operations are well known. We might take
casualties and/or kill innocent civilians. There would be a high cost
to the war, both politically and financially.
Important allies such as Turkey and Egypt might oppose us.
Saddam might be tempted to launch some of his remaining Scud
missiles at Israel. On the last point, I think he will think twice
since I believe this time Israel would probably intervene. Israeli
forces could do a very devastating job against Iraq's western areas
without much reaction from the Arab world at this point in time.
There can be little doubt that the systematic destruction of
Saddam's military infrastructure will eventually weaken him, per-
haps decisively. Furthermore, this will make it much more difficult
for him to mount operations in both the south against the Shiites
and in the north against the Kurds. This, in turn, will strengthen
the abilities of both these groups to resist the Iraqi regime.
If President Bush does send ground forces, the political objectives
of this proposed strategy should be Iraq's complete and total ac-
ceptance of all U.N. resolutions, the opening up of all facilities to
U.N. inspectors, including American inspectors, and the expropria-
tion of seized Iraqi assets to be provided to the Iraqi Na Con-
gress.
But most important, the United States public would need to be
told what the objectives are and that limited air interdiction of the
type I have suggested does not precede the use of ground forces.
While a ground invasion of Iraq is the only assured way to rid the
country of Saddam Hussein and be certain he has no weapons of
mass destruction, such an operation runs huge risks and could well
become a quagmire.
Finally, I believe that the removal of Saddam Hussein would
make a huge difference to the future of the region and would be
a very positive one. I am not too worried about the future stability
of the region once Saddam is gone.
There are political dynamics now at work throughout the region
that, while we can clearly focus on the downsides, I would take a


77
more optimistic view. I believe that to the extent that Saddam
Hussein is analogous to Adolph Hitler, the sooner he is removed
the better. We will worry about post-Saddam when the time comes.
An Iraq without Saddam cannot be worse than the current situa-
tion.
Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Geoff. Thanks to all of you.
Let me begin by asking a question to follow up on something
Tom McNaugher said.
ould define the question on the use of force here slightly dif-
ferently than you did, Tom. One use of force is toward enforcement.
If you are being blocked from getting into the Agricultural Min-
istry, you push your way into the Agricultural Ministry. That is
fraught with lots of dangers, et cetera.
The other is the attempt to be a little more distanced from what
you called compellants, or what I would call punishment. That is
where you go hit here with the objective of forcing an action over
there.
I guess I am asking the panel to think about that for a little.
That is essentially what we are talking about. Is there a way to
use military force to hit a set of targets which will, as a punish-
ment for not complying with, or a compellance toward enforcing,
U.N. resolutions 678 and 688?
How does it work in this case? How does it work in other cases?
It seems to me that this is the kind of thing we are talking about
in the “New World Order.” Can you tell me examples in history
where it has worked, where it has not worked?
To draw other parallels, we are looking at the same thing in the
Serbia-Bosnia case. Is there a list of targets you can hit in Serbia
that would force them to stop supporting this action in Bosnia?
Is there a set of targets that you could hit in Iraq that will force
the government to abide by 688? Was a similar case the set of tar-
gets we hit in Libya to force the Libyan Government to desist from
conducting its terrorist operations?
In other words, you are hitting a set of targets over here to force
some action in a different arena, if you see what I mean. Talk
about that whole concept.
Of course, each of these things will be different because Saddam
Hussein, of course, is pretty well isolated from his people. Thus,
you can pound the Iraqi people pretty badly and it will not affect
Saddam Hussein's decisionmaking process. That may not be true of
Mr. Milosevic in Serbia. Talk about this concept. At the core it
seems that is what we are dealing with here.
General TRAINOR. Well, I think the closest parallel we have is
the one that you mentioned with Libya, where we were dealing
with terrorism. By hitting some targets in Libya, we appeared to
have put the damper on not only Libyan terrorism but terrorism
out of Syria and Iran.
Generally speaking, though, when the United States uses mili-
tary force, it is not that sophisticated in its use. We usually use
military force for direct reasons, but they sometimes have indirect
results, such as you allude to. Another one, in the context of this
sort of philosophy, would be what we did in Grenada. That was


78
only partially aimed at Grenada. It had a wide influence on other
places in the Caribbean like Surinam and most of all on Cuba.
There are some kind of weak parallels but I don't know that
there are any historical examples in the American experience that
directly relate to your question. In terms of the experience of other
nations, there may be some but I can't put my finger on them.
Maybe some of my colleagues could point to those.
Dr. KEMP. I quite agree with General Trainor, that the Libyan
analogy is worth pursuing a little because I think that that oper-
ation did have a very sobering impact, not just on Libya but on
other radical countries in the region.
Saddam Hussein is beyond the capacity to be influenced by a sin-
gle strike on one set of targets. It would take, as I suggested in my
testimony, days, if not weeks, of bombing to have the same effect.
One comparable historical situation is the classical gun boat di-
plomacy, where the gun boat was used to threaten one or two key
installations that are of particular value to the leadership. After
all, what is at stake here for Saddam Hussein is his life. One of
the reasons I believe he was probably deterred from using chemical
weapons during the war, other than possible technical reasons—we
now know he could never use them—was that during Desert Storm
there were two events that could have cost him his life. One was
to use chemical weapons against allied forces in the desert, in
which case we would almost certainly have gone to Baghdad. Sec-
ond, would have been to use chemical weapons against Israel,
where I think under those circumstances the Israelis might have
used nuclear weapons.
The strategy has to threaten those targets which are most likely
to make Saddam believe he is going to be killed or those imme-
diately close to him are going to be killed. In other words, a decapi-
tating strategy. That is why I think very selective targeting around
his own entourage is the preferable approach.
The second, broader message of military force has to reach the
Iraqi people and those Iraqis who still are part of the regime but
are wavering. The signal should be that they can expect nothing
but pain and suffering as long as Saddam is around, but that if he
is removed and a new regime comes to power, there are extraor-
dinarily positive prospects for their future. Iraq is a very rich coun-
try and there is no reason it could not bounce back in a matter of
years if Iran had a different regime. Those are some of my initial
ideas.
Dr. McNAUGHER. Let me return to the issue. It is an important
issue.
It seemed to me as I was thinking this through, the number of
enforcement targets—and that is a good way to say it—that are ac-
cessible to air power, is very, very limited. Those are the things
that really have to be, you have to invade, occupy and take them.
Yes, you can send a special forces team in to destroy anything.
Getting them out—Colin Powell usually likes to have an armored
corps to handle that, and, frankly, I am with him on this. I don't
think that is on. So the number of enforcement targets is limited.
They ought to be hit, probably can be hit, with Tomahawks.
Punishment is a tough one. I am more skeptical of the Libyan
case, I guess, than my colleagues here. I thought that when we fi-


nally found the two Lockerbie bombing suspects in Libya, we were
saying, in effect, that bombing Libya in 1986 really didn't deter it
from terrorism. It simply went down another couple of layers.
I have a friend who follows the IRA fairly closely, and to the ex-
tent that he could find out what their funding from Libya was, it
went up, not down, after 1986. It just went through other channels.
So I have never felt that that history has been fully written.
But it did seem to me that the 1986 bombing did a lot less com-
pelling than we thought. Vietnam, I thought, was a failure, except
in the December 1972 case, which was a specific case. Maybe that
makes one point. You know, you don't compel without a very ex-
plicit set of directions as to what the compelled party, the object
of this attack, ought to do to get out from under it.
Geoff Kemp really said it right. What we want is specific compli-
ance. We may want to topple Saddam, but specifically, we want
compliance with U.N. resolutions. So you make that clear.
I think you have to have a better understanding of the domestic
politics of the country involved than we have of Iraq. I am over-
whelmed by our uncertainties about how this country works. In the
case of Melosevic, I think to the extent one can understand, one
can put together a theory, a little more pressure on Serbia could
change his political base enough to get him out of supporting the
Serbs in Bosnia.
I don't know how to get leverage over the Serbs in Bosnia, and
I don't think anybody can say what we want Bosnia to look like
when all is done. But, again, my understanding of the politics of
Melosevic, says compellance might work.
Geoff is right, we want to maximize the pain and the threat to
Saddam. I would argue we want to minimize the pain and threat
to the Iraqi people. Sanctions are making them miserable enough.
The unfortunate fact is sanctions punish the innocent until they
work. So we have done enough to the Iraqis. I think we should aim
right at Saddam to the extent that we can.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.
Mr. SKELTON. I think, Mr. Chairman, your question is an excel-
lent one. Finally, as we came forth with the Hanoi bombing of De-
cember 1972, which brought the Hanoi Government back to the
bargaining table, the glaring example of enforcement targets es-
capes everyone, but it worked. Two targets, Hiroshima and Naga-
saki. It saved the United States of America from having to forcibly
invade Japan. It worked. It worked there in a very massive way
but it worked.
I think we need to find out what is an enforcement target and
give it some thought.
The CHAIRMAN. Floyd.
Mr. SPENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you gentle-
men. It is always amazing to me to see experts disagree. It makes
me feel a little more comfortable.
But the big question I think we must consider here is not wheth-
er something should be done; I think we all agree something should
be done. The big question we have not really resolved is whether
we should do it under a new U.N. resolution, as Mr. Kemp sug-


stake in, which the U.N. particularly has a stake in. It is important
to get the support of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, primarily because of
his influence in the Arab world and in Africa.
I think a new U.N. resolution would make it much easier, as
Tom suggested, for Turkey to support allied or U.S. action. It would
be easier for the Egyptians. I quite agree the Saudis don't need any
pretext. They want to get rid of Saddam Hussein. So for a host of
reasons, I think we should pass a new resolution, and I think we
have the clout to do it.
The CHAIRMAN. Norm Sisisky.
Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Trainor, when you talked about victory through air
power and, of course, we would probably have some losses. One
thing you didn't mention is our missile capability, such as the
Tomahawk missile. I think they were successful in about 70 per-
cent of the strikes. Of course, it is picking out targets that can
weaken his military, knock out his command and control. He may
have gotten smarter by doing something different now.
Someone mentioned that knocking out his TV capabilities would
not bring too much pain to the Iraqi public.
But I am sure there are other types of things. Someone men-
tioned that by knocking out Iraqi's ability to ship oil through Jor-
dan, you would kill a lot of innocent foreign nationals on that road.
but of course you could declare that area free in certain times and
use our missile capabilities. Is that a possibility from a military
standpoint?
General TRAINOR. On your first point, I subsumed weapons like
Tomahawk and cruise missiles in talking about air power.
With regard to the border, we do have the parallel with what we
did in Haiphong. In Haiphong, we put some mines in there and it
shut them down in North Vietnam. Something that we probably
should have done much earlier in the Vietnamese war, but we were
reluctant to do it.
You could do the same thing on land along the Jordanian border.
You could seed the border with mines on the Iraqi side, along the
route that goes to Baghdad and keep it seeded. People who violated
the embargo would be at risk if they tried to go through a mine
field.
That is an option, but I really think that is kind of nibbling on
the edges. It is going to be something that you would have to con-
tinue to go back and make sure that your seeding is updated. But
it is one of the options that could be considered.
Mr. SISISKY. Do you think that if we attacked from the air that
this would provoke Saddam Hussein to use Scud missiles against
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, and other targets in the area?
General TRAINOR. There is no telling what goes on in Saddam
Hussein's mind. He has befuddled us many times in the past by
not acting with Western logic, so I wouldn't presume to answer
how he would react to it.
But applying Western logic, I would say that is probably the last
thing that he would want to do, because then he surely would
know that the reaction to that clearly would sweep him from
power. But, again, the man does some strange things.


83
them to drill. The market is such that it will depress the price. So
in some sense that is a blessing in disguise.
But to take a limited amount of oil as kind of a U.N. support
fund would tend to think that the message to Saddam is, hey, this
in for the long haul, and the whole question whether he
drills 1.6 billion dollars' worth of oil or not is academic. The U.N.
has the funding to stay there and sit on Iraq and run the inspec-
tion regime, or whatever, and funding is no longer the problem it
has been. You would want to internationalize the decisionmaking
on that. I think 10 billion is too high, but it is an idea worth pursu-
ing.
Let me go back to a couple of the earlier issues you raised, if the
sanctions could be administered directly, they would not hurt the
innocent. All the food and medical care you want would get
through on the roads from Turkey and Jordan, and they would be
distributed fairly in Iraq. Stopping the traffic along the road to Jor-
dan gets back, in my mind, to hurting the innocent as well as the
guilty.
On the other hand, one could impose-again, with U.N. sup-
port-a much more stringent inspection regime either at Aqaba or
along the Jordan Iraq border, to let through those things that
ought to go through, food and medicine and to keep the weapons
technology and so forth out. One can do that, but on the ground.
Not with air strikes, mines or whatever.
One has to do that selectively or you get to a point where you
are just sticking it to the Iraqis as a people. I am not sure what
that does to Saddam's fate.
Last point. On cruise missiles, at a thousand pounds, that war-
head is not a huge bang. It is good against fixed targets, and we
have a lot more intelligence on those. I assume the Special Com-
mission is not diddling away its time. We have a lot more intel-
ligence on the fixed targets set. But then there are those mobile
targets where you will have to go in with aircraft.
There will be gun systems that make it tough to live below 4,000
feet, and you will have to accept casualties. So the Tomahawks are
going to be part of a much bigger air campaign and there is no way
to avoid taking risks with piloted aircraft.
Mr. SISISKY. One of the sanctions we don't have the liberty of
doing is taking Iraq's funds in banks around the world. Obviously,
we could take that money away. The problem is that that money
is collateral for loans and the banks would have to be the big los-
ers. That is why he is not pumping the oil, as I understand it. This
is one way to make him do it, I think.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Martin Lancaster.
Mr. LANCASTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you gen-
tlemen for your testimony.
Dr. McNaugher, in your statement you concluded by saying it is
going to have to be done. I wonder, first of all, if all of you believe
that military action is inevitable; and, if it is inevitable, to what
end? Is it simply to gain access to particular buildings that we
want to inspect? Is it to remove Saddam? Is it to punish Saddam?
What is the goal if that military action is inevitable?
Dr. MCNAUGHER. I guess I will start.


84
Well, I have felt since the summer of 1991, when the Special
Commission first started having these confrontations with Saddam,
that it was just a matter of time. The comments from General
Trainor, who mentioned Western logic, the last time I applied
Western logic to Saddam was July 1990 when I confidently pre-
dicted nobody could be stupid enough to invade Kuwait.
I think I was right, but nonetheless, I stopped using Western
logic. I think he will, as he did all through the crisis, over play his
hand at some point. At the moment, the question is, how does he
read the July standoff? My reading is that it was an accident when
the Special Commission sort of broke the rules that it had estab-
lished with the Iraqis, and Rolph Ekeus found himself crosswise
with the coalition. Saddam understood that, realized that we were
constrained from using force, and exploited the situation and won.
But it left us more anxious to use force now than ever before.
If I were Saddam, I would lie low for a while. Take the gift and
lie low for a while. My sense, listening to Hammadi and so forth
is, no, he sees July as just another sign of the West caving in. If
that is the case, we will see the need to use force sooner rather
than later.
Mr. LANCASTER. But to what end?
Dr. McNAUGHER. In my testimony, I talked about what we are
trying to do. We are trying to achieve compliance with the U.N.
resolutions. At the least, we are trying to do that. The way to do
that in a compellant fashion is to hurt Saddam while trying not to
hurt the Iraqis as a whole. So we want to go after Saddam,
Saddam's power base, as best we can. Not easy to pick a set of tar-
gets, by any means.
In the end, we shouldn't be surprised that we have to use force.
U.N. Resolution 687 was a result of the balance of forces. It is a
legal document but it has its basis in a balance of force which has
changed. To the extent we want to enforce 687, one has to remind
Saddam of the existing balance of forces and the force potential.
Rooted in this negotiation that we are carrying on with Iraq is the
implicit and explicit threat of force. Sooner or later one has to—I
suspect—we will have to use it.
Dr. KEMP. I think there are three very specific goals we are look-
ing for.
Mr. LANCASTER. Do you think it is inevitable.
Dr. KEMP. Do I think it is inevitable? Yes, as long as Saddam is
in Baghdad. I think the three goals are: First, compliance with the
Special Commission; second, compliance with the other U.N. reso-
lutions he is also violating; and, third, of course, to weaken his
power base.
I might add that one of the problems with U.N. Resolution 687
in retrospect is that it only deals with weapons of mass destruction.
It does not deal with Iraq's massive conventional forces, which are
the instruments Saddam is using now to maintain his power.
If 687 were being written today, we would want to put more stip-
ulations into that resolution, more analogous to the terms of the
Versailles Treaty against the Germans after World War I.
Mr. LANCASTER. General.
General TRAINOR. If he continues with his cheat and retreat tech-
nique, and forces us to the threshold of open defiance, I think we


87
If alternatively, Saddam is replaced by a military junta that con-
tinues the same type of behavior, then we have not really resolved
anything.
I personally believe that the latter alternative is unlikely. I think
there is enough anger and furry now in Iraq that once Saddam is
gone and the immediate power entourage around him is broken,
the country will be more ripe for a more representative govern-
ment; I may be wrong on this.
Mr. LANČASTER. Now, I believe it was Dr. McNaugher who indi-
cated that on reassessment, the air power we thought was such a
great success in the war was not as successful as we had thought.
Are there other reassessments taking place about other elements
e that we should be cognizant of, especially if future
military action is required? Were there parts that were more suc-
cessful than we thought or less successful. If we go back in, do we
use those lessons to our advantage?
Anyone. General.
General TRAINOR. Let me say I don't fully agree with Tom on the
air power issue. I think air power delivered pretty much what it
said it would deliver. I think there may be an interpretation. The
Air Force's approach was to go for the center of gravity, work in-
side and then out. They felt that the Iraqi field forces were the last
on the priority list, and that the command and control and the
leadership's capability to exercise command and control was the
target. They did that and then they effectively reduced the field
forces.
The goal was 50 percent of the field forces. They did not achieve
that, but it wasn't because of missing targets. The B-52s were not
really used against the tanks that were dug in. The Air Force tried
that and it didn't work. They used the B-52s on area targets, e.g.,
logistics bases. The Air Force used a very effective system of tank
plinking not with B-52s but with agile attack bombers.
problem was in getting bomb damage assessment. Two rea-
sons: The bad weather frequently obscured targets that had been
hit. Second, the cycle between hitting the target, getting the results
of the target in time to target for the next cycle, was out of sync.
These are fixable things. They are technical fixes.
But I think the lesson that comes out of the war with regard to
air power, was that air power was very, very effective given the
conditions and circumstances of the Gulf War. We had a lot of time
to build it up, a lot of time to get intelligence for the
and a lot of time to deliver the ordnance. So I think the air cam-
paign was a plus.
In terms of other lessons—there are lots of lessons, but I think
the general conclusion that emerged at the end of the war was the
perception that intelligence is enormously important and it can be
improved. Not only strategic intelligence but operational intel-
ligence. As for timely intelligence distribution-I think that needs
much improvement.
It was a high-tech war. What we achieved was largely due to the
effectiveness of our information systems which allowed us, even
with certain shortcomings, to know what he was doing, where he
was doing it, and when he was doing it. We knew what we needed
to know in almost real time and reacted to it. We also denied him
The


89
bacco in Kentucky? Where are we in this sane world today? I would
like to hear you all respond to that, if you would
General TRAINOR. Saddam Hussein, during the war, was a legiti-
mate target. He was part of the command and control infrastruc-
If we could have gotten him, I think we would have been very
happy to have done so. On one occasion, nearly did.
The reason he was not targeted specifically, as I understand it,
was not because Saddam Hussein was off limits as a target, be-
cause under the rules of war he was a legitimate target, but to lo-
cate him and get him would take an enormous effort with a low
likelihood of success. The man is a survivor. You don't want to
waste your assets on a mission of low probability.
His status is a legitimate target now would probably require an
international lawyer, unless some of my colleagues already have a
reading on it. I don't know whether he would be a legitimate target
if we resumed the air war. I would imagine he would be. We would
be resuming the war because he violated the terms of the cease-
fire and its subsequent U.N. resolutions. If we went after him, I
think it would be legitimate.
On the other hand, if we sent in a Clint Eastwood to deliberately
assassinate the man, I think because we are not actively engaged
in war with him, that that is against the law.
In short if he is killed during active military operations, he is a
legitimate target. I would ask my colleagues, perhaps, to develop
the other aspect of that.
Mr. HOPKINS. Dr. Kemp you said earlier that in your view, Sad-
dam Hussein seemed to react only when his own life was threat-
ened. So how would you feel about this?
Dr. KEMP. I don't think there is anything illegal about us provid-
ing assistance to resistance groups made up of Iraqis and other
countries conducting covert operations against Saddam Hussein.
That, I think, clearly would be the preferred route. I don't think
either Clint Eastwood or Ross Perot would get very far in Baghdad
these days. So the nature of covert operations would by definition,
I think, fudge the legal issues that surround us.
But as General Trainor said, the problem is we don't have a tag
on Saddam. No one knows where he is. So, short of bombing every
villa he is known to reside in until you have real time intelligence,
it seems to me, this is wishful thinking.
If he happens to be killed in an air strike, I see no problem with
that at all. But specifically targeting—I don't know enough about
real time intelligence to give you an answer to that.
Dr. McNAUGHER. I do appreciate your use of the word “kill.” One
tires of “neutralize," "overthrow," "topple," "remove,” all of those
surgically precise words. If Saddam is going to go, he is going to
die. I don't imagine he will land in Cuba and take up residence
there.
We are not going to do it, not because we are not trying, al-
though maybe we are not, but you could lose a lot of Clint
Eastwoods trying. Our strategy is to make the people of Iraq miser-
able enough that they will do it for us. I don't think that relieves
us of the responsibility for the aftermath, but it will be Iraqi blood
spilled in trying to get this guy. We will take casualties in any kind
of military action, whether it is aimed at Saddam or not. But I


90
think our strategy is primarily to pressure Iraq until somebody
gets rid of him.
You mentioned the little man. What I worry about is not that the
little man thinks we have to kill Saddam, but that the little man
nks that once you killed Saddam the problem is gone, and it's
time to come home and worry about deficits, infrastructure and in-
vestment. That is not the case, in my view.
Going back to August 2, 1990. I was always uncomfortable with
vilifying Saddam and I wonder what the world would be like if we
had been explicit about the difficulties of getting Saddam, accept-
ing responsibility for what comes next. I would have preferred to
vilify the invasion of Kuwait but not Saddam. I wonder if the world
would be different now?
But that is an academic point. The United States is firmly com-
mitted to toppling this guy. Fine. The world will be a better place
if it happens, but the problems of Iraq will not go away.
Mr. HOPKINS. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Byron.
Mrs. BYRON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Once again, it is interesting to compare today's panel with yes-
terday's panel. One issue that we spent a lot of time on yesterday
was the World Court and looking at indictments against Saddam
Hussein. No one has even touched or been close to that aspect
today; how different the views are.
I would like each of you to give me your assessment. Should we
have gone to Baghdad or should we have stopped when we did? Let
me do that first, if you will? Mr. Chairman, that could be a yes or
no answer.
Dr. McNAUGHER. There are two questions there. Should we have
gone to Baghdad? Absolutely not. If you think there is a problem
with Resolution 687, you would love the occupation of Iraq.
I guess when people say should we have stopped when we did?
I ask, did Mr. Bush stop the war before he completed the destruc-
tion of enough of Iraq's Republican Guards? When I came back
from the war, I thought the decision to stop when we did was right
because I assumed that air power had taken the Republican
Guards down at least by half, if not more.
Mrs. BYRON. Did your views change when you took the uniform
off or did they stay consistent?
Dr. McNAUGHER. No, my views have been fairly consistent across
here. But I did think that air power had really decimated the Re-
publican Guards. Today I'm no longer sure that that is true, and
if it isn't we may have stopped the war too soon. Not in terms of
going to Baghdad, but in terms of closing the pocket, as
Schwarzkopf said way back in March.
General TRAINOR. First, on the World Court. While we have not
discussed it here, there is no question this fellow is guilty of war
crimes and if we wanted to make an issue of it, we certainly could
make a strong case that he should be brought to trial. I don't think
there is any question about that. Why didn't we do it? I don't know
the answer.
Should we have gone to Baghdad? We went to Baghdad. We went
to Baghdad on the opening night of the war and continued to go


forceful, supportive participation that countries like Egypt and, to
a lesser extent, Syria demonstrated during Dessert Storm, no, I
don't think you will get that again.
What I think you could get, under the right circumstances, i.e.,
a new U.N. resolution and commitment by the key Europeans in
the GCC, is the neutrality of the other key Arab players and Tur-
key. What we want is for them not to put obstructions in the way.
Rhetoric. They may complain, but they are not going to do any-
thing against us, and that is important.
Mrs. BYRON. As we saw in the Libyan raid where France refused
to let us fly over?
Dr. KEMP. Sorry.
Mrs. BRYON. Obstructions as we saw when the French refused to
let us fly over their territory on the way to Libya?
Dr. KEMP. Oh, that is right, yes.
Mrs. BYRON. Mr. Chairman, I have one more question and that
is under 688. We talk about humanitarian assistance in the area.
Yesterday, the discussion was what if the American population
saw, on the nightly television, the horror stories of Bosnia-
Herzegovina? My thought process yesterday was no one is mention-
ing what is happening in Somalia.
Today is a different question, though. Today, according to the
Post's front page, there are horrible humanitarian problems. I don't
think that the current problems that we perceive and humani-
tarian problems in Iraq, as we saw with the Kurdish refugee prob-
lem a year ago, are there to make that kind of a commitment, and
I think the thrust today is looking at the Serbian problem and
looking at the Somalian problem. I hate to say it, but I think the
humanitarian issue in Iraq today is not on the front burner.
Dr. KEMP. Yes, I think that is true. I think it is tragic, though.
I personally think that the humanitarian issues in Iraq are so hor-
rendous and we have not even begun to explore them.
Most of the issues are still buried under the ground. If the sto-
ries that have come out from Amnesty International and other
groups that have been out there are true, systematic genocide was
conducted in the Kurdish areas during Saddam's rule when he con-
trolled that area. We are still only beginning to calculate the num-
bers. I think it is far worse than the situation in Yugoslavia.
But I quite agree with you that television is what seems to deter-
mine what areas we are interested in or not. The irony is that one
can go round to dozens of other corners of the world to—other parts
of Africa, Asia and Latin America—if you had a video camera, you
could come out with horror stories. But does this mean we will in-
tervene everywhere when something awful appears on television?
That is why, in my judgment, the important case to make with
Iraq-what is at stake here—is the United Nations' ability to inter-
vene in all these horror stories that are going on. We cannot do it
and we have to have some umbrella, international um-
brella, to deal with the New World order. Otherwise there is no
New World order.
General TRAINOR. I would agree with that. Right now with re-
gard to the Shiites and the Kurds, we are invoking the doctrine of
"limited tears.” You cannot cry for everybody, so we invoke it when
dealing with the plight of the Shiites and the Kurds in Iraq as we


93
do in Somalia and Nigeria. Even today in Afghanistan where a
thousand innocent people
Mrs. BYRON. I was going to bring up the African refugee camps
and the comparison with the refugee camps we saw in the early
1980s with Ethiopia versus the ones we saw in Pakistan, which
had an infrastructure. There was no question that they were quite
different.
General TRAINOR. They were, and we would just as soon not see
the misery in those places that we are seeing in Bosnia-
Herzegovina. We appear to be far more capable of ignoring those
areas because we don't see little white, fair-haired, blue-eyed ba-
bies being killed. Bosnia is seen in a European context, and the Eu-
ropeans are upset about this sort of thing. There are Eurocentric
overtones brought about by television coverage of those things tak-
ing place in Sarajevo.
Dr. McNAUGHER. I would note the article that Mr. Hamilton had
in the Post or the Times about a week ago. He suggested that it
is time we seriously take up the rather explosive notion that the
international community can intervene inside the state. I th
is time we think about that, even though there are enormous legal
and practical difficulties associated with that.
If that is the game we are playing here, then the U.N. Special
Commission is on the point of that inquiry. It is more intrusively
engaged in Iraq than any other U.N. or regional agency I can think
of. The stake here is not just Saddam's arms or stability in the
Gulf, it is the stake of an organization that is taking up new modes
of conflict resolution at a time when they cry out for resolution be-
cause of the pictures you are talking about.
So I return to Geoff Kemp's point and a point I made as well,
which is that there is a big stake here for the United Nations and
maybe that is the hook we hang public support on since we don't
control Saddam's TV, he is certainly controlling the photographs
out of southern Iraq, for example.
General TRAINOR. I would like to return to that point because we
are setting a tremendous precedent here. We are and have al-
ready done so-reinterpreting the classical Westphalian definition
of sovereignty. We are saying a prince is not sovereign within the
borders of his state. He has limited sovereignty when it comes not
only to interfering with his neighbors, but also in oppressing his
own people. The international community has a right to intervene
in both cases.
We did that militarily when we went into northern Kurdistan,
and we are doing it now under the terms of the U.N. resolution
governing the teams that are there. But this is setting a precedent
that is going to play throughout the 21st Century—the role of the
International Community and its right and perhaps, its obligation,
to intervene in an otherwise sovereign state for a larger purpose.
Mrs. BYRON. Do you think there is enough will to back that
precedent up?
General TRAINOR. I think it is a maturing process. I don't think
we are there yet, and it will probably come in fits and starts. But
certainly the trend line seems to be in that direction when you see
the direction we are going with U.N. peacekeeping forces.


96
think covert operations usually are illegal, against international
law.
There is nothing that says that a covert operation that does
something that is against the law basically is forgiven because it
is covert that I know of. Therefore, while you all are from very fine
institutions and you are great scholars, I would not expect you, off
the tops of your heads, to come forth with views at this point about
these legal questions. But it seems to me a covert operation is a
hidden operation and usually is illegal. That has to be looked at for
what it is.
The other thing is if we were ever at war in Iraq, it seems to
me that we are still at war in Iraq. I don't know what ended it.
We did have a declaration of war by Congress by the passage of
a formal resolution. After they passed the resolution saying Con-
gress should take action on it, they did take action on it in another
resolution within minutes afterwards. They went to war.
Who stopped this war? When did it end?
Dr. KEMP. I wish we had a lawyer here.
Mr. Chairman, the U.N. resolutions under which the House and
Senate voted and then we committed forces was to expel Iraq from
Kuwait. It seems to me when we met the terms of that resolution,
Iraq was expelled from Kuwait and there was nothing in the reso-
lution that talked about toppling Saddam Hussein or removing the
regime from Bagdad.
I think legally that is the fine line. I am not a lawyer. I will com-
ment no further.
Mr. BENNETT. I don't think the resolution—I may be wrong-
which was a declaration of war on the floor, which we debated, was
restricted to those resolutions. In other words, I think it was a res-
olution by the U.S. Congress that we were at war.
Well, anyway, it is no use to speculate about something that no
great study has been made about. But I am often irritated when
I hear people talk about covert operations as somehow or the other
that makes an illegal act legal. The fact that it is secret does not
make it legal. I talked to several Presidents about this. They didn't
have lawyers when we were talking about it to contradict what I
said.
Well, I don't want to trespass further on your time. It has been
kind of you to come. You have added a lot to the knowledge of the
Congress and this panel and our country. These are very perilous
and difficult times. We are all approaching this to see what we can
do to get the right result with the least bloodshed, and with the
least hurt we can accomplish.
It doesn't look very optimistic in view of the testimony we have
had as to an easy out. I hope that we can get some payoff of rep-
arations. They are owed under the cease-fire arrangement.
is where I think the money ought to go from the oil.
It ought to be something to bind up the wounds of that war. It
would be nice if we had that money to give benevolently some-
where else. But I am not really quite sure that is reparations when
you do that, when you think of another cause to give money to. It
seems there are enough causes to give money to that heal up those
wounds.


97
If any of you want to comment, fine. I am just complimenting you
on the fact you have come here. I hope we can find answers.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. We have to vote and we should go.
I do want to let Glen Browder ask a question if he has an oppor-
tunity.
Mr. BROWDER. Mr. Chairman, in light of the fact that we have
10 minutes to get over there for a vote, would it be in order for me
to articulate a couple of general questions and ask the panelists to
give us a response in writing as expeditiously as possible because
of the nature of the inquiry?
First, gentlemen, I would like to ask you to help us refine our
basic question, which is: Is 687 worth enforcing militarily? Our
chairman has written in today's paper that we allow the current
situation to continue at our peril.
Well, obviously it is in our interests to convince this rogue, this
outlaw, Saddam Hussein, that he has to live by the conventions of
a civilized country in the community of nations in the New World
order. That is very important. I would like for you to comment on
how much a peril are the chemical and biological weapons that the
inspectors are supposed to be finding and destroying?
I would like for you to comment on the relative importance of
that peril, not just enforcing international standards of the commu-
nity of nations. Second, if the chemical and biological weapons are
a major threat that needs to be addressed, have we passed the de-
cisive point of no return? Have we crossed the Rubicon?
What I mean by that is, is there any reason to continue to pur-
sue the United Nations inspections under the present cir-
cumstances? Some of us are pretty cynical about what they are ac-
tually accomplishing. If the threat of chemical-biological warfare
and capabilities is significant, is there any reason to continue that?
Another part of that second question is whether there is any rea-
son to continue any inspections under new arrangements? For ex-
ample, if Iraq-Saddam Hussein came back and offered to abide by
the U.N. resolution, have we passed the opportunity to find and de-
stroy the chemical and biological weapons and capabilities?
So I think both of those relate to the question of why is 687
worth enforcing militarily. I think the answer to the second ques-
tion will give us some direction about where we go in terms of the
inspections.
I will not ask you to comment now. These are both pretty impor-
tant to us as we anticipate what may be happening in the world
today or tomorrow or expeditiously.
So I would appreciate a response from you on that.
[The following information was received for the record:]
GEOFFREY KEMP'S WRITTEN ANSWER FOR THE RECORD
The United States has a major interest in pursuing successful arms control and
non-proliferation policies in the global arena. For this reason alone, the U.N. Secu-
rity Council resolutions calling for the dismantling of Iraqi weapons of mass de-
struction must be enforced rigorously with no equivocation or uncertainty. The Iraqi
case serves as an example to many would-be despots and proliferators. If the United
States and the international community fail to complete the inspections and weap-
ons destruction, other irresponsible countries will assume that the proliferation of
nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons does not have the highest priority of the
U.N. The Iraqi case serves as a precedent. The military option may be necessary
to demonstrate that the United States and our allies are serious about both disarm-


98
ing Iraq and deterring the growth of nuclear and chemical weapons programs
around the world. Saddam is only one part of the threat. However, the best way
to assure compliance with non-proliferation regimes is an iron-clad enforcement
mechanism. That was clearly absent in the period leading up to Desert Storm.
Mr. BROWDER. I want to thank the chairman for allowing me to
get those questions in.
In light of the chairman having left, and I guess having left au-
thority with me to continue this on into the night, I will, on behalf
of the chairman, declare this hearing adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the panel was adjourned, subject to
the call of the Chair.]
66–736 (104)
AOO0021237553
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ISBN 0-16-040933-0

90000

A 0000212375!
917801601409332