Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti
Jerusalem Post Editorial
January 16 2001
A new policy on Iraq
(J 16) - When Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell faces his confirmation hearing today in the US Senate,
a =:.rc anniversary should be noted: Ten years ago this week Iraqi Scud missiles began landing in Israel.
Unfortunately, this anniversary has more than historic significance because the same Saddam Hussein that Powell
faced 10 years ago is there today and is likely racing to build a nuclear bomb.
An Iraqi defector has now confirmed the obvious, that once S~ddam was f~ of UN inspections, he ~ould resume
his nuclear program, which was close to fruition when Iraq mvaded KuwéUt, a .decade ago. Accordmg to Salman
Yassin Zweir, who was a design engineer for the Iraqi Atomic Energy C~mnusSl~~ for 13 years, Saddam gave the
orders to build a bomb two years ago. Zweir, who was tortured for refusmg to l'eJom the nuclear program, escaped
to Jordan and spoke out for the first time last month. "Saddam is very proud of his nuclear team," Zweir told the
London Sunday Trmes. "He will never give up the dream of being the first Arab leader to have a nuclear bomb."
During the Clinton administration, US policy toward Iraq eroded from a determination to prevent Saddam from
obtaining nuclear weapons through international inspections to an amorphous commitment to do something if
Saddam ever does acquire the bomb. But the collapse of the UN inspection regime did not invalidate the UN resolution
that created it, or the rationale of the Gulf War, for that matter. The Gulf War was fought not just to eject Iraq
from Kuwait but to prevent Iraq from threatening its neighbors. Accordingly, at the end of the war, UN Security
Council Resolution 687 invoked the binding section of the UN Charter (Chapter VIT)in requiring Iraq to unconditionally
accept "the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless" of its weapons of mass destruction programs and
ballistic missiles with a range over 150 kilometers.
The Clinton administration responded to the failure to enforce the international commitment to disarm Saddam
by abandoning that commitment. The Bush administration should revive the goal of disarming Saddam the only
way left to do so: supporting his removal from power.
The act of removing international recognition from an outlaw regime is not unprecedented: The Organization of
American States did so when it expelled the government of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and effectively recognized
the Sandinista opposition movement. The apartheid regime in South Africa was also essentially stripped of
its legitimacy by UN actions. The Milosovic regime in Yugoslavia was also treated as criminal one by the international
community.
Saddam Hussein's reign of terror against the Iraqi people and the proven threat he poses to the region make him
at least as clear a candidate for derecognition and removal than the unsavory regimes that the international community
has gathered against in the past. The task of the incoming Bush administration is to transform the means
of enforcement of Security Council Resolution 687 from inspections to a transfer of legitimacy from Saddam
Hussein to his democratic opponents. The US Congress has already earmarked $100 million for the Iraqi opposition
(most of which the Clinton administration refused to spend), and two supporters of this policy are slated to
become secretary and deputy secretary of defense. Even President Clinton decided last week to release $12 million
in humanitarian assistance for distribution inside Iraq by the Iraqi National Congress.
According to Sunday's Washington Post, however, Powell expressed "deep skepticism" about the opposition's
capabilities. Though it is obviously responsible for the US to question the viability of an opposition movement
before leaping to support it, those resisting support for the !NC generally argue what amounts to a self-fulfilling
prophesy. Outgoing National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, for example, claimed that "I don't know any countries
around Iraq who believe that's a viable option, that they could constitute a serious threat to Saddam Hussein
in that way." Such disingenuous arguments capture the fatallack of leadership that has been shown by the Clinton
administration on Iraq, and the dire need for a new policy by the new team. Obviously, Iraq's threatened neighbors
are not about to back the Iraqi opposition before they see a serious degree of support from the US.
A serious US policy of "regime change" for Iraq will require an astute combination of diplomacy and action, including
both unilateral and multilateral elements. If the secretary of state is not fully on board with such a policy, it
will be difficult for it to work. What we do know is that Saddam's nuclear agenda will not suffer such internal divisions.
Powell should be urged to put his considerable talents and experience toward making the emerging new
Bush policy toward Iraq work, rather than burying it in internecine American policy divisions.
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