The good news is that some clear thinking about U.S. policy toward Iraq has emerged from the muddle of the past few months. Responsible political leaders, outside the Clinton administration, have come to grips with the iron logic of the current impasse: If you want to save the United States and its allies in the Middle East from the scourge of chemical and biological weapons, you’ve got to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott cut through the nonsense last week: “If we’re going to do this, let’s go all the way. Until we get [Saddam Hussein] out of Iraq, we’re never going to get this situation under control.” Lott was not alone. In Davos, Switzerland, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told the assembled bankers and foreign policy establishment types, “We cannot tolerate a regime in Iraq which will develop weapons of mass destruction . . . [and] we cannot afford just a bombing campaign at the end of which [Saddam] makes weapons of mass destruction.” Eighteen prominent officials from past administrations, including former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and former undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, signed a letter on January 26 calling on the Clinton administration to adopt a strategy aimed at taking Saddam down.
Is this Republican posturing, as Sen. Joseph Biden claims? Hardly. The list of Democrats who support decisive military action to remove Saddam from power is growing. Last week, one of the most respected Democrats in the House, John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, declared, “Air strikes are not going to solve the problem. You have to put people on the ground if you really want to solve the problem.” Also publicly on board for a policy of removing Saddam are Sen. Bob Kerrey, Clinton’s former CIA director, James Woolsey, and former New York congressman Stephen Solarz. We hope more Democrats will go public in the days to come.
This is what is known as a growing bipartisan consensus, shaped not by politics but by the logic of the situation.
The bad news is that the Clinton administration, faced with the same logic, has gone wobbly. Until last week, President Clinton had repeatedly insisted that his goal was to “deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them.” This, we were told, was “the bottom line.” But meanwhile, Secretary of Defense William Cohen was acknowledging that the president’s planned air campaign could not “accomplish the complete elimination of his weapons of mass destruction.” And so, at his press conference last Friday, Clinton backed down from his earlier commitment. Now, he says, his goal is merely to “reduce and/or delay” Saddam’s capacity to deploy chemical and biological weapons. For how long? A month or two? This is a preemptive surrender by the president.
The facts are clear: Saddam is determined to obtain and someday use weapons of mass destruction, just as he has in the past. An air attack, even a big air attack, will not prevent him from doing this. Some Clinton officials suggest that an air attack could force Saddam to let the U.N. inspectors back into Iraq with full access to all sites. They’re dreaming. When the air attack ends, Saddam will demand the lifting of all sanctions and will announce the end of the U.N. inspections regime. Russia, France, and China will back him up, and the U.S. diplomatic position will be weaker than ever. Saddam will be the big winner, well on his way to strategic dominance of the Middle East.
The answer is not to define Saddam’s deviancy down, as the president did last Friday. The answer to the present conundrum — as we have been saying for two months — is to remove Saddam from power. That means being ready to use ground troops. We have the forces to do the job — if we deploy them. And the job might be easier than many think. Saddam’s army is weak and demoralized. Arab states are more likely to support a military operation that finishes Saddam off than one that leaves him in power, as dangerous as ever.
We know the Clinton administration doesn’t want to take this course, but here’s a modest suggestion: Shouldn’t the administration begin now to build up our ground forces in the region, if only as a matter of prudence? After all, what if the bombing starts and Saddam responds by trying to inflict serious damage on U.S. troops or our allies in the region? We would surely want to respond quickly and overwhelmingly — and part of that response might well include an assault on the ground.
Or what if the bombing actually starts to undermine Saddam’s control in Iraq? What if the Shia population in the south, the Kurds in the north, and the Iraqi National Congress rise up in response to the bombing and make a bid to topple Saddam’s regime? Won’t we want to be in a position to provide some assistance to them? Or will we watch them be crushed, again, by Saddam’s forces? It will take weeks to get sufficient ground forces to the Gulf to meet any of these contingencies — let alone enough for a full-fledged assault.
The time to begin moving those troops to the Gulf is now. After all, soldiers need to be recalled from leave. The reserves and National Guard need to be mobilized. Weapons stocks must be acquired. Transport ships need to be readied. Even if the president hopes never to use ground forces, they should be ready. Failing to move sufficient grounds forces to the Gulf now is plainly irresponsible.
Newt Gingrich put it well last week: “This is a real problem that requires a real solution, and incremental timidity which only punishes Saddam and leaves him in place to build weapons, is a defeat, not a success.” President Clinton’s policy of incremental timidity is now leading us toward an American defeat.
