DATE=2/3/2000
TYPE=ON THE LINE
TITLE=ON THE LINE: HOW DANGEROUS IS IRAQ?
NUMBER=1-00819
EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY - 619-0037
CONTENT=


THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Anncr:	On the Line - a discussion of United 
States policy and contemporary issues.  This week, 
"How Dangerous Is Iraq?" Here is your host, Robert 
Reilly.

Host:	Hello and welcome to On the Line. The 
United Nations Security Council recently approved 
a new plan for dealing with Iraq. The plan calls 
for the regime of Saddam Hussein to cooperate with 
new weapons inspections, with the promise of an 
eventual end to sanctions. Since December 1998, 
Iraq has not allowed U-N weapons inspectors into 
the country. Now, observers are worried that Iraq 
has used the past year to reconstitute its 
military capabilities. Iraq has responded to the 
U-N Security Council plan by saying that it will 
not accept the new U-N weapons inspectors.

Joining me today to discuss the danger from Iraq 
are three experts. Roscoe Suddarth is president of 
the Middle East Institute and a former U.S. 
ambassador to Jordan. Patrick Clawson is director 
of research at the Washington Institute for Near 
East Policy.  And Daniel Byman is a Middle East 
policy analyst at the Rand Corporation.

Host:  Mr. Suddarth, in trying to assess the 
danger that Saddam Hussein presents, we have to 
know something about his ultimate objectives.  
Back at the time of the Gulf War, when the United 
States and its allies liberated Kuwait, there were 
statements that, were he not stopped and had he 
the additional financial resources the Kuwaiti oil 
fields would have given him, Saddam was on his way 
to some kind of new Babylonian Empire. Nine years 
later what can we say about Saddam Hussein's 
objectives and the means he has of achieving them?

Suddarth: Well I don't think his objectives have 
changed. I think he still wants to dominate the 
Gulf.  He wants to be the primary Arab power. And 
they have the resources to do it -- the second 
largest oil reserves.  They've got ample water.  
They've got a well-educated population. So his 
ambitions have not been trimmed.  Otherwise he 
would have given up these arms that we've now 
tried for nine years to get from him.

Host:  But he wants to dominate the Gulf region to 
what end?  

Suddarth: Well, to be dominant. And what are the 
ends of people who seek power?  It's to have 
power.  It's to have hegemony.  It's to be able to 
call the shots.  It's to be respected, to be 
feared probably more in his case.  He lacks the 
means, the military means, but he is dearly trying 
to reconstitute them.  He still has -- Daniel 
Byman is much more expert on this than I am -- the 
most powerful army of any other Arab country in 
the region, except for Israel.  He's trying to 
reconstitute, obviously, his weapons of mass 
destruction.  Those are potent instruments.  
They're not as potent as the United States 
military force in the area. So one hopes that he 
would be deterred by it, but one can never be sure 
with a tyrant like Saddam Hussein.

Host:  Patrick Clawson, do you agree with that?

Clawson:  Yes, absolutely. There are no 
indications whatsoever that Saddam has backed off 
in the least.  After all, this is a man who has 
forgone well over a hundred billion dollars in oil 
income in order to keep up with these clandestine 
programs of weapons of mass destruction, which 
don't seem to get him a whole lot.

Host:  Why does he want them then?

Clawson:  This is a man for whom power is so 
important that he is prepared to sacrifice the 
well-being of the Iraqi people in order to have 
these weapons of great prestige, if not great 
power.

Host: How might he use these weapons if he had 
them?

Clawson: He would certainly use them to intimidate 
others, to bend them to his will.  It's 
conceivable that he would actually use them for 
war-fighting purposes, but I think that his first 
purpose would be to try to force others to 
accommodate him.  So for instance, in 1990, he 
used his potent military as a threatening tool, 
trying to extract tens of billions of dollars from 
the Arab oil producing countries.  So if he had 
weapons of mass destruction, I think he would try 
to extract tens of billions of dollars again from 
them.

Host: Daniel Byman?

Byman:  These weapons are also a prestige symbol 
for Saddam, both in the region and at home.

Host:  But so are hundreds of billions of dollars.

Byman:  I don't think he was thinking in 1990 or 
1991 that if he continued resisting the inspectors 
and defying the U-N, that nine years later 
sanctions would have continued.  What he was 
thinking was: if I get through the next three 
months, if I get through the next six months, then 
this will all end.  And this is common with 
dictators, where their survival is often so in 
jeopardy at home, that a long-term strategy is 
often not how they work.

Host:  Well, how dangerous do you think he is 
today?

Byman: Well today, fortunately, not very 
dangerous. But part of that is because sanctions 
remain, not exactly strong, but in place, in terms 
of weapons of mass destruction, to varying 
degrees.  If he were freed from the sanctions, he 
could rebuild his programs fairly quickly within 
several years and again pose a fairly substantial 
menace to the region.

Host:  What about the thirteen months he has had 
so far to rebuild without the interference of 
inspectors?

Byman:  There are two things that have held Saddam 
back from rebuilding his weapons.  One has been 
inspections, and as time has gone on inspections 
have become less and less effective.  Starting 
really in late 1997, we saw a decline in the 
effectiveness of the inspectors, until as you 
mentioned, in December 1998, they stopped 
altogether.  However, also stopping Saddam from 
rebuilding his weapons are sanctions.  That is, 
countries -- Russia, China, France, other 
potential suppliers of sophisticated technology -- 
have not been selling or have only been selling 
small quantities of precursors of items that could 
be used for these types of weapons.

Host: The new U-N Security Council plan for 
inspections, is this a sound plan that will keep 
the pressure up on Iraq? Or is it a move in the 
direction that Saddam Hussein has so wanted to 
see, that is, a lessening in the pressure, an 
inspection regime that is not as strict as the U-N 
Special Commission under Richard Butler was?

Suddarth:  Well, that's a good question.  The way 
he's acting now, if even Mr. Blix is not 
acceptable.

Host:  Hans Blix.

Suddarth: And Rolf Ekeus.  Everybody was surprised 
and appalled at the French veto of Ekeus, who was 
extolled as the model head of UNSCOM [United 
Nations Special Commission].  So it's very 
doubtful that Saddam will accept UNSCOM.  In which 
case, I would hope that the United States and 
others could point out that here he is depriving 
the Iraqi people of a loosening of the sanctions.  
Fortunately, the money will still be in the hands 
of escrow accounts.  He will not get his hands on 
it.  And weapons of mass destruction, there will 
not be military things that can be shipped in. So 
I would hope that it could be pointed out that, 
once again, he's depriving the Iraqi people of a 
lessening of sanctions.

Host:  But that doesn't seem to bother him.

Suddarth:  It doesn't seem to bother him. But who 
knows? We all hope that some spark is going to set 
off some kind of mutiny that could overthrow him.  
But it's not a happy situation.  It took a year 
for the Security Council to get this thing 
together.  They finally managed to pass it.  This 
could be tactical on Saddam's part, but I think we 
need more publicity about the fact that he is 
turning down something that could help the Iraqi 
people.

Host:  Do you find, Patrick Clawson, the fact that 
France, China and Russia vetoed the appointment of 
Rolf Ekeus a break-down in the coalition behind 
the sanctions, and for them to have said [that] we 
shouldn't appoint someone as the head of this new 
commission who is unacceptable to Iraq, a rather 
extraordinary statement?

Clawson:  Absolutely, especially because Ekeus, 
during the years that he ran UNSCOM, was very 
careful to keep fully informed the French and the 
Russians and the Chinese, and to seek their 
advice. And Ekeus was very proud that the U-N 
resolutions backing his activities, backing 
UNSCOM's activities, were almost always unanimous 
or close to unanimous, that he had strong support 
from the French and the Russians and the Chinese, 
who, after all, have an interest in seeing that 
these issues are decided at the U-N, and not 
decided by the United States, outside of the U-N 
framework.  So the fact that these three permanent 
members of the Security Council were prepared to 
say that Iraq has a de facto veto really seriously 
undermines the ability of the United Nations to 
ever implement arms control without the active 
cooperation of the member country. And let's be 
honest, Saddam is the kind of leader who's never 
going to cooperate with an arms control.

Host:  Daniel Byman, when Hans Blix was head of 
the I-A-E-A, the International Atomic Energy 
Agency in Vienna, they were unable to detect the 
secret nuclear weapons program that Saddam Hussein 
had underway until it was discovered after 
Operation Desert Storm in 1991.  Even if 
inspections are resumed under his leadership, do 
you have any confidence that they will make a 
difference?

Byman: The problem is not so much Mr. Blix, who, 
while he was head of the I-A-E-A, their mandate 
was so limited that there really was no chance for 
him to uncover secret weapons.  That's almost more 
a weakness inherent to the I-A-E-A than anything 
related to its leadership.  The deeper problem is 
that Saddam in the past, with superb inspection 
heads, has simply denied access, that whenever the 
inspectors get near a facility that he doesn't 
want them to see, he stops them with force often, 
restricting their access.  The question then 
becomes, what will the major powers do about it?  
And if the answer is nothing, no inspections team, 
no matter who heads it, is going to make any 
difference.

Clawson:  May I point out that Mr. Blix was also 
head of I-A-E-A when that agency indeed discovered 
a great deal of information about the clandestine 
nuclear program of North Korea, back in 1994-1995.  
So, that agency, and Mr. Blix himself, learned a 
great deal from the experiences with Iraq, and 
they adopted much more robust procedures.  For 
instance, they made use of intelligence provided 
by governments. And that's been key to the success 
of these kinds of inspections programs -- to be 
able to get intelligence.  It's been a very 
politically sensitive issue, and Mr. Blix has 
really taken a tough stance, saying that, while 
it's an international organization, they have to 
be prepared to receive secret information from 
governments that provides them tips of where to 
look.

Host:  Okay, let's say the Iraqi position remains 
the same, Mr. Suddarth, and they continue to say, 
no more inspections, we're not going to let anyone 
into this country.  How do the U-N and the United 
States respond?

Suddarth:  Well, again it's a difficult question.  
There was an obviously leaked report, a trial 
balloon in the New York Times yesterday, 
indicating concern in the intelligence community 
that he is indeed building these things up.  I 
think the Administration will be compelled to do 
something militarily.  It's also doubtful that 
they will get Security Council backing on this.  
We may have something again like Desert Fox.

Host:  The four days of bombing back in December 
of 1998?

Suddarth:  Saddam is a cunning person. I think 
he's going to try to complicate our electoral 
scene.  I think he will try to make trouble, and I 
would imagine the Administration would think it's 
best for us to get this thing done early before we 
get into the fall or the summer, with an intense 
thing that would politicize the debate on Iraq.  
So I think Saddam is going to cause us trouble.  I 
think we have to be ready to react, and I think we 
have to react strongly.

Host:  Do you agree with that, Patrick Clawson?

Clawson:  Yes. In other words, we should not be as 
concerned as we have been at some times in the 
past about holding together the U-N coalition with 
the Russians, the French and the Chinese because, 
frankly, that's not working. And we have to be 
prepared to take action on our own.  The paradox 
is that if we take the action on our own, we may 
well find that it's easier to gain some 
cooperation from the Russians, the French and the 
Chinese for addressing the question: what are we 
going to do next?  We have to go to those 
countries and say it's in your interest, just as 
it's in our interest to see that the United 
Nations is an effective body at solving 
international problems, and not just talking about 
them.

Host:  But what are the interests of France, China 
and Russia in respect to Iraq that they would not 
support a harder line against Iraq's obduracy?

Clawson:  Well, they have been concerned that the 
United States is really interested in seeing the 
overthrow of Saddam's government.

Host: And we have said that, have we not? 
 
Clawson:  Which is indeed our goal. And they have 
said that they're not sure that we would, in fact, 
ever be prepared to see the sanctions lifted 
unless Saddam were overthrown.  And that's not a 
policy that they support.  And for that reason 
they have been suspicious for some time about what 
U.S. intentions were with these arms control 
resolutions.  And one of the reasons that I think 
the United States went along with this new 
resolution was to say: look, we're prepared to 
walk that extra mile, to make that extra effort, 
to make an arms control regime work, and to see 
if, in fact, we can get arms control back on track 
with Saddam.  If Saddam shows that we can't, that 
is certainly going to reinforce the attitude of 
the United States that we have got to get rid of 
this guy.

Host:  Do you read the politics of the situation 
this way, Mr. Byman?

Byman:  To a degree. I'm actually a touch more 
cynical about the motives of some of the major 
powers.  I think that the Russians and the Chinese 
and the French have very strong commercial 
motivations.  I think that Saddam Hussein has 
probably cut sweetheart deals with them for their 
support.  Also all of them are very sensitive to 
the idea of the United States throwing its weight 
around.  And I think that Patrick has touched on a 
very fundamental irony, which is, they think we're 
throwing our weight around now, but if they 
abandon the U-N process, then they'll really see 
something -- which is the United States acting 
much more unilaterally, not consulting them on 
major decisions regarding Iraq.

Host:  You know at the time of Desert Storm, the 
Administration of President Bush said: we're 
sticking with the agreement with our Arab and 
other allies that this is an operation only to 
liberate Kuwait, not to remove Saddam Hussein.  
That wasn't part of the bargain.  And that, had we 
done that, we would still be in that region.  
Well, it turns out now that because he wasn't 
removed, we still are in the region.  There are 
no-fly zones in both northern and southern Iraq.  
There is the sanctions regime.  There is the very 
frequent bombing going on when Iraqi radar fixes 
on allied aircraft or fires a missile at them.  
How is the United States going to extricate itself 
from this situation successfully?

Suddarth:  Bob, I not sure I buy the premise of 
your comment there.  There's a difference of 
degree.  Yes, we are militarily involved, but it's 
a light involvement.  I happen to agree with those 
who were against going to Baghdad.  I think we 
would have taken thousands of casualties.  We 
would have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.  We 
may or may not have gotten Saddam, and we would 
still be there in military force and governing the 
country.  So I think this is the lesser of two 
evils.  I happen to think that containment is 
worth trying.  It's a policy that we kept up 
[against the Soviet Union] for fifty years.

Host:  Is Saddam in a box?

Suddarth:  He's definitely in a box, and if he's 
getting out of it, we need to rap his knuckles.  
But we also have to be cognizant of the suffering 
of the Iraqi people.  We've done well in the 
Kurdish areas, which administer themselves. 
They're prospering now, relatively speaking, but 
it is tragic. And so I think we're all conflicted.  
I'd love to see arms control on a hundred percent 
and sanctions off a hundred percent, but that 
doesn't seem to be doable.

Host:  Parting comment?

Clawson:  Iraqis are not hurting as much as the 
Iraqi government claims they are.  In fact, income 
in Iraq last year per person was higher than 
income in Syria.  Even with all the constraints on 
Iraq, it's still a country with such natural 
resources that it's been able to [remain] at a 
middle income level. And the suffering of the 
Iraqi people is certainly real compared to the 
income that they used to have, but still Iraqis 
are doing much better than people in most of 
Africa and most of South Asia.

Host: And Saddam has succeeded in smuggling an 
enormous amount of oil out of the country, hasn't 
he, Daniel Byman?

Byman:  Absolutely. In fact, this has been a 
source of revenue for the regime that has enabled 
it to stay strong at home.  It gives Saddam the 
money to buy off key supporters and at times to 
purchase selective weapons in a clandestine 
manner.

Host:  And this he does in complicity with his old 
enemy, Iran.

Byman:  Yes, along with his old enemy, the Kurds, 
along with almost every one of Iraq's neighbors.  
Everyone seems to be willing to look the other way 
in exchange for a small percentage of the deal.

Host:	I'm afraid that's all the time we have 
this week. I'd like to thank our guests - Roscoe 
Suddarth from the Middle East Institute; Patrick 
Clawson from the Washington Institute for Near 
East Policy; and Daniel Byman from the Rand 
Corporation - for joining me to discuss the danger 
from Iraq. This is Robert Reilly for On the Line.

Anncr:	You've been listening to "On the Line" - a 
discussion of United States policies and 
contemporary issues.  This is --------.







03-Feb-2000 16:13 PM EDT (03-Feb-2000 2113 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
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