DATE=5/5/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=JUDGING SADDAM HUSSEIN
NUMBER=5-46278
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:


INTRO:  Former President George Bush once described 
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as "Worse than Hitler."  
That was after the Iraqi leader had invaded Kuwait and 
the United States was preparing to go to war against 
him. At a recent Washington conference there was not 
much dissent from President Bush's impression of Mr. 
Hussein, but participants suggested that shunning or 
isolating evil is not necessarily a useful foreign 
policy. VOA's Ed Warner has this background report on 
the debate.


TEXT:  Saddam Hussein, still in power after years of 
effort to remove him, was the focus of discussion at a 
meeting of the Middle East Policy Council on Capitol 
Hill. 

David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute, a 
Washington based research institute, said Saddam 
Hussein is uniquely evil. It was not just a matter of 
his invading Kuwait.

            /// Wurmser act ///

      This is a man who waged war on his own people, 
      and he used gas to do so.  This puts him in a 
      very, very small group of people. That is really 
      a horrific thing to think about.  And that is 
      talking only about the Kurds.  We are not even 
      talking here about what he did to the Shiites.

            /// end act ///

Graham Fuller of RAND, another Washington policy 
institute, says Iraq under Saddam Hussein is the worst 
regime in the history of the modern Middle East.  Mr. 
Fuller supported the war against him and expected that 
to bring him down.  When that did not happen, he says 
it made sense to apply pressure on Iraq.

            /// Fuller act ///

      But let's face it. The policy has now failed. It 
      is not going to happen. The sad fact is that 
      when you travel around the Muslim world - in 
      Muslim Xingjiang in China or Indonesia - I find 
      support for Saddam Hussein. Now this is an 
      emotional support. The people do not know much 
      about him, and they probably would not really 
      like his policies. But does this not tell us 
      something?

            /// end act ///

Mr. Fuller says the United States acts virtually alone 
in maintaining the embargo on Iraq.  There is no 
consensus behind it.  Observing the suffering of 
Iraqis, Muslims turn on the United States, not Saddam 
Hussein.

Ted Carpenter, director of defense and foreign policy 
studies at the Cato Institute, says U-S policy toward 
Iraq is adrift. 

            /// Carpenter act ///

      Any policy that has the United States still 
      battling the same regime, the same adversary, 
      using many of the same tactics ten years after 
      an armed conflict is by definition a failure. We 
      have become reluctantly, but inexorably, Saddam 
      Hussein's jailer. We maintain the embargo. We 
      bomb periodically, largely because we cannot 
      seem to think of anything else to do.

            /// end act ///

Mr. Carpenter says the United States looks like a 
bully beating up a small country that cannot defend 
itself.
 
///OPT/// But it is not easy for a democracy to change 
its policy toward a leader it has demonized,
says Brooks Wrampelmeier of the Society for Gulf Arab 
Studies.  

             /// Wrampelmeier act ///

      It takes about twenty years for us to think 
      about moving beyond that demonization. It has 
      only been about ten years since the Gulf war. 
      How do we propose to improve or even talk to 
      Saddam Hussein without changing the whole 
      process that we have used to demonize him in 
      this county in the first place?

            /// end act  end OPT /// 

Edward Peck, former U-S Chief of Mission in Iraq, 
noted that the United States, when it suits its own 
interests, has no trouble dealing with dictators. So 
other countries tend to view American actions as 
arbitrary, if not hypocritical.

            /// Peck act ///

      Who gave us the right to decide who rules Iraq? 
      There seems to be a fixation that the only way 
      for anybody to run their business is our way. We 
      call it democratization. By definition, you do 
      not impose democracy. It comes up from the 
      bottom. The rest of the world are not 
      necessarily convinced that our way is the best 
      way, let alone the only way.

 
            /// end act ///

Ted Carpenter of CATO recalls that the United States 
supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980's. Was he 
suddenly transformed on August 1990 when he invaded 
Kuwait?

Mr. Carpenter says a nation will pursue its interests, 
even if inconsistencies are involved. But what, he 
asks, are the U-S interests in its current policy 
toward Iraq.   (SIGNED)

NEB/EW/KBK 



05-May-2000 16:05 PM EDT (05-May-2000 2005 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
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