'Smart sanctions' policy will make
U.S. look weak, policy experts claim

By Lisa Burgess
Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s fledgling foreign policy towards Iraq is just another weak variation of the ineffective approach adopted by the Clinton administration which will not only fail to bring the downfall of Saddam Hussein, but will ultimately cause the United States to look weak in the eyes of the world community, according to a prominent group of government and foreign policy experts.

"The most dangerous option [for U.S. policy toward Iraq] is continuing to drift, allowing sanctions to continue to erode and continuing military operations that don’t do much or send any clear message, but undercut support for our policy in the region and risk American lives for no clear purpose," said Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke Chair for Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Cordesman was participating in a hearing Thursday of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, which was called by subcommittee chairman Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., to discuss U.S. policy toward Iraq.

"We have to bite the bullet and admit that sanctions have not achieved their desired goal," Brownback said. "The only answer is getting Saddam Hussein out of power."

The question, Brownback said, is how to achieve that goal.

One recommendation that is not the answer, hearing panelists agreed, is the recent suggestion by Secretary of State Colin Powell that the United States re-tailor the economic sanctions against Iraq — an approach Powell called "smart sanctions."

"What ‘smart sanctions’ will look like to people in the region is weakness of American resolve in the face of pressure," Richard Perle, former assistant secretary of defense for international security during the Reagan administration.

Smarter sanctions are no cure when the current sanctions against Iraq aren’t working," Perle said.

"We don’t have an effective policy now and the changes [Powell is proposing] won’t be effective, either," he said. "We will not be protected from [weapons of mass destruction] as long as Saddam Hussein is in power. We should concentrate our efforts on one policy that will work in removing him."

The problem with sanctions is that no matter how they are structured, as long as Iraq’s dictatorship is in place and the country’s oil supplies hold out, sanctions can’t prevent billions of dollars from flowing into Saddam Hussein’s personal coffers, Cordesman said.

Perle agreed, noting that today Iraq’s legal oil exports under the United Nations sanctions total more than $22 billion a year.

Given that Saddam Hussein has virtually total control over how those funds are spent, the money is more than adequate for him to rebuild his military around weapons of mass destruction, Perle said.

The U.N. ban on selling military weapons to Iraq also is a complete failure and has no chance of ever succeeding, because "we will never have a [worldwide] consensus that restricts the flow of technology and arms to Iraq," Cordesman said.

"There are too many sources of suppliers," including China and Russia, who already have allegedly provided Saddam Hussein with illegal weapons, he said.

Just as economic sanctions are a losing proposition, so is the long-standing U.S. policing of the "no-fly" zones in Northern and Southern Iraq, according to Sen. Paul Wellstone, D.-Minn., a member of the subcommittee.

"The policy of over flying puts our pilots in danger on a regular basis, but it hasn’t changed Saddam’s behavior," Wellstone said.

Cordesman, too, blasted what he said are "endless, pointless missions against air defense targets [Saddam Hussein] can reconstitute."

He objected to the Pentagon’s claims that the Feb. 16 strike by U.S. and British targets against Iraqi air defense assets was a success. "What we did on Feb. 16 was half a strike," Cordesman said. "When you may have gotten to one-third of your targets, that is not victory."

In order to fix the situation, the U.S. government needs to put teeth into the no-fly missions, Cordesman said.

"We’ve got to stop preaching and issuing strong statements and not backing them up militarily," Cordesman said. "We need to define what Iraqi action would lead us to launch a military action, and then if [Saddam Hussein] does that, we need to strike, and strike so hard and so strong" that real damage is done.

Bob Kerrey, a longtime member of the Senate from Nebraska who is now president of the New School University in New York City, encouraged the Bush administration to enlarge the scope of military operations against Saddam Hussein — or at least to clearly state that the U.S. can and will take whatever military action is necessary to roust Saddam Hussein from power.

"Do not forget that we already have a very intensive military operation [against Saddam Hussein] in place today," Kerrey said.

Kerrey recommended three immediate actions for the U.S. government: first, to recognize a provisional opposition government of Iraq; second, to restore and protect a safe haven in both Northern and Southern Iraq for the provisional government and its supporters to occupy; and third, to lift the current sanctions against Iraq on the newly liberated areas.

Kerrey recommended that the Bush White House forcefully back the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the organized opposition movement against the current regime, as the provisional government of the country.

But critics of the INC say that the group is badly organized, plagued with individual squabbles for power, and unprepared either to mount a serious attack on the Iraqi regime or to take over and govern once that regime is gone.

"I don’t believe the INC has [popular] support," Cordesman said. "For many people in the region, they would divide Iraq."

Instead of backing the INC, Cordesman said, the United States "must sustain long-term covert efforts" to generate internal opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The United States must be prepared to pay a heavy price to remove Saddam Hussein from power, no matter which approach President Bush chooses to adopt, Cordesman warned.

"Do not think we can afford ourselves the luxury of doing this on the cheap," he said. "If we are serious, it means a build-up of U.S. forces and be prepared to go back to war."