Follow the
Policy:
Why So Long
for Iraq to Comply?
by
Sam Husseini
Dissident Voice
March 10, 2003
"It's
been 12 years. Why hasn't Saddam Hussein complied?" So many ask.
"Follow the money"
it's been said is the way to get at the truth. It's a good adage, but in this
case: Follow the policy.
In his report Friday,
UNMOVIC head Hans Blix claimed that "If Iraq had provided the necessary
cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament -- under resolution 687 -- could
have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided."
Blix also indicated that
Iraq only complies because of the threat of use of force. British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw went to town with this particular notion to the applause
of some in the Security Council chamber.
One problem with such
thinking is that it violates the U.N. Charter, which prohibits "the threat
or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of
any state." (http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter1.htm)
Another problem is that it
ignores U.S. policy over the last dozen years, which has discouraged compliance
with the arms inspectors. Ignoring the realities of U.S. policy is something
the head of UNMOVIC should not do.
Consider:
The original post-Gulf War
U.N. Security Council resolution 687, passed in April of 1991, made lots of
demands on Iraq -- but, as Blix indicated, specified that once Iraq complies
with the weapons inspection regime, the economic sanctions "shall have no
further force or effect."
(http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm)
The problem, and it's a big
problem, is that this declaration was rendered ineffective. President George
Bush in May of 1991 stated: "At this juncture, my view is we don't want to
lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." This was no
slip of the tongue. The same day, then-Secretary of State James Baker sent the
same message: "We are not interested in seeing a relaxation of sanctions
as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." So regardless of what Hussein did,
comply or not, the sanctions would stay in place. He played games with the
inspectors as it suited him. [See a timeline: http://www.accuracy.org/iraq]
And what would Clinton's
policy be? Just before getting into office, in an interview with Thomas
Friedman of the New York Times, Clinton said: "I am a Baptist. I believe
in death-bed conversions. If he [Hussein] wants a different relationship with
the United States and the United Nations, all he has to do is change his
behavior." The following day, faced with attacks for articulating such
politically incorrect notions, Clinton backtracked: "There is no
difference between my policy and the policy of the present
administration." This meant that the crushing economic sanctions would
stay in place on Iraq for eight more years, dooming hundreds of thousands of
Iraqi people to premature deaths.
It's notable that Friedman
has falsified this subject, writing from Qatar in February of 2001:
"Saddam totally outfoxed Washington in the propaganda war. All you hear
and read in the media here is that the sanctions are starving the Iraqi people
-- which is true. But the U.S. counter-arguments that by complying with U.N.
resolutions Saddam could get those sanctions lifted at any time are never
heard. Preoccupied with the peace process, no senior U.S. officials have made
their case in any sustained way here, and it shows." (http://www.scn.org/ccpi/nytimes-op-ed.html)
So Friedman, from his media
perch, actually helped ensure that Clinton would continue the policy of keeping
the sanctions in place no matter what Hussein did; resulting, by Friedman's own
admission, in "starving the Iraqi people." And then he pretends that
the policy does not exist, mocking Arabs for believing such a thing.
Just to be clear about it,
in March of 1997 Madeleine Albright, in her first major foreign policy address
as Secretary of State, proclaimed: "We do not agree with the nations who
argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass
destruction, sanctions should be lifted." I was there, at Georgetown
University when she said that. This was on par with Albright's infamous remark
on CBS's "60 Minutes" the previous year that the sanctions, after
already killing half a million children, were "worth it."
Through out the late 1990s,
there were a series of standoffs between the Iraqi and the U.S. governments
around weapons inspectors. In December of 1998, UNSCOM head Richard Butler
issued a report (which the Washington Post would later reveal was shaped by the
U.S. government) claiming Iraq wasn't cooperating with the inspectors and
withdrew them just before the U.S. launched the Desert Fox bombing campaign.
Some might remember this was on the eve of Clinton's scheduled impeachment
vote. (http://www.fair.org/activism/post-expulsions.html)
In January of 1999 -- after
UNSCOM was destroyed by its own hand -- the U.S. media reported that, contrary
to U.S. denials, UNSCOM was in fact used for espionage (http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR111802.htm)
as the Iraqis had been alleging, in part
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2161552.stm)
to track Hussein. (We'd do well to keep this in mind as those U2 flights go over
Iraq.)
So Iraq kept the weapons
inspectors out for four years. Why did the U.S. use the inspectors as spies?
Why did it say that the sanctions would stay put regardless of what Iraq did?
These would hardly seem to be the policies anyone would adopt if they really
wanted disarmament.
There are other recent
examples of the U.S. government adopting policies that betray an actual desire
for Iraqi non-compliance. On October 1, 2002, just as Iraq was deciding whether
or not to let inspectors have total access to presidential palaces, Ari
Fleischer talked of "the cost of one bullet" being less than the cost
of invasion. Was that supposed to help convince Saddam to say yes to letting
inspectors into his palaces?
And now, just as Iraq begun
destroying Al-Samoud missiles, the U.S. government is escalating its bombing of
the "no-fly" zones -- an ongoing, increasing years-long attack
without legal justification.
So the U.S. policy of
maintaining the sanctions in place no matter what Hussein did gave him incentive
for non-compliance with the inspectors. Now, the U.S. policy seems to be
invasion no matter what Hussein does. It's hard to believe that this will
ensure anything other than more massive violence from many quarters.
Or we could choose a
different path. If the Bush administration were to state that it would respect
resolution 687 and ensure the lifting of the economic sanctions on Iraq when it
is verifiably disarmed, then that ostensible goal could well be reached without
invasion, killing and slaughter. But that would mean that the stated goals have
some relation to actual goals. The way to cut through illusions and rhetoric is
to follow the policy.
Sam Husseini is communications director for the
Institute for Public Accuracy (www.accuracy.org).
He also recently launched the web page www.compassroses.com. He can be contacted at: sam@accuracy.org