U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

71–541 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

S. HRG. 107–19

UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAQ

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND

SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 1, 2001

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

BARBARA BOXER, California

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

BILL NELSON, Florida

STEPHEN E. BIEGUN, Staff Director

EDWIN K. HALL, Democratic Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman

GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

BARBARA BOXER, California

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Brownback, Hon. Sam, U.S. Senator from Kansas, news release from March

1, 2001, entitled ‘‘Brownback Chairs Hearing on U.S. Policy Toward Iraq.’’ .. 3

Cordesman, Anthony H., Arleigh A. Burke Chair for Strategy, Center for

Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC ..................................... 14

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 17

Halperin, Dr. Morton H., senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC ............................................................................................................. 22

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25

Kerrey, Hon. Robert J., former U.S. Senator from Nebraska, and president,

New School University, New York, NY .............................................................. 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 12

Perle, Hon. Richard N., former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Internatioal

Security, Washington, DC ................................................................................... 28

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33

Wellstone, Hon. Paul, U.S. Senator from Minnesota:

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8

Letter to President Clinton regarding existing sanctions regime ................ 4

(III)

(1)

UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAQ

THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2001

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND

SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in room

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Brownback, Thomas, and Wellstone.

Senator BROWNBACK. The hearing will come to order. In keeping

with the new mode of doing things on time, we are going to start

this hearing on time. I am delighted to have the panel we have to

day to testify on the issue of U.S. policy toward Iraq. This subcommittee has held a number of hearings on this topic, but this is

a new administration. I think it is a chance for us to discuss some

of the policy options that are presented before the United States

today, this being the third President to confront Saddam Hussein,

hopefully we will get a chance this time to address the root cause

of the problem, that being Saddam Hussein himself.

Senator Kerrey, welcome back. We are delighted to have you

here. Congratulations on your wedding and new job. We are glad

to have you here with your new colleagues. Mr. Perle, delighted to

have you here again, and Dr. Halperin and Mr. Cordesman, delighted to have both you gentlemen join us as well.

As we all know, this hearing will provide an opportunity to discuss the future of U.S. policy toward Iraq. Allow me to pose a question that I hope you will help us answer, and that is, is Saddam

Hussein better off today than he was 10 years ago at the end of

the gulf war? To my mind, the clear answer is yes, Saddam Hussein is better off today than he was at the end of the gulf war.

The evidence is piling up that Saddam has reconstituted his illegal weapons programs. Two defectors from the regime have told

British press that Saddam has a small nuclear weapon. I have not

been able to independently verify that charge, but the straws are

in the wind.

Further, there is ample evidence, both public and otherwise, that

Saddam is using the cover of a legally allowed missile program to

work on longer range missiles that could eventually deliver weapons of mass destruction, and of course officials at UNSCOM were

never willing to consider Saddam’s assertion that he has these

chemical and biological weapons programs. It certainly is logical to

2

assume that in the absence of inspectors for over 2 years he has

seized the opportunity to beef up his WMD programs.

For our part, according to press reports about Secretary Powell’s

trip to the Middle East, the administration now supports using the

existing sanctions and instituting so-called smarter sanctions, and

I look forward to discussing this with the Secretary next week.

As we listen to all this talk about smarter sanctions, I have to

wonder whether we can put the horse back in the barn at all. The

sanction regime and the international coalition against Iraq have

been completely unraveled. The steady stream of international

flights, kicked off by the Russians and the French, have headed

into Baghdad since August without monitoring or inspection. The

Chinese are working illegally in Baghdad without fear of repercussions, and press reports indicate that oil is once again flowing in

the Iraqi-Syrian pipeline to the tune of 150,000 barrels per day.

The profits from those illegal transfers of oil go straight into

Saddam’s pockets. To top it off, U.S.-British strikes on Iraqi air defense targets 2 weeks ago, intended to protect allied pilots from increased Iraqi threats, drew fire, not only from the usual suspects,

but also from the Arab states we are ostensibly protecting, and are

our partners on the Security Council.

I think we need to face it, Saddam has won a good portion of the

propaganda war. He is and remains a ruthless despot who refuses

to spend all he is allowed for his people’s well-being. Notwithstanding, the United States seems to be blamed for the suffering

of the Iraqi people.

Now, what do we do? Will we get inspectors back into Iraq? What

sacrifices on sanctions will need to be made to get them in, and will

any such inspections be worth those sacrifices? I rather doubt it.

We are going to have to bite this bullet. After 10 years, sanctions

have not achieved their intended goal, denying Iraq weapons of

mass destruction being the goal that we intended to achieve.

If that remains our goal today, and I certainly hope it does, then

we need to ask whether any refinement to these sanctions systems

will achieve that goal, and I would certainly like to hear our panel’s opinions on that question.

I believe that any tradeoff for weakening sanctions must be a

more robust U.S. policy toward Iraq. The Republican platform in

2000 called for the full implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act

and support for the Iraqi opposition. I, along with many of my colleagues, have long supported that policy, and hope the administration will work toward it. The threat that Iraq poses to its own people and to the decent nations of this world will remain for as long

as Saddam Hussein is in power.

To my mind, there is only one answer to solving this problem,

and the answer is, Saddam Hussein, and getting him out of power.

What do we do? Well, we make several suggestions here, and I look

forward to those from our panelists. One, I think we can use the

resources at our finger tips in the form of a drawdown and economic support to bolster the opposition and to fully implement the

Iraq Liberation Act. We have Dr. Chalabi here with the Iraq National Congress. I am delighted to note your attendance in the audience as well.

3

Second, we should stop spending money on conferences for the

opposition and begin to train them, when necessary, even to arm

them. We unilaterally should declare the southern no-fly zone will

be a no-drive zone as well, and we should expand our rules of engagement, including to target WMD sites and potentially other targets as well.

Those are several policy suggestions that I would put forward as

we seek a more expanded and robust policy toward Iraq, and we

seek to deal with the root problem, which is Saddam Hussein.

That is a start. I look forward to what our panelists have to say,

and their comments about what we should be doing toward a new

U.S. policy toward Iraq.

With that, I will turn to the ranking member, Senator Wellstone.

We are delighted to have you join us here.

[The prepared statement of Senator Brownback follows:]

[News Release—March 1, 2001]

BROWNBACK CHAIRS HEARING ON U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAQ

WASHINGTON, DC.—U.S. Senator Sam Brownback chaired a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing today on U.S. policy toward Iraq. A portion of Senator

Brownback’s remarks from the hearing follow.

‘‘This hearing provides an opportunity to discuss the future of U.S. policy toward

Iraq,’’ Brownback said. ‘‘Allow me to pose a question that I hope you will help us

answer: Is Saddam Hussein better off today than he was ten years ago, at the end

of the Gulf War?’’ To my mind, the clear answer is: ‘‘Yes, Saddam Hussein is better

off.’’

‘‘The evidence is overwhelming that Saddam is reconstituting his illegal weapons

programs. Defectors from the regime have told the British press that Saddam actually has two small nuclear weapons. I have not been able to independently verify

that charge, but the very possibility is alarming.

‘‘Further, there is ample evidence, both public and otherwise, that Saddam is

using the cover of a legally allowed missile program to work on longer range missiles that could eventually threaten those far beyond his borders with weapons of

mass destruction. And of course, officials at UNSCOM have never believed Saddam’s

assertion that he had destroyed his chemical and biological weapons programs.

‘‘It is certainly logical to assume that in the absence of inspectors for over two

years, he has seized the opportunity to improve his WMD programs.

‘‘For our part, according to press reports about Secretary Powell’s trip to the Middle East, the administration now supports easing the existing sanctions and instituting so-called ‘smarter sanctions.’ I look forward to discussing this proposal with

Secretary Powell next week.

‘‘As we listen to all this talk about ‘smarter sanctions,’ I wonder whether we can

put the horse back in the barn. The sanctions regime and the international coalition

against Iraq have completely unraveled. Since August, a steady stream of international flights—kicked-off by Russia and France—have landed in Baghdad, without

monitoring or inspection. The Chinese are working illegally in Baghdad without fear

of repercussions, and press reports indicate that oil is once again flowing through

the Iraqi-Syrian pipeline, at a rate of 150,000 barrels per day. The profits from

those illegal transfers of oil go straight into Saddam’s pocket.

‘‘To top this all off, U.S.-British strikes on Iraqi air defense targets two weeks ago,

intended to protect allied pilots from increasing Iraqi threats, drew fire, not only

from the usual suspects, but also from the Arab states we are ostensibly protecting

and from our partners on the Security Council.

‘‘We must face it, Saddam has won the propaganda war. He is a ruthless despot

who refuses to spend all that he is allowed to for his people’s well-being. Nevertheless, the United States is blamed for the suffering of the Iraqi people.

‘‘What can we do in response? Will we return our inspectors to Iraq? What sacrifices on sanctions must we make to get them in? And will any such inspections

be worth those sacrifices? I doubt it.

‘‘We are going to have to face the fact that after ten years, sanctions have not

achieved their intended goal of denying Iraq weapons of mass destruction. If that

remains our goal today—and I certainly hope it does—then we need to ask whether

4

any refinement to this sanctions system will achieve that goal. I would like to hear

your opinion on this question.

‘‘If we weaken our sanctions we must strengthen other aspects of U.S. policy. The

2000 Republican Platform called for the full implementation of the Iraq Liberation

Act and support for the Iraqi opposition. I, along with many of my colleagues, have

long supported that policy and hope the administration will work to advance it.

‘‘The threat that Iraq poses to its own people and to the decent nations of this

world will continue as long as Saddam remains in power. To my mind, there is only

one way to deal with this problem—to get rid of Saddam. This is how I propose we

start this process:

• We should use our available resources (in the form of drawdown and economic

support) to bolster the opposition and fully implement the Iraq Liberation Act.

• We must stop spending money holding conferences for the opposition and begin

to train and, when necessary, arm them.

• We ought to unilaterally declare that the southern no-fly zone will be a no-drive

zone as well.

• We should expand our rules of engagement to include WMD targets and potentially other targets as well.

‘‘This is where we should begin. I look forward to hearing what you think,’’

Brownback said.

Senator Brownback is chairman of the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South

Asian Affairs. Witnesses at the hearing included: the Honorable Bob Kerrey, President, New School University, New York, NY; the Honorable Richard N. Perle,

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, Washington, DC;

Dr. Morton H. Halperin, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington,

DC; Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair for Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC.

Senator WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to

all of our panelists, and a special hello to Senator Kerrey. It is good

to see you here, Bob.

I want to thank all of you for being here, and I think this is a

really important time to look very closely at our policy in Iraq. The

chairman and I have worked together on a variety of different bills.

I do not know how much in agreement or disagreement we are.

This is a time when we go through some important rethinking.

Let me just say at the beginning there is one obvious point of

agreement, which is that I think Saddam Hussein truly one of the

most dangerous individuals in the world, there is no question about

that in my mind, and therefore a major, major challenge. I am

pleased that the administration is going through a reevaluation of

our policy.

A year ago, and I think Secretary Halperin might remember this,

I posed several ideas to the Clinton administration about how we

might look at the existing sanctions regime, and my idea was that

we would have a stricter monitoring on weapons-related activity,

but that maybe what we would do is look at the economic sanctions

and think about more flexibility, and I would like to include that

letter in the record if I could, Mr. Chairman.

Senator BROWNBACK. Without objection.

[The letter referred to follows:]

UNITED STATES SENATE,

Washington, DC, March 22, 2000.

President WILLIAM J. CLINTON

The White House,

Washington, DC.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

5

As the UN Security Council continues to press to ensure Iraq’s compliance with

its international inspection obligations, and officials of your administration actively

review policy options on Iraq, we are writing to express our deep concern about the

ongoing humanitarian crisis there, and to urge greater US efforts at the United Nations to address it.

We have been heartened by recent press reports that you are considering ways

to ease the devastating effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people. Although the

current oil-for-food program (expanded under Security Council Resolution 1284,

adopted in December, 1999) provides for some infrastructure repairs, as a temporary

relief program it cannot adequately provide the longer-term planning and investment required to restore Iraq’s civilian infrastructure to a level necessary to meet

even the most basic civilian necessities. Those longer-term infrastructure improvements, coupled with expanded and accelerated humanitarian relief, are key to addressing the ongoing crisis.

We recognize that Iraq poses a series of complex problems. On the one hand, we

are confronted with the Iraqi government’s persistent refusal to meet its international obligations with regard to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), as well

as its record of wholesale human rights abuses. On the other, the comprehensive

UN sanctions regime has contributed to a humanitarian crisis that has seriously affected the health and well-being of millions of innocent Iraqis. It is clear that the

policies of the Iraqi government have greatly compounded and magnified the humanitarian crisis, and that the government does not intend to make the welfare of

its civilian population its priority. While the Iraqi government bears the lion’s share

of responsibility for the unnecessary civilian suffering due to its refusal to comply

with the UN weapons inspection program—a refusal underscored by recent widespread, though largely speculative, media reports about its possible efforts to rebuild

certain of its WMD capacities—this does not excuse the international community

from its own humanitarian obligations.

As one distinguished international human rights monitoring group recently observed, ‘‘The Iraqi government’s callous and manipulative disregard for its humanitarian obligations is not something the Security Council can reasonably expect will

change. Rather, it is a reality the Council must take into account in deciding the

appropriate means of securing the government’s compliance with its disarmament

demands.’’ The Iraqi government has proven indifferent to the suffering of its own people;

we cannot afford to be similarly indifferent. Thus we believe that the administration

should take urgent steps to better reconcile enforcement of its disarmament objectives in Iraq with its obligation to minimize harm to innocent Iraqi civilians and

to ensure protection of their most basic rights.

The Security Council’s own report last year on the deteriorating humanitarian situation; the comprehensive UNICEF survey on child health; and reports from other

relief agencies in the field, including the International Committee of the Red Cross

(ICRC), make clear that a public health emergency persists in many areas of the

country, and that efforts under the oil-for-food program to alleviate these conditions

have been woefully inadequate. Indeed, a senior ICRC official recently warned that

the increasingly precarious situation in the public infrastructure posed an imminent

threat to the survival of those hospitals still functioning.

We believe it is critical that we do what we can now to address directly this public

health emergency. This requires restoring Iraq’s civilian economic infrastructure in

order to bring child mortality rates and other public health indicators back as close

as possible to the levels that existed prior to the embargo. With this in mind, we

strongly urge your administration to take the following initiatives:

First, in the Security Council and the Sanctions Committee, push to implement

immediately the recommendations of the report of the Council’s humanitarian panel

last March. Many of these recommendations, such as pre-approval of humanitarian

items and using oil-for-food funds to purchase local Iraqi products and to hire and

train Iraqi workers and professionals to undertake civilian infrastructure repairs

and maintenance, are in Resolution 1284, but are conditioned on further steps by

the Council or the Committee. We are pleased to note that the Sanctions Committee

has begun the preapproval process for humanitarian items and urge you to take

steps to ensure that these measures are implemented without further delay.

Second, take all necessary steps to persuade the Security Council and its Sanctions Committee to take more seriously its acknowledged obligation to monitor the

humanitarian impact of the sanctions, especially on vulnerable sectors of the population such as children and the elderly. If necessary, we believe you should press

for an independent monitor such as a Special UN Rapporteur to assess the impact

of the sanctions and the effectiveness of the oil-for-food program in addressing that

impact, and to scrutinize the practices of the Iraqi government with respect to disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 16, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 71541 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
6

tribution of aid to its own people. You should also insist on greater transparency

in the deliberations and decisions of the Sanctions Committee. While we recognize

there may be circumstances in which decisions of the committee must remain internal matters, we believe its decision-making process should be made more transparent, and thus less susceptible to charges of politicization.

Third, we urge you to press the Security Council to establish an international

criminal tribunal mandated to investigate, indict, and prosecute Iraqi leaders and

former officials against whom credible evidence exists of war crimes, crimes against

humanity, and genocide. Such an initiative will at a minimum help enforce the continued political isolation of the government, even as steps are taken to lessen the

economic isolation that has impoverished much of the population. It represents the

kind of targeted sanction that should be directed against those responsible for those

Iraqi policies we want to change. In addition, we believe you should press for multilateral steps to further isolate regime officials by freezing any of their remaining

assets abroad, restricting their travel and that of their family members, increasing

political and diplomatic pressure on any nations who may be allowing, directly or

indirectly, transfers of sanctioned materials, and taking any other similar steps you

deem necessary.

Finally, we urge you to endorse a relaxation and restructuring of the economic

embargo on Iraq, while continuing and even tightening where possible strict prohibitions on military imports. Such a restructuring would permit import of a broader

range of non-military goods in order to allow the revival of the civilian economy. We

recognize that an important goal of the present sanctions is to block the government’s access to foreign exchange which could be used to finance imports for military and weapons-development purposes. We support that objective, but we do not

believe the current approach is justifiable, or even sustainable. Instead, we believe

the administration should, while maintaining current commercial and military flight

restrictions, work with its Security Council partners to establish a new regime.

Some variation of a proposal made recently by Human Rights Watch, which would

make Iraqi imports liable to inspection at all major ports of entry, seems to us worthy of consideration. We recognize that some new expense would be required by

such an effort, and would assume that it would be funded out of Iraq’s export revenues, just as UNSCOM expenses have been since 1991.

Rather than a system geared primarily to deciding what to allow in, the efforts

and resources of the international community under an alternative approach like

this would be redirected primarily to keeping out of Iraq military goods and products likely to be used for military purposes. While the current lists of prohibited

items—from the Missile Control Technology Regime, the Schedules of Chemicals of

the Chemical Weapons Convention, or the List of Dual Use Goods and Technologies

and the Munitions List of the Wassenaar Arrangement, for example—should be

maintained, relaxing import restrictions on certain categories of civilian-use items

not on such lists would be an important step. Maintaining close yet transparent Security Council scrutiny of contracts to import items that have dual-use applications,

coupled with a strong end-use monitoring regime, would further help. We assume

such an approach would require development of an expanded list of items which,

once the general category is licensed for import, need not be further approved by

the Sanctions Committee, but rather only by the Secretariat under its routine review process. Of course, this would have to be coupled with an end-use monitoring

program which includes UN monitoring teams on the ground, in order to prevent

diversion of such items for nefarious purposes.

This new approach does not represent a fail-safe means of containing Iraq’s proliferation threat, or ensuring compliance with relevant Security Council obligations.

But we must point out that neither does the present arrangement. Baghdad still has

access to limited amounts of foreign exchange, and we understand that there are

no border inspections of goods entering the country except, ironically, those already

cleared by the Sanctions Committee. We understand further that any such changes

to the current regime would require a considerable investment, politically as well

as financially. There is no painless or cost-free way of addressing the Iraq’s government’s unwillingness to abide by its disarmament commitments. The point is that

the pain and cost should not continue to be borne primarily by millions of ordinary

innocent Iraqis.

Mr. President, you and Secretary Albright have repeatedly observed that our

quarrel is not with the Iraqi people. We agree. But regrettably our Iraq policy has

too often had its most devastating impact on those Iraqis who bear no responsibility

for the policies that we are trying to sanction, and change. We have an obligation,

under the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not to destroy or undermine the right of a people to an adequate standard of living, freedom

from hunger, and the highest attainable standards of health. For this reason we

7

urge you to adopt the recommendations we have made in this letter, which in our

view strike a better balance between legitimate non-proliferation concerns and those

involving our humanitarian obligations to the people of Iraq—and may even be more

effective in securing Iraq’s eventual compliance than the current arrangement.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

PAUL D. WELLSTONE,

United States Senator.

RUSSELL FEINGOLD,

United States Senator.

Senator WELLSTONE. Secretary Powell last week I think has

raised some important questions, and his idea, as I understand it,

of a stronger international effort to block Iraqi imports of arms and

other military items, coupled with an easing of nonmilitary items

and a more flexible approach to items that serve civilian needs I

think could form the basis of a new international consensus on Iraq

sanctions, and I hope, Mr. Chairman, that we will get into a discussion of what I think is a very important question.

Look, first of all, I am not the expert, and second of all, this is

far from simple, and you have got a government that has not been

willing to comply with, at least for 2 years, plus now, any arms inspection, you have got a government that is involved in widespread

and brutal human rights abuses, and there is no question that this

is a real challenge.

But I do think that there are questions that can be raised about

the sanctions regime, and I also want to just pose two other questions as we engage in some hopefully hard thinking about Iraq.

One of them is, we have been doing this—the policy of overflying

Iraq has been in place now for years. It puts our pilots in danger

on a daily basis, but I do not think it has changed the Government

of Iraq’s behavior at all, and I know that Senator Kerrey has been

outspoken, as you have, Mr. Chairman, in support of the Iraq Liberation Act, but I think we ought to think very carefully about

whether or not we want to provide lethal military weapons to the

Iraqi opposition.

I mean, if we do so, we risk overcommitting ourselves and leading the opposition to believe that the United States military will

intervene if its fledgling efforts should falter, and I think the question we have got to deal with—and Senator Kerrey is always very

direct. He is known for that, but are we prepared to rescue the

Iraqi opposition—I mean, I think we need to deal with that question in this hearing—or are we prepared to let it die again?

Now, if the current Government of Iraq should implode, we

should be ready to move ahead with a generous assistance package

to help Iraq develop a vibrant and democratic society, but by most

informed accounts the opposition appears to be splintered, and

weak, and may have little realistic chance of removing Saddam

Hussein from power.

I welcome again Senator Kerrey, Mort Halperin, Tony

Cordesman, and Richard Perle to the hearing, and I look forward

to your views, and I think really this committee, this is very timely, very important, and I really look forward to the discussion we

are going to have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Senator Wellstone follows:]

8

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL WELLSTONE

I welcome this hearing on our policy toward Iraq as the Administration initiates

a comprehensive review that could have far-reaching consequences for U.S. relations

with the Arab world. The beginning of a new Administration is an appropriate time

to review our policies and, where necessary, to recraft them in a way that meets

the changing political and humanitarian concerns in the Middle East. A year ago,

in the midst of the Clinton Administration’s own Iraq policy review, I posed several

ideas about how to apply the existing sanctions regime more flexibly while preserving strict monitoring of any weapons-related activity. I would like to insert into

the Committee record a copy of the letter I wrote to the President outlining those

ideas.

In this regard, Secretary Powell’s trip last week to consult with our friends and

allies in the Middle East was an extremely important initiative. The ideas that he

discussed—a stronger international effort to block Iraqi imports of arms and military-related items coupled with an easing of non-military items and a more flexible

approach to items that serve essential civilian needs—could form the basis of a new

international consensus on Iraq sanctions. I hope that this hearing will help us put

these ideas into perspective.

Iraq poses a series of complex questions for policy makers. On the one hand, we

are confronted with the Iraqi government’s persistent refusal to meet its obligations

with regard to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), as well as its record of wholesale human rights abuses. At the same time, the comprehensive UN sanctions regime has contributed to a longstanding humanitarian crisis that has seriously affected the health and well-being of millions of innocent Iraqis. It is clear that the

policies of the Iraqi government have greatly compounded and magnified the humanitarian crisis, and that the government has not made the welfare of its civilian

population a priority. Even so, it has long seemed to me that a new approach on

sanctions which allows much greater flexibility in the sanctions regime for obviously

humanitarian goods and for certain dual use goods makes a lot of sense.

It is true that the Iraqi government bears the lion’s share of responsibility for unnecessary civilian suffering due to its persistent refusal to comply with the UN

weapons inspection program. This refusal is underscored by widespread media reports about Iraq’s possible effort to rebuild certain of its WMD capacities. However,

the callous behavior of the Iraqi government does not excuse the international community from its own humanitarian obligations.

I believe that we ought to explore further Secretary Powell’s initiative, refine it,

and see if constructive alternative approaches can be developed in place of the current stalemate. We need some hard thinking on Iraq. Our policy of overlying Iraq

has been in place for years and puts our pilots in danger on a daily basis but has

not changed the government of Iraq’s behavior. I know that Senator Kerrey has

been outspoken in his support for the Iraq Liberation Act, but we need to think

carefully whether to support providing lethal military weapons to the Iraqi opposition. We risk overcommiting ourselves and leading the opposition to believe that the

United States military will intervene if its fledgling efforts should falter. Are we

prepared to rescue the Iraqi opposition? Are we prepared to let it die again?

If the current government in Iraq should implode, certainly we should be prepared

to move ahead with a generous assistance package to help Iraq develop a vibrant

and democratic society. But, by most informed accounts, the opposition appears

splintered and weak and may have little realistic chance of removing Saddam Hussein from power.

I welcome Senator Kerrey, Mort Halpern, Richard Perle, and Tony Cordesman to

the hearing today and look forward to hearing their views.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you, Senator Wellstone.

Senator Thomas.

Senator THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will look forward

to it also. Therefore, I will pass to let the panelists begin. Thank

you.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you. I think this is your first time

back to the Senate, Bob. The first witness up will be Hon. Bob

Kerrey, former Senator from the great State of Nebraska, second

best basketball team in the states between Kansas and Nebraska,

and current president of the New School University in New York.

Bob, welcome back. We are delighted to have you here.

9

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. KERREY, PRESIDENT, NEW

SCHOOL UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, NY

Senator KERREY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator

Wellstone, Senator Thomas, it is good to see all of you again. It is

nice to have a chance to come back, especially to talk on this particular subject. Mr. Chairman, I have a longer statement that is a

bit mangled, but I would like to ask unanimous consent that it be

put in the record, and I will try not to drag this out too long.

First, I would observe that on Monday we had the opportunity

to watch a very moving ceremony in Kuwait with General

Schwartzkopf and Secretary Powell and former President Bush

celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait.

That liberation occurred on 26 February, 1991. Two days later, on

the 28th, yesterday, we celebrated the cease-fire of that rather remarkable 208-day occupation of Kuwait by Iraq and the driving of

the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait was celebrated quite correctly as a

remarkable demonstration of power used for good in a multilateral,

multinational way.

My guess is, starting that from scratch today people would say

it cannot be done, it could not be done, et cetera, but it was a rather remarkable accomplishment.

Well, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, a lot has happened in the decade since, and I do think it is important to look

at that history. I am not going to go through all of the details, but

I would like to describe five important things that have happened

in the last 10 years that I think are enormously relevant to the discussion and help frame the debate for what we are going to do

going forward.

First, after that cease-fire was declared, Iraq agreed to allow

United Nations weapons inspectors to verify that Iraq had destroyed its capacity to manufacture biological and nuclear weapons.

Until verification was complete, the United Nations Security Council voted to enforce external sanctions that would permit Iraq to

sell oil for food and medicine that they needed for domestic consumption.

The time it was estimated to get this done was in months if Saddam Hussein cooperated, and what has come to be quite common

practice, he confounded expectations by interfering, by harassing,

and in the end banning the weapons inspectors from the territory.

Now, reliable intelligence, I say to this committee, has confirmed

the reason for Iraq’s behavior. It is quite simply, they want to

maintain a robust program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The second thing that needs to be considered over the last 10

years is that Iraq has maintained a policy so hostile to human

rights, especially for the Kurdish minority in the north and the

Shia in the south, and I would say, Senator Wellstone, I think if

you stop those no-fly operations we would have Kurds dying in the

north and Shias dying in the south, and they are alive today as a

consequence of those no-fly zones being maintained.

No dissent is possible inside of Iraq. Thousands have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed for opposing the current regime.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, with or without

sanctions, the 20 million people of Iraq deserve to have the United

States of America on the side of their freedom.

10

Third, we have sustained a military effort to contain Iraq, and

that military effort has cost us lives. U.S. and British pilots fly almost daily, as Senator Wellstone observed, to enforce the no-fly

zones in the north and in the south, but Mr. Chairman, members

of the committee, we have also maintained a presence at the

Dahran military installation in Saudi Arabia, and the significance

of that is that this installation, part of our containment policy, was

the target of a truck bomb attack on 25 June, 1996, that killed 19

U.S. airmen. It was cited by Osama bin Laden as a reason for attacking U.S. Embassies in Africa on August 17, 1998, that killed

11 Americans and over 200 others. Our military presence was cited

again when the USS Cole was attacked on October 12, 2000 in the

Port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.

I point this out, Mr. Chairman, because when the debate occurs

as to whether or not military force is needed, do not forget that we

already have a very expensive military operation in place today.

The question is not, should we have a military operation. The question is, how should that military operation be deployed?

Fourth, when he signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law on October 31, 1998, President Clinton began the process of shifting away

from the failed policy of using military force to contain Iraq to supporting military force to replace the military dictatorship of Saddam Hussein with a democratically elected government and, although our support for opposition forces has been uneven at best,

this new policy is still current law.

Fifth, Mr. Chairman, opponents of establishing our policy objective as liberation of the people of Iraq use a number of effective arguments, and I would like to cite them, because I would like to also

refute them. They say, we would never get the support for a military operation. They say that democracy will not work in Iraq, that

Arabs are not capable of governing themselves. They say finally

that the opposition forces lacks the legitimacy and capability and

in particular the most visible organization, the Iraq National Congress, lacks the coherency and ability to get the job done.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I am very much aware that these arguments gather force when they are not answered, so I would like to

answer all three. First, these arguments are little more than excuses, in my view, designed to keep us from doing what we know

we should do, and we know what we can do if our will is strong.

The argument against military force encourages us to ignore the

hundreds of millions that we spend every single year to contain

Iraq, and the 47 American lives that have already been lost to enforce this containment policy.

The argument that Arabs cannot govern themselves is racist. It

encourages us to ignore a million Arab-Americans who exercise

their rights when those rights are protected by a constitution and

law, and the argument against the Iraq National Congress [INC]

is little more than a parroting of Saddam Hussein’s propaganda.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am very much

aware that domestic and international support has been steadily

eroding for continuing sanctions against Iraq, let alone a new military strategy to end the nightmare of this dictatorship. I have

watched with growing sadness as Iraq has exploited the public’s

11

lack of memory, the Clinton administration’s silence, and the

world’s appetite for its production of 4 million barrels of oil a day.

I have read the reports of Secretary Colin Powell’s return to Kuwait this week, and the difficulty that he is having convincing our

allies that we must stay the course in opposing the Iraqi regime.

I have read proposals by informed commentators to try to get the

best deal we can at this point, including one by Mr. Tom Freidman

that would offer an end to sanctions and U.S. recognition in exchange for allowing U.S. inspectors to verify weapons of mass destruction are not being built in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, members of this committee, I urge you not to go

along with the flow. This flow of public opinion in my opinion will

lead us in the wrong direction. The United States should push back

hard in the opposite direction, and the reason, Mr. Chairman, is

simple. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq represents a triple threat to us, to

our allies in the region, and to the 20 million people who have the

misfortune to live in a country where torture and killing of political

opposition has become so routine it is rarely reported.

Iraq is a threat to us because they have the wealth and the will

to build weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, and nuclear. Since the end of the gulf war in 1991, Saddam Hussein has

lied and cheated his way out of the inspection regime and has succeeded in convincing too many world leaders to overlook the danger

he opposes to them. Iraq is a threat to allies in the region because

Iraq has displayed no remorse, and no regret for its invasion of Kuwait. Instead, they continue to justify their illegal act and condemn

the U.S.-led effort which forced them to surrender the territory to

their neighbor after inflicting inestimable damage to Kuwait.

The Iraqi Government is a threat to their own people, especially

the Kurds in the northern provinces and the Shia in the south. Mr.

Chairman, without our willingness to maintain no-fly zones in the

north and south, thousands more innocents would have died from

Iraqi military assaults. It is by no means clear-cut that Iraqi civilians are suffering as a consequence of our sanctions. What is clearcut is that the Iraqi people are suffering as a consequence of Saddam Hussein’s policy of diverting United Nations money away from

needed food and medicine to rebuilding his palaces and his military.

So Mr. Chairman, I come here today to urge you to stay the

course, join with President Bush, and tell him to imagine returning

to Baghdad himself 10 years from now to celebrate the liberation

of Iraq. In my view, it is possible. In the view of the Iraqi people,

the people living in the region, and the people of the United States

of America, it is also desirable.

So what, specifically, can we do? Well, let me just offer modestly,

in the spirit of bipartisan foreign policy, and in the words of a

group of now senior Bush administration officials who wrote the

letter to President Clinton in 1998, there are three things that

would be the beginning of the end of Saddam Hussein’s reign of

terror. First, we should recognize a provisional Government of Iraq

based on the principles and leaders of the Iraq National Congress

that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq.

Second, Mr. Chairman, we should restore and we should enhance

the safe haven in northern Iraq that would allow a provisional govVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 16, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 71541 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
12

ernment to extend its authority there, and establish a zone in

southern Iraq from which Saddam’s ground forces would also be excluded.

Third, we should lift the sanctions in the liberated areas.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, these three moves in

my view would signal that the United States of America will not

yield ground to the world’s worst and most dangerous dictator, and

we would send a signal to the people of Iraq that we will not be

satisfied until they are free to determine their own fate.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I want to thank you

again for your invitation to hear my views.

[The prepared statement of Senator Kerrey follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. KERREY

Mr. Chairman and members of this distinguished committee, thank you for this

invitation to testify on the question of what United States policy should be regarding Iraq.

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait on February

26, 2001. On February 28, 1991, a cease fire was declared. The world had witnessed

a breath-taking exhibition of U.S. led coalition power that ended the 208 day Iraqi

invasion.

A lot has happened in the decade since. The detail of that history is terribly important for those who want to understand what we should do today. I will not take

time to review all this detail but will summarize five points I believe are most important:

First, following a cease fire Iraq agreed to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to verify that Iraq had destroyed its capacity to manufacture chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Until verification was complete the United Nations would

enforce external sanctions that permitted Iraq to sell oil for food and medicine. The

time needed to complete this inspection would have been a few months, if Saddam

Hussein cooperated. As has come to be common practice Iraq confounded expectations by interfering, harassing and finally banning the weapons inspectors from its

territory. Reliable intelligence has confirmed the reason for their behavior to be simple: They want to maintain robust programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Second, Iraq has maintained a policy so hostile to human rights—especially for

the Kurdish minority in the north and the Shia in the south—that no dissent is possible. Thousands have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed for opposing the current regime. With or without sanctions the 20 million people of Iraq deserve to have

the United States on the side of their freedom.

Third, we have sustained a military effort to contain Iraq and that military effort

has cost us lives. U.S. and British pilots fly almost daily to enforce a no-fly zone

in northern Iraq that has saved the lives of Kurds and a no-fly zone in southern

Iraq that has saved the lives of Shia. We have also maintained a presence at the

Dhahran military installation in Saudi Arabia. This installation was a target of a

truck bomb on June 25, 1996, that killed 19 U.S. airmen. It was cited by Osama

bin Laden as a reason for attacking U.S. embassies in west Africa on August 7,

1998, that killed 11 Americans and over 200 others. Our military presence was cited

again when the U.S.S. Cole was attacked on October 12, 2000, in the port of Aden,

Yemen, killing 17 American sailors. So when the issue of military force is debated

do not forget that we have an expensive military operation in place now. The question is not should our military be used; the question is how.

Fourth, when he signed the Iraqi Liberation Act into law on October 31, 1998,

President Clinton began the process of shifting away from the failed policy of using

military force to contain Iraq to supporting military force to replace the dictatorship

of Saddam Hussein with a democratically elected government. Although our support

for opposition forces has been uneven at best this new policy is still current law.

Fifth, opponents of establishing our policy objective as liberation of the people of

Iraq have used a number of effective arguments to keep the status quo in place.

They say we would never get support for a military operation. They also say that

democracy won’t work in Iraq, that Arabs aren’t capable of governing themselves.

Finally, they attack the legitimacy and capability of the most visible organization,

the Iraqi National Congress. But these arguments are little more than excuses designed to keep us from doing what we know we should do and can do if our will

13

is strong. The argument against military forces encourages us to ignore the hundreds of millions spent each year to contain Iraq and the 47 American lives lost

since containment began. The argument that Arabs cannot govern themselves is

racist and encourages us to ignore a million Arab Americans who exercise their

rights when they are protected by constitution and law. The argument against the

I.N.C. is little more than a parroting of Saddam Hussein’s propaganda.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee I am very much aware that domestic and international support has been steadily eroding for continuing sanctions

against Iraq let alone a new military strategy to end the nightmare of this dictatorship. I have watched with growing sadness as Iraq has exploited the public’s lack

of memory, the Clinton administration’s silence, and the world’s appetite for its production of 4 million barrels of oil a day.

I have read the reports of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s return to Kuwait this

week and the difficulty he is having convincing our allies that we must stay the

course in opposing the Iraqi regime. I have read proposals by informed commentators to try to get the best deal we can at this point including one by Mr. Tom Friedman that would offer an end to sanctions and U.S. recognition in exchange for allowing U.S. inspectors to verify that weapons of mass destruction are not being built

in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee I urge you not to go along with the

flow of public opinion. The United States push back hard in the opposite direction.

The reason is simple: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq represents a triple threat to us, to our

allies in the region and to the 20 million people who have the misfortune to live

in a country where torture and killing of political opposition has become so routine

it is rarely reported.

Iraq is a threat to us because they have the wealth and the will to build weapons

of mass destruction: chemical, biological and nuclear. Since the end of the Gulf War

in 1991 Saddam Hussein has lied and cheated his way out of the inspection regime

and has succeeded in convincing too many world leaders to overlook the danger he

poses to them. Iraq is a threat to allies in the region because they have displayed

no remorse or regret for their invasion of Kuwait. Instead they continue to justify

their illegal act and condemn the U.S. led effort which forced them to surrender the

territory of their neighbor after inflicting inestimable damage to Kuwait.

The Iraqi government is a threat to their own peoples especially the Kurds in the

northern provinces and the Shia in the south. Without our willingness to maintain

no-fly zones in the north and south thousands more innocents would have died from

Iraqi military assaults. It is by no means clear-cut that Iraqi civilians are suffering

as a consequence of sanctions. What is clear cut is that the Iraqi people are suffering as a consequence of Saddam Hussein’s policy of diverting United Nations

monies away from much needed food and medicine to rebuilding his palaces and his

military.

So, I have come here today to urge you to stay the course. Join with President

Bush and tell him to imagine returning to Baghdad ten years from now to celebrate

the liberation of Iraq. In my view it is possible. In the view of the Iraqi people, the

people living in the region and the people of the United States of America it is also

desirable.

What specifically can we do? In the spirit of bi-partisan foreign policy and in the

words a group of now senior Bush administration officials used in a 1998 letter to

then President Clinton here are three things that would be the beginning of the end

of Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror:

1. Recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and

leaders of the Iraq National Congress (INC) that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq;

2. Restore and enhance the safe haven in northern Iraq to allow a provisional

government to extend its authority there and establish a zone in southern Iraq

from which Saddam’s ground forces would also be excluded;

3. Lift sanctions in the liberated areas.

Mr. Chairman and members of the foreign relations committee these three moves

would signal that the United States will not yield ground to the world’s worse and

most dangerous dictator. And we would signal to the people of Iraq that we will not

be satisfied until they are free to determine their own fate.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you very much. Thank you for the

powerful statement and the clarity of it, and I look forward to having a good discussion on these points as we go on through.

14

Mr. Cordesman, let us hear your testimony next if we could.

Thank you for joining us.

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN, ARLEIGH A. BURKE

CHAIR FOR STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. CORDESMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to

thank you and the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify this

afternoon. I do have a formal statement which I would appreciate

it if it could be incorporated into the record, but I would make only

a brief statement.

Senator BROWNBACK. It will be included in the record.

Mr. CORDESMAN. I think I should preface my remarks with the

fact that you cannot have an Iraq policy that works without a new

policy in dealing with the Arab-Israeli peace issue, without rethinking your policy toward Iran, and without broadening our diplomacy, which has focused in the last 2 years almost exclusively on

the peace process to consider how you can buildup a stronger basis

of support in the southern gulf.

But if I may address your question, is Saddam better off today,

the answer is yes, in some ways. There is one area where he is

clearly not better off. If you look back at the rate of arms imports

that he had until the embargo in mid-1990, by now he would have

spent anywhere from $22 to $45 billion on arms imports. He has

not had any major imports of arms since mid-1990, although there

has been smuggling, and some technology transfer.

In spite of demonstrations of prototypes, there has been no serial

production of a single major weapons system within Iraq. There

has been the assembly of some T–72 kits. I think we have only to

think what would happen in the United States if we froze the technology base for 10 years, if we could not have reacted to the lessons

of the gulf war, and if our military establishment consisted of worn

equipment that was used in the Iraq-Iran war, in large part, before

it was certainly worn in the gulf war.

In terms of weapons of mass destruction, it is an unfortunate reality that during the gulf war we had only a limited number of successful strikes on these facilities. Nevertheless, the gulf war forced

UNSCOM into Iraq, and we should not discount what happened.

Several billion dollars’ worth of manufacturing facilities, weapons,

and technology, was physically destroyed.

As you pointed out, however, his technology base remains. It is

virtually certain that he has had a decade in which to improve that

technology base. Certain key aspects of that base, particularly the

production of centrifuges and advanced biological weapons, could

never be traced by UNSCOM, which raises further questions about

UNMOVIC. He has the stockpiles to probably create a significant

break-out capability, and rapidly deploy some of these weapons.

In economic terms, the benefits to him are clear. Since 1990 economic sanctions have eroded to the point where Iraq has at least

$1 billion worth of uncontrolled income from smuggled petroleum

exports. Its legal oil revenues in 2000 are estimated at roughly $22

billion, which is about 90 percent higher than they were the previous year, and 170 percent higher than the year before that.

15

It is clear even from reports that focus on the hardship of the

Iraqi people that he is succeeding in controlling how these imports

of humanitarian goods and medical goods are used. They are going

to the elite. They are going to urban areas. They are not going to

the Shiites, they are not going to the center, and they are not going

to the Kurdish population that is not in the Kurdish security zone.

It is equally clear that consumer goods, some of them luxury goods,

are going to the elite around Saddam, to senior officers in the Republican Guards, and to the security forces.

As a result, I believe that we should refocus actions to concentrate on long-term efforts to ensure Saddam cannot import conventional weapons, and that technology and equipment to produce

weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, the phrase, ‘‘smart

sanctions,’’ is not by itself a policy, even in dealing with Iraq, and

there are seven areas where I believe we are going to have to

change that policy.

First, we will never have consensus that restricts the flow of

arms and military technology to Saddam Hussein. There are too

many suppliers. There are too many types of dual-use items. There

are nations, North Korea, Russia, and China, which have cheated

on every arms control agreement that they have participated in. To

make smart sanctions work at all, there are two price tags, and

they still will not ensure any kind of leak-proof regime.

One is a massive intelligence effort to trace what is happening

on the part of supplier nations and entities. The other is something

we have not been good at in the past, confrontational diplomacy

that will really go to countries which violate any controls and confront them and possibly sanction them under other laws targeted

to deal with these specific imports. It is very easy to talk about intentions, but the whole history of proliferation is that broad agreements simply fail.

Second, I think we should come to grips with the fact that at this

point in time, even if we could get UNMOVIC back into Iraq, and

Saddam has shown no signs of the willingness to permit this, it

might well do more harm than good. The history of similar regimes, particularly the IAEA, even when we had inspections, was

that they were willing to basically certify Saddam was in compliance by saying they could not find evidence he was not in compliance. We have not had aggressive inspections since early 1997 and,

quite frankly, I do not believe a U.N. regime would get the political

support to have such inspections. Furthermore, I think it is simply

too late to find the dispersed cells and operations which have been

built up since the mid-1990’s.

Where I do disagree with Senator Kerrey and, I think, others of

the panel, is I do not believe that focusing on the Iraqi opposition

is no more than a forlorn hope. It would be nice if it could develop

military capabilities. It would be nice if it had the support of the

countries in the region. It would be nice if it had resonance inside

Iraq. I do not believe it has that support. I think the other panelists here disagree with me, but for many of the people in the region, they are a tool that would divide Iraq, and certainly the

Saudis and the Kuwaitis have raised issue to me at some length.

The Turks fear them as a way of dividing Iraq and creating a

Kurdistan.

16

I wish, again, this situation was different. I recognize that at this

point in time the United States has major problems in generating

the kind of patient, systematic, covert effort to develop internal opposition that might work. Unless we do this, however, I think we

will find ourselves legislating the funding of a forlorn hope.

Fourth, as has been previously mentioned, I think we made a

massive foreign policy mistake in not confronting Saddam and in

not refuting the lies that he told over a 10-year period. I can think

of only two statements from the State Department that ever systematically attempted to explain what was happening under oil for

food, and who the true cause of many of Iraq’s problems were. One

was a glorified publicity release, and the other was a page-and-ahalf long.

In contrast, every day, Saddam has fought for the minds of the

Arab world. He has been able to capture the hardship issue. He

has been able to find, among people who do not understand Iraq,

many supporters that blame the United States and sanctions for

actions which are more those of Saddam than any impact of the

U.N. Unless we are willing, now, to try to recover smart sanctions

will simply be a step forward toward no sanctions, and the question

really is, can the State Department have that kind of effort.

Fifth, and I say this in my testimony, the United States must

think now about the future of Iraq’s Kurds. I was in the U.S. Embassy in Iran in the early 1970’s. I watched the United States support the Shah of Iran in using the Kurds as a political tool. I

watched them abandoned after the Algiers Accord. I think we must

have a clear policy toward autonomy, clear demands as to what

Kurdish rights should be.

And to go back to the no-fly zones, I would absolutely agree that

if we withdrew from Turkey, we withdraw from any protection of

the Kurds, and whether the result is an immediate occupation and

slaughter, or the kind of more patient and systematic killing which

Saddam has used on other occasions, those are the only two alternatives.

Sixth, we talk about smart sanctions, but I have not heard anything about energy. In our projections we say, in the Department

of Energy, we want Iraq’s production capacity to increase from

roughly 2.8 million barrels a day today to 6.2 million in 2020, and

we see Iraq as a critical component of our future energy strategy.

It is far from clear that that makes sense, but somebody has got

to resolve the issue.

Finally, we need to revitalize the other aspects of military containment. One key goal is to improve and maintain the forward

presence rapid-deployment capabilities and war-fighting capability

we have today.

Another goal is to stop preaching. We have got to stop issuing

strong statements and then not following them up with decisive

military action. The best description I can give of military options

under the Clinton administration was that the President spoke

stickly and carried a big soft. I wish there were some better or

nicer way to put it, but we need a formal doctrine that states our

‘‘red lines,’’ that states quite clearly what we demand in terms of

gulf security, that we will remain committed to military containVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 16, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 71541 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
17

ment and close commitment with our gulf allies as long as there

is threat from Iran and Iraq.

We need to define the kind of Iraqi action that would lead us to

launch military action and, if Iraq does take such action, we need

to strike so hard and so decisively that the military and political

costs to Saddam will outweigh the political propaganda gains he

makes from small pinprick strikes. In short, we would be much better off if we struck once every 2 years in ways which have a crippling impact on some part of Saddam’s military machine, than

through endless, pointless missions against air defense targets he

can reconstitute.

We also have to persist to the point where we are successful.

What we did on September 16 was to carry out half a strike with

no followup. We did not send a message of decisive action. Our

message, I suspect, to Iraq and the gulf was we may have hit a

third of our targets. That is not victory.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cordesman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN

IRAQ AND AMERICA’S FOREIGN POLICY CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

A decade ago, under a different President Bush, we emerged out of a major foreign policy crisis in the Middle East with the most advantageous position we had

had since World War II. We had led a broad coalition to victory against Iraq. In

the process, we demonstrated that we could be a strong and reliable friend of the

Arab world, and we created many of the conditions that made a search for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace process possible. We created the conditions for military containment of both Iran and Iraq, we had the firm support of our European

allies, and we built bridges to Russia and China that allowed us to act together in

dealing with peace and security issues in the Middle East.

We now face a foreign policy crisis in the Middle East under another President

Bush that Secretary Powell’s visit can only begin to deal with. Part of that crisis

is not of our making. The Middle East is all too correctly described as a region

where nations, ‘‘never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’’ Its leaders also

tend to repeat the mistakes of the Bourbon dynasty in France, of which it was said,

‘‘They forgot nothing and they learned nothing.’’ We have, however, made many serious mistakes of our own, and much of our present foreign policy crisis in the region is the result of self-inflicted wounds.

IRAQ AND THE BACKLASH FROM THE ARAB-ISRAELI PEACE PROCESS

Iraq is one key area where we made such mistakes, but Iraq cannot be discussed

without touching upon the Arab-Israeli conflict and our policy towards Iran. In the

case of the Arab-Israeli conflict, we face months and probably years of backlash

from the failure to create a peace between Israel and Syria and between Israel and

the Palestinians. It may not be fair, but all sides blame the US for the failure to

reach a peace over the last two years. The Arabs feel that the US tilted far too much

towards Israel, and was not an honest broker. Many Israelis feel that the US rushed

them into concessions that simply led to more Syrian and Palestinian demands and

which could have compromised Israel’s security. Both sides give us much of the

blame for the Second Intifada, and in many Arab eyes we are almost as much to

blame for each Palestinian casualty as Israel.

Even in the eyes of some of our most sophisticated Arab allies, and the leaders

of their countries, they feel we rushed a peace process forward as part of President

Clinton’s effort to redeem himself, we failed to consult, we did not listen to warnings

that we played with fire in trying to force compromises across basic differences in

goals and values, we created false expectations, and we had no exit strategy to deal

with failure. There is a feeling that President Clinton acted as a political opportunist, and there is broad resentment of the tendency of senior officials like Secretary Albright to issue moralistic pronouncements and ignore the need to consult

and listen.

18

The end result is that Saddam Hussein has a powerful new weapon to use against

the US, as do Iran’s hard-liners and every extremist in the Middle East. Nations

outside the region can play the peace and Second lntifada cards against us, as nations like France, China, and Russia do. In Saddam’s case he attacks every moderate Arab regime as the ally of the US, and therefore the ally of Israel. He provides

cash payments to every Palestinian casualty of the Intifada at a time no Arab moderate regime has kept its promises of aid to the Palestinian Authority, and he couples the hardships of the Palestinians to the hardships of his own people.

Is this fair? Of course not! All sides in the region are far more to blame for their

problems than we are. Should we tilt towards the Palestinians at the expense of

Israel? Never! We will score no lasting successes, and earn no enduring gratitude,

by favoring one set of allies at the expense of another and those who truly oppose

us and our values cannot be appeased.

What we can do, however, is to change the context of our policy towards the ArabIsraeli conflict in ways that Secretary Powell may already be attempting. First, we

can get out of the middle and stop trying to force the pace. We can actually stop

and seriously listen to our allies in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia as well as

Israel. We can pay serious attention to the views of Europe, and try to bring Russia

actively back into the peace process.

Second, we can clearly define our policy towards Israel. We can make it clear that

no amount of threats or outside pressure will block the flow of aid and our commitment to Israel’s security. At the same time, we can make it equally clear that our

commitment is to Israel and not to the government of the day. Hopefully a unity

government will emerge in Israel that will continue to seek an end to violence and

which will act prudently and pursue peace. If, however, the Sharon government

moves towards extremes, does not sincerely support the search to end violence and

a move back towards a peace process, and offers the Palestinians and Syria no way

out, we should react accordingly. We should clearly and openly oppose it on these

issues without reducing our strategic commitment to Israel in any way.

More broadly, the Bush Administration can provide added humanitarian aid to

the Palestinians. It can also firmly oppose the kind of political opportunism that

seeks to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem before there is a peace, or which

tries to legislate that the same Palestinian leaders we need in trying to end the violence should be treated as terrorists.

IRAQ AND US POLICY TOWARDS IRAN

Iran is another key player in this strategic game. It is a counterweight to Iraq,

and its moderates and the faction that supports President Khatami offer some hope

that Iran will evolve to the point which it plays a constructive role in the region.

This does not mean that the US should tilt towards Iran to counter Iraq. We should,

however, realize that the same steps we should take to revise our policy towards

the Arab-Israeli conflict will undercut the hard-liners and extremists in Iran. We

should not soften our diplomatic opposition to Iran’s opposition to the peace process

and Israel’s very existence, support of the Hizbollah and violent Palestinian extremists, to Iran’s proliferation, and to Iran’s build-up of its military capabilities to

threaten the flow of shipping and oil through the Gulf.

At the same time, we recognize that President Khatami and his-supporters do

represent a major political shift, and take every valid opportunity to create correct

diplomatic relations and a government-to-government dialog. We should support the

Saudis, other Southern Gulf states, and Europe in trying to create relationships

that encourage moderate Iranian behavior.

We should allow the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act to sunset and revoke the executive

orders that block trade and energy investment in Iran. These sanctions have not

affected Iran’s behavior in any way. They have cut us off from Iran’s moderates and

business class, they have strengthened hard-liners in demonizing us, they have encouraged Iran to proliferate, and Iran has steadily increased its real arms imports

and military expenditures since they were passed. Strategically, they have limited

Iran’s ability to maintain and expand its energy exports at a time when an increase

in world oil production capacity is critical to limiting the rise in energy costs.

IRAQ AND THE NEED FOR NEW US POLICY OPTIONS

This brings us to Iraq, and we need to recognize that there are no easy and quick

solutions. To being, we need to understand that no other nation in the world believes that Saddam Hussein’s tyranny is fragile, or will support us in military adventures to overthrow his regime, even if we are willing to attempt them. No regime

in the region trusts Saddam or is free from fear of him, but key allies like Kuwait,

Saudi Arabia, and Turkey regard the Iraqi opposition outside Iraq as weak, divided,

19

and venal. They record the support that the Congress and Clinton Administration

gave to movements like the Iraqi National Congress as a political farce that has little real support beyond Washington’s Beltway and the lobby of the Dorchester

Hotel. They fear these games could drag them into dangerous and unpopular military adventures, divide Iraq in ways that would favor Iran’s hard-liners, and end

in a ‘‘Bay of Kurdistan’’ similar to the Bay of Pigs. Many other Iraqis who do oppose

Saddam also regard the Iraq Liberation Act and its selective aid to part of the opposition as the kind of overt US support that labels all outside opposition as traitors.

There is a good case for mounting a systematic covert operation to try to overthrow Saddam’s regime. There is an equal case for working with our allies—particularly Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—to say that we would waive reparations and debt

repayments if a new regime overthrew Saddam. We should also work with our regional allies to find some common approach to Iraqi Kurdish autonomy that we can

advocate to protect the Kurds. The plain truth of the matter, however, is that

Saddam’s regime is not fragile or unpopular with Iraq’s military, security forces,

and elite. Saddam also now has enough revenue from smuggle oil exports and his

manipulation of oil for food to buy all of the support he needs. His supporters now

live in relative luxury and economic sanctions hurt only the Iraqi people.

This says a great deal about the future of sanctions. We have absolutely no

chance of unifying the UN Security Council around revitalizing economic sanctions

or creating support for controls on energy investment in Iraq. France, China, and

Russia will oppose us and so will every Arab state and developing nation. Regardless of what Iran, Jordan, the Kurds, Syria, and Turkey say, they also will not crack

down on Iraqi petroleum smuggling. Here, the Clinton Administration has also left

the Bush Administration with a devastating legacy.

The Clinton Administration never took an effective lead in trying to really make

oil for food work and to ensure that the plight of the ordinary Iraqi was eased. It

made few efforts to counter Saddam’s endless propaganda effort to exploit the hardship of his own people, and the efforts it did make were so sporadic and lacking

in depth as to be totally unconvincing. Few in the Arab world know that nearly half

of the flow of goods under oil for food have been held up or manipulated by

Saddam’s regime.

It is simply too late to win this aspect of the battle for the minds of the Arab

world, although the Bush Administration has every incentive to carry out a systematic effort to refute Saddam’s charges, make it clear that he is the principal problem

in oil for food, and that he systematically lies about the causes and scale of Iraq’s health problems, infant mortality, and other social problems.

The US can still, however, work with its allies to make sanctions what Secretary

Powell has called ‘‘smart,’’ or ‘‘narrow but deep.’’ Many nations will join us in opposing any lifting of the sanctions on Saddam’s arms imports, and imports of dual-use

items to make conventional weapons, missiles, and weapons of mass destruction.

Other supplier and exporting nations will join in if they receive the ability to make

energy investments, can carry out wide ranging civil trade, and can exploit other

business opportunities. Arab leaders can justify such efforts to their people both on

the selfish grounds they aid their national security and on the broader grounds they

prevent Saddam from diverting funds away from Iraq’s true economic needs.

There are several key components to a new US approach to dealing with the US

foreign policy crisis in the Middle East. First, US must redefine its military position

in containing Saddam. The US must make it clear that its military presence in the

region is tailored only to deterring military adventures against the Kurds and other

states, is the minimal force required, and works in consultation with Turkey and

our Arab allies. It must repeatedly explain the size and role of our forces in depth,

and it must explain every military action in equal depth. The day we could simply

announce air strikes as part of enforcement of the No Fly Zones is over. So is the

day we could trivialize our military action or describe them as business as usual.

Even the best Pentagon briefings—and they have generally been horribly vague and

inadequate—are not a substitute for leadership from the President and Secretary

of State on this issue, or for detailed consultation with our allies. Moreover, when

we act, it should be for a clear purpose and so decisively that it truly deters Saddam, and not be at a level where any military damage we do is offset by Saddam’s

ability to use it for propaganda purposes.

Second, we should not give up totally on resuming UN inspections and bring

UNMOVIC back into Iraq. However, we must not have any illusions and continue

to treat Iraqi proliferation with the Clinton Administration’s ‘‘benign neglect.’’ In the

real world, it has been three years since UNSCOM could really carry out effective

inspections and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) never really challenge Iraq as effectively as it should. UNMOVIC may be a useful deterrent to open,

large-scale Iraqi action but it does not have the leadership or international support

20

to really carry out effective inspections and find the kind of covert cells and new

Iraqi efforts developed over the last three years. If anything, UNMOVIC could simply become the political cover for a UN effort that said it could find no evidence

of Iraqi efforts. We need to decouple the containment of Iraq’s proliferation from the

issue of UN inspection. We need to provide a comprehensive picture of what Iraq

is doing and the risks involved, and make it clear that inspection is not going to

be an answer to sustained military containment. If we do not, we will send mixed

and ineffective signals, and we may well see the UN turned into a tool that will

give Saddam a false blessing and a license to proliferate.

Finally, we should recognize that key Gulf allies like Saudi Arabia feel irritated

and neglected. They cannot openly express their contempt for the Clinton Administration, but they feel it deeply. They see the last few years of President Clinton’s

efforts to rush forwards towards a final Arab-Israel peace settlement as the act of

an opportunist who pressures them for his own political advantage. They feel they

came under intense pressure from his Secretary of Energy to increase production

and cut oil prices, reacted by making quiet concessions, and were then embarrassed

in public while he tried to run for Vice President. They feel the US ignored Saudi

efforts to create an institutionalized dialogue between importers and exporters that

could help create fair and stable prices. They feel Clinton’s Secretary of State and

Secretary of Defense lectured them, rather than consulted, and never really listened. The Saudi’s also feel Clinton’s trade representative deliberately ignored their

efforts to join the WTO. We do not need to sacrifice a single US interest to consult

with our Gulf allies, listen to them, and engage in a balanced diplomacy that gives

them the priority they deserve. Secretary Powell has already advocated such a balanced diplomacy and he is all too correct in doing so.

THE SPECIFIC STEPS WE SHOULD TAKE IN IMPROVING OUR POLICY TOWARDS IRAQ

Secretary Powell’s call for ‘‘smart sanctions’’ against Iraq is long overdue, and can

help to correct a critical weakness in our foreign policy. It was clear by the mid1990s that broad economic sanctions were not going to bring down Saddam Hussein,

halt Iraqi efforts to proliferate, or cripple the ability of Iraq’s military and security

forces to repress the Kurds, put down Iraq’s Shi’ite opposition, and threat Kuwait

and Saudi Arabia. It was equally clear that they continued to impoverish the ordinary Iraqi, and block Iraq’s economic development.

Nearly half a decade later, sanctions have eroded to the point where Iraq has over

one billion dollars of uncontrolled income from smuggled petroleum exports. Its

‘‘legal’’ oil revenues in 2000 are estimated at $21.6 billion, which is 89% higher than

in 1999, and more than 170% higher than in 1988. Saddam can now use a combination of this income and the holes in the controls on the UN oil for food program,

to buy the loyalty of his power elite, the security forces, and Republican Guards.

It makes good, and long overdue, sense to refocus the sanctions effort to ensuring

Saddam cannot import conventional arms and the technology and equipment to

produce weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, it is equally clear that

‘‘smart sanctions’’ are not enough and that the Bush Administration could easily repeat some of the most chronic failures of the Clinton Administration. The US needs

more of a strategy than can fit on a bumper sticker, and more thought than can

fit in a fortune cookie. To be specific, ‘‘smart sanctions’’ can only work if they are

part of the following seven major changes in US policy towards Iraq:

• First, the US must be prepared to confront potential and actual suppliers. It is

uncertain that the US can get even pro forma Security Council agreement to

refocusing sanctions in ways that give them real teeth. The waters and borders

of Iran, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey are not going to be sealed, and dual-use

items and military spare parts are notoriously hard to police. It will take a massive intelligence effort and confrontational diplomacy with suppliers, and the

nations on Iraq’s borders, to make ‘‘smart sanctions’’ work. Talk and good intentions are cheap; effective action is difficult and costly.

• Second, the US must come to grips with the failure of the UN inspection effort

and the fact UNMOVIC might do more harm if it did return to Iraq than good.

Effective UN inspection really halted in late 1997, and Desert Fox did virtually

nothing to really inhibit Iraq’s effort to proliferate. Iraq has had years to create

an effective network of cells and dual use efforts to develop a break out capability in chemical and biological weapons, improve its nuclear weapons designs,

and develop a missile program. UNMOVIC is still banned from Iraq, but if it

did return, it might well operate under so many political constraints that it

would end up certifying Iraqi compliance, rather than act as an effective deterrent to Iraqi action. The Clinton Administration dodged this issue for its last

21

two years in office, but ‘‘smart sanctions’’ require a clear and detailed plan of

action.

• Third, the US must face the reality of the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi opposition,

shift to a long-term covert operations effort, and focus on the continuing need for

military containment. The Bush Administration threatens to repeat the mistakes of the Clinton Administration and Congress, and go on backing weak and

unpopular elements of the Iraqi opposition like the Iraqi National Congress.

These movements have no meaningful support from any friendly government in

the region, and they have no military potential beyond dragging the US into

a ‘‘Bay of Kuwait’’ or ‘‘Bay of Kurdistan’’ disaster. The Turks fear them as a

way of dividing Iraq and creating a Kurdistan, and the Arabs fear them as a

way of bringing Iraq under Shi’ite control and/or Iranian influence. Worse, they

are no substitute for a major covert effort to overthrow Saddam from within,

and overt US funding of such movement tends to label the Iraqi opposition as

US sponsored traitors. We need to understand that containing Iraq is far more

important than legislating the funding of a forlorn hope.

• Fourth. the US must launch an actite truth campaign to confront Saddam on

oil for food and all of the other issues where he relies on lies and exploitation

of tensions in the region. The Clinton Administration committed a massive foreign policy mistake by failing to engage Saddam over his lies and propaganda.

Aside from some sporadic and truly inept press efforts, it allowed him to capture Arab and world opinion in lying about the problems in oil for food and the

true causes of the suffering of the Iraq people. It did not engage him actively

on human rights inside Iraq, his attacks on Iraq’s Shi’ites, his continuing claims

to Kuwait, or his threats to Iraq’s Kurds. It postured about palaces to the American media, and allowed Saddam to turn UN reporting into a propaganda defeat. ‘‘Smart sanctions’’ will not work without a massive and continued truth

campaign to fully explain the true character of the Iraqi regime that is tailored

to Gulf, Arab, and world audiences.

• Fifth, the US must think now about the ultimate future of Iraq’s Kurds. The erosion of sanctions poses immediate threats to Iraq’s Kurds. While the Clinton

Administration chose to ignore it, Iraq has been ‘‘cleansing’’ oil-rich areas in

Northern Iraq of Kurds and forcing them into other areas or the Kurdish security zone. It is not clear we can prevent this, but getting support for ‘‘smart

sanctions’’ and protecting the Kurds means we need a clear US policy on the

future of the Kurdish security zone and a definition of Kurdish autonomy that

will set policy goals to protect the Kurds while defusing fears Iraq will divide

or break up.

• Sixth, the US must have a clear energy policy towards Iraq. Iraq is a nation that

has some 11% of all the world’s oil reserves and that has not had any coherent

energy development efforts since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980.

US government projections call for Iraqi oil production capacity to more than

double from around 2.8 million barrels a day to 6.2 million barrels in 2020.

These increases in Iraq’s oil exports are also critical to any hope of its economic

development. Massive energy investments are required, and take years to a decade to pay off. They also can provide the Iraqi regime with major new resources.

‘‘Smart sanctions’’ must be coupled to a clear energy development policy.

• Finally, the US must revitalize the other aspects of military containment. The

true subtext of a ‘‘smart sanctions’’ policy is that we will need a major forward

military presence, rapid deployment capability, and war fighting ability to check

an Iraqi attack on Kuwait or threat to use weapons of mass destruction indefinitely into the future. The Clinton Administration spoke stickly and carried a

big soft. It ‘‘nickel and dimed’’ its use of force to contain Iraq, issued a series

of abortive threats over UN inspections, launched Desert Fox, and then halted

it before it could be effective. Two years of pin-prick strikes over the ‘‘No Fly

Zones’’ have done as much to give Saddam a propaganda victory as they have

to hurt his air defenses.

We need a formal Bush Doctrine that states our redlines, that says quite clearly

that Gulf security and the continued flow of oil is a vital US national security interest, and that we will remain committed to military containment and close cooperation with our Gulf allies as long as there is a threat from either Iraq or Iran. We

need to define the kind of Iraqi action that will lead us to launch military action,

and if Iraq takes such action, we need to strike so hard and so decisively that the

military and personal cost to Saddam is so unaffordable that any political propaganda gains he makes are minor in comparison. The one round of half-successful

strikes the Bush Administration launched on February 16th is Clintonesque at best.

22

‘‘Smart Sanctions’’ require a clear Bush Doctrine and a clearly defined commitment

to decisive force.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you for that strong statement. I will

look forward to further discussion with you.

Dr. Halperin, thank you for joining the committee. We look forward to your testimony.

STATEMENT OF DR. MORTON H. HALPERIN, SENIOR FELLOW,

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, WASHINGTON, DC

Dr. HALPERIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great pleasure

for me to be here. I have a written statement that I would like to

ask to be made a part of the record, and I would like to summarize

it and try to particularly talk about points where I either disagree

or have an additional element to bring to bear than what we have

heard so far.

Senator BROWNBACK. If you agree with some of them, too, you

can mention that.

Dr. HALPERIN. I start, I think, where all of the witnesses are,

and where I think all of you are as well. That is to say, Iraq is a

serious threat. Its leadership is committed to conventional aggression and conventional pressure. Its leadership remains committed

to developing weapons of mass destruction and if we fail to contain

that, it poses not only a direct threat, but a threat to our containment of nuclear weapons policy as a whole. We cannot succeed in

the nonproliferation policy if we do not succeed in stopping the

Iraqi program.

Third, I think our other policies in the Middle East are at risk

as long as we do not have an Iraqi policy that has the support of

the Arab countries, and inevitably interacts with their dislike of

our policy in the Middle East peace process and, I think, undermines our effectiveness in both areas.

Finally, an area that has not been mentioned, but to me is of

great concern, is if the Iraqi sanctions are seen to fail it will undercut one of the most important instruments of policy in the police

cold war period, and that has been our ability to persuade the Security Council to impose sanctions in situations where we thought

that was in our interests.

We were able to do that in Libya, for example, and finally get

the trial of the terrorists who we believe blew up the airplane. We

were able to get it against Serbia and Yugoslavia, and it played an

important role in the change of regime there, and we have been

able to get it in other situations as well.

My fear is that, as these sanctions erode, people are coming to

understand that there is no legal mechanism to enforce these sanctions, and that if other countries choose simply not to obey them,

that they can, in fact, get away with it. My fear is that not only

will we wake up one day and discover that the Iraqi sanctions are

gone, with, I think, very serious implications for Iraq policy, but

that it will become increasingly difficult in the future to persuade

countries to honor other sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security

Council.

These sanctions are often dangerous for the countries in the region. They are always expensive for the countries in the region, because they lose trade and they lose income. They have nevertheless

23

felt a legal obligation to do so, and I think the undercutting of that

would have very serious repercussions for American policy. So I

think whatever we do as we move forward, we need to keep in

mind the broader implications of what is at stake if we allow these

sanctions to fail.

I think that the differences that we have in this panel and in

general in the country about Iraq policy is not about how dangerous Saddam Hussein is, it is not about the threat that he poses,

it is not about the importance of containing him, but it is about

what we should do about that. I think that turns on different assessments of what is feasible, and those assessments do not turn

on any secret information.

My sense is that inside the government and inside the intelligence community there is as much disagreement about the feasibility, for example, of getting rid of Saddam Hussein by supporting

the opposition, as there is in the public as a whole. This seems to

turn as much on people’s temperament and what they would like

to believe than it does on any concrete facts.

Now, as I detail in my prepared statement, and I will not go into

here in detail, I think the most dangerous option is one of continuing to drift, of continuing to allow the sanctions to slowly erode

while we try to keep them together, of continuing efforts to bring

back the inspectors, which I think simply will not lead to the inspectors being brought back in, of continuing military operations,

which has already been suggested does not do very much—it is one

thing to maintain the principle firmly of the no-fly zones and to

make it clear that we will not permit military operations. It is another to continue to fly in ways that do not seem to send any clear

message, clearly does not have any impact on Iraqi military capability.

And yet this both undercuts support for the policy in the region

and runs the risk that American lives will be taken for no precisely

clear purpose. So I think we need to look at alternatives, and I

think that there are two basic options.

One is to try to get agreement within the Security Council, particularly among the P–5, and with the countries in the region, on

a new regime that would remain in place until there was a fundamental change in the Government of Iraq, and that, I think, would

have several elements.

First, I think it would require that we drastically reduce the list

of items that Iraq is prohibited from importing only to weapons

themselves and to real dual-use items. In return, seek agreement,

which I believe we could get, that the control over Iraqi revenues

for the oil they are permitted to sell, to make sure that these expenditures do not go for the unauthorized items, comes in place

and remains in place until there is a fundamental change in policy.

Second, I believe we need to recognize that a return of U.N. inspectors is very unlikely and, as has already been suggested, even

if it occurred, it is not clear that it would do very much good, given

that they clearly will not have the freedom that we want, and also

that they have had time to hide their weapons programs some

place else.

Instead, I think we need simply to in effect say to the Iraqi Government that these sanctions will continue until you find a way to

24

persuade the international community that you have abandoned

your efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

I do not believe that Iraq could do that absent a fundamental

change in the regime and a putting in place of a very different kind

of government. So my view is that this set of sanctions needs to

remain in place until there is a change in government, but that we

ought to put the onus on Iraq, rather than continuing these ineffective efforts and, I think, ultimately futile efforts to bring back inspectors.

In the case of the no-fly zone, what I think we need to do is

maintain clearly our assertion of the right to do it, but also to

make clear what our red lines are, that we will not permit the

Iraqis to move north, that we will not permit them to move against

the people in the southern part of their country, or to mobilize

against Kuwait or any other country. If they do that, we will respond not with the kind of very limited military action we have

done regularly, or even the kind of stepped-up military action that

we saw a week or so ago, but with serious and decisive military action of a kind that would, in fact, materially affect the capability

of the Iraqi military forces.

I think we should try, and I think we could succeed in getting

agreement from the countries whose bases we would need for those

operations, that this changed posture would have the support and

their agreement that decisive military action would take place if

any of these red lines were crossed.

Finally, as part of this I think we need to try to cut down on the

smuggling, which puts in the hands of the Iraqi leadership funds

that they could use for their own purposes, and which is the most

dangerous trend that is now developing.

We saw in the press that Secretary Powell has raised this issue

with the Syrians and, I believe, is part of the kind of change in policy that I have suggested here, that we could get agreement from

the countries that have been running pipelines outside the embargo, to bring those sales within the U.N. system so that we control

what Iraq does with the money.

In order to get the support of other key countries, including the

Russians and the French for this, I think we also ought to consider

whether some of the funds that Iraq brings in is used to pay off

their very large debts to foreign countries, including in particular,

France and Russia. I think it is no accident that the French and

the Russians have been pressing for a relaxing, if not elimination

of the embargo, and that these countries are very countries to

which Iraq owes a great deal of money.

I think it is not inconsistent with the embargo to begin to divert

some of the funds to pay off those debts, not only to those countries, but to many other countries, as part of the set of things that

the U.N.-impounded money is used for.

As everybody has said, I think there can be no doubt to anybody

who looks at it objectively that the embargo plays no significant

role in the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. Iraq has enough money

from the U.N. food for peace program, it has enough money from

the illegal smuggling program, to deal with those problems. It is

clear that the leadership prefers to spend its money on statues, on

25

palaces, and on weapons, and that you could give them a lot more

money and the problem would not change.

Nevertheless, it is also the case that we have paid a significant

price because people believe that somehow that we are at fault, I

do not believe more clever public diplomacy will solve this problem.

I think that a clear willingness to let Iraq spend money on many

other things is the key to beginning to turn this problem around.

Now, as we have heard before, and I am certain we will hear

from the last panelist, there is an alternative policy, and that is to

arm the opposition and to try to get rid of the current regime

quickly. I think there is no doubt that it would be in our interest

to do so. I think one can raise serious questions about whether we

should have done it when we had the chance to do so, when we had

an overwhelming army in the field, and we had defeated the Iraqi

military force, but I do not think we should allow ourselves the luxury of believing that somehow this can be done on the cheap.

If we arm people and put them in the country, if we declare and

support the creation of safe zones in the north or in the south, we

have to mean it, and that means we have to be prepared to commit

as much military force as it will take to hold those zones against

an attack, and it means we cannot wait until they are attacked.

We do not have forces now in the region that can deal with that.

We twice now encouraged people to act and then stood there while

they were attacked, and I believe we should not have done it either

of those times, and I believe we should not do it again.

If we are serious about this, it means a buildup of American military forces, maybe not to the level of the Persian Gulf war, but significantly more than we now have, and it means that we have to

decide in advance that an attack on those forces is the equivalent

of an attack on the United States and we are ready to go back to

war against Iraq.

Now, I do not believe the American people are ready to support

that. I do not believe the Congress is ready to support that, but if

the administration is persuaded that that is the route to go, I think

before we start arming people who are going to need our military

support, we need to have that debate. We need to make that decision. Since I continue to believe that the Constitution requires the

Congress to authorize us to go to war, I think we need a Resolution

of the Congress that says that we are prepared to protect these

people and to go to war to defend them.

I would welcome that debate. I think people would at the end of

the day say that the American interests are not such that we ought

to do that, but the policy of containment that I have outlined is

more prudent and more consistent with our interest, but what I

think would be a disaster would be to once more encourage people

to rise up and then to stand there and watch them be slaughtered.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Halperin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. MORTON H. HALPERIN

Mr. Chairman: It is a great privilege and a pleasure for me to testify once again

before this very distinguished committee. I first had the opportunity to appear before this committee when it conducted far ranging hearings on China in 1966. I believe that we are as urgently in need now of a serious debate on Iraq, as we were

then on China, and I commend this committee for holding these hearings.

26

There can be no doubt that what happens in Iraq and how we manage the process

of developing a consensus in the international community on Iraq is of enormous

importance to American and international security. This is so for at least four reasons.

First, as we learned dramatically a decade ago, Iraq has both the intention and

the capability to threaten its neighbors. There is no reason to think this has

changed. If Iraq were to conclude that the United States were no longer willing to

use force to protect its interests in the Gulf, it would be sorely tempted to press

its neighbors. Preventing conventional aggression by Iraq and maintaining the military relations necessary for us to respond effectively if deterrence fails, must be a

high priority for the United States.

Second, Iraq poses a direct and immediate threat to our non-proliferation policy.

An Iraq with missiles and nuclear or biological weapons would pose a threat to all

nations within its reach, including Israel. Moreover, our efforts to extend the principles of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction to the arc of states in this

area would be fatally undercut, if we are unable to prevent Iraq from developing

such weapons in the face of very explicit United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Third, our efforts to maintain support for the Middle East Peace Process among

the states of the region and to have their assistance on other critical issues, including the price and supply of oil, critically depends on our securing the support of the

nation’s of the region for our Iraq policy. It is not only that the embargo will continue to erode if it lacks support in the region, but it is also the case that our ability

to continue to have the support that we need on other issues will be jeopardized

if we pursue a policy towards Iraq which lacks support in the region.

Finally, if we permit the Iraqi sanctions to continue to erode in the face of a clear

Security Council mandate, we run the grave risk of undermining the respect for Security Council sanctions, which have served American interests well in many parts

of the world.

One of the most important and positive developments of the post-cold war period,

was the willingness of the Security Council to use its powers under Chapter VII to

impose economic sanctions on states for a variety of infractions of the basic norms

of international law and the willingness of almost all states to abide by these rules.

We need to remember, however, that there are no effective means to force states

to comply with such embargoes and that they often do so at significant economic

cost. If the Iraq sanctions simply fail it will be much harder to get the Security

Council in the future to impose such sanctions and to get states to obey them.

I start with these points, Mr. Chairman, to underline two basic themes. There can

be no question that the stakes are high in how we deal with Iraq. Where there are

differences of view, and surely there are, regards how to accomplish these specific

goals in ways which are compatible with other world-wide interests. The differences

of opinion about what the United States should do in regard to Iraq reflect much

less disagreements about the threat posed by Iraq, than differences about how effective different courses of action might be. This reflects the genuine difficulty in ferreting out the facts and interpreting them. I do not believe that disagreements result from differing access to classified information. People with full access disagree

with each other as much as they do with those who rely entirely on unclassified information.

I believe that there are three options that are likely to compete for adoption as

the Bush Administration reconsiders Iraq policy. The first would be a continuation

of the recent trends. The second would involve a refocusing of the sanctions. The

third will give higher priority to attempting to replace the current regime. In short,

I believe that the first option will inevitably end in disaster, and the third simply

cannot be implemented successfully. This leads me to support the second option of

focusing on the Iraqi program to develop weapons of mass destruction and its capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Over the past several years there has been a steady erosion in the key elements

of our current Iraq policy:

• We have gone from demanding sweeping changes in Iraq, beyond the end of the

program to develop weapons of mass destruction, before we would agree to end

the embargo, to making ending the weapons of mass destruction program essentially the sole criteria.

• We have gone from demanding the right of UN inspectors to go everywhere to

having no inspectors.

• We have gone from severely limiting how much oil Iraq could sell to permitting

Iraq to sell as much oil as it can pump.

27

• We have gone from severely limiting what Iraq can buy with the funds that it

gains from its oil sales to permitting it to purchase a much larger—but still

very limited—range of items.

And at the same time, as President Bush has noted, the embargo is becoming less

and less effective as more oil is sold outside the proscribed UN sanctioned scheme.

While the changes that have been made move us closer to what other countries, especially France, Russia and our allies in the region want, there has not been a corresponding increase in support for our Iraqi policy. On the contrary, support continues to decline. Incremental changes simply erode our position without gaining

more support for what remains in place.

If we continue down this path Iraq will be able to buy more and more goods within the sanction system, and will have more and more funds from sales conducted

in violation of the UN Security Council embargo. One day we will wake up and the

whole world will know that the sanctions are no longer working and many more

states will feel free to ignore them. The results will be disastrous not only for our

Iraq policy, but for our ability to employ UN sanctions in other situations and to

have states feel that they have an obligation to act consistent with UNSC resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

Despite these clear dangers, the pressures within the government to make only

incremental changes in policy are so strong that it will take an act of will with substantial Congressional and public support to move decisively.

Part of the task is to illuminate what the real options are. That is why these

hearings are so important and why I very much welcome this opportunity to lay out

the option which I believe is most consistent with American interests.

Our concerns about Iraq relate primarily to its effort to develop weapons of mass

destruction and to threaten the use of force against its neighbors. If we are to have

any chance of keeping the alliance against the current Iraqi regime together we

must focus on these concerns. In order to do that we should do the following:

• Drastically reduce the list of items which Iraq is prohibited from purchasing

only to weapons themselves and to real dual use items which would directly

contribute to development of weapons of mass destruction. In return seek UNSC

agreement to have the UN sanctions committee continue to control the revenue

Iraq receives for its oil sales so that it can prevent expenditures on these few

unauthorized items.

• Recognize that efforts to persuade Iraq to permit effective UN inspections on

its territory are very unlikely to succeed. Instead, focus on securing an agreement among the P-5 that the controls on expenditures will remain in place until

Iraq either permits full inspection or finds some other affirmative means to persuade the UNSC that it has abandoned its effort to develop weapons of mass

destruction or to threaten its neighbors with conventional aggression.

• Without abandoning our claimed right to enforce no fly zones in the north and

the south, curtail routine flights while restating our red lines in a clear and unambiguous manner, so that Iraq does not venture into the north, mobilize

against Kuwait or the population in the south of the country, or threaten any

other country in the region. Seek firm assurances from our friends and allies

in the region that bases would be available for military operations, should we

determine that Iraq is resuming its efforts to develop and deploy weapons of

mass destruction or is mounting military operations.

• In light of these changes, seek support from states in the region for efforts to

curtail the embargo-violating oil exports and to help curtail illegal smuggling

in and out of Iraq. We would be able to argue that these can no longer be justified on humanitarian grounds since the UN would now be permitting Iraq to

spend funds on all activities that might alleviate the current suffering of the

Iraqi people.

In order to increase the attractiveness of this package to Russia and France we

should consider permitting, or even requiring, that Iraq use some of its revenue

from the sale of oil, to pay its existing debts to other nations including these two

members of the UNSC. Our friends and allies in the region should find it easy to

support this package since it will be clear that the embargo cannot be responsible

for the continued suffering of the Iraqi people. Of course, that is the case now, since

the Iraqi regime has at its disposal sufficient resources, both from the authorized

sales and from the illegal sales, to do whatever is necessary to deal with the humanitarian tragedy in that country. The leadership prefers instead to use the funds for

its own pleasures and for weapons. However, this new approach should reduce the

criticism that the embargo is responsible for the humanitarian crisis.

28

I believe this approach would gain the needed support of states in the region and

of the UNSC and that it could be sustained over a long period of time until there

is a change in the Iraqi regime.

Of course, many believe that we should not wait for such change to occur on its

own, and that we should instead implement the stated policy and goal of regime

change by vastly increased support to the Iraq opposition.

There can be no doubt that American and, indeed, international security interests,

would be advanced if the current regime in Iraq were to be replaced by one which

was more committed to meeting the obligations which Iraq undertook at the end of

the Persian Gulf War. The question is only whether there are means to do that

which are consistent with other American interests and priorities and which could

get the necessary support from the American people and from other nations. I do

not believe that there are such means.

Certainly we have the conventional military power to defeat the Iraqi Army and

occupy that country. There was a fleeting moment at the end of the Gulf War when

it was plausible that the United States would use its military power to change the

Iraqi regime. There is no longer any such possibility. Unless Iraq threatens a new

act of aggression, the American people would not, and should not, support such an

effort, nor would our allies and friends provide the necessary bases and support.

Thus, those who want to remove the current regime advocate not an American

military operation, but rather a ‘‘covert operation.’’ I do not believe there is any real

option that involves only a covert operation. As in many previous situations, the real

aim of the covert operation would be to try to compel the United States to use military force to rescue an operation which was failing. Indeed, most of the Iraqi opposition groups which seek the weapons to launch operations inside of Iraq warn us that

they will expect American military support.

Anyone advocating a serious and determined effort to change this regime in the

short run by covert force, bears a very heavy burden of demonstrating that such an

effort has a real chance of success without massive American military action. Otherwise we run a grave risk of once again abandoning brave Iraqis, who rise up in the

mistaken belief that we will defend them, or find ourselves dragged into a war that

we cannot sustain.

Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate this opportunity to present my views and

stand ready to answer the questions of the committee.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you, Dr. Halperin, for your comments.

Secretary Perle, we are delighted to have you before the committee.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD N. PERLE, FORMER ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,

WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. PERLE. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to participate. I had prepared a list of issues that I thought,

taken together, would help in an orderly discussion of what American policy toward Iraq should be. One of the consequences of

speaking last after three intelligent presentations is, one is bound

to be repetitive or disagreeable, and I intend to be both.

The question has been posed and answered already: Is Saddam

stronger now than he was 10 years ago? I think everybody agrees

that he is. I think he is stronger than he was at this time 2 years

ago, and I am almost afraid to ask the question whether he is

stronger than he was 2 days ago, but I feel bound to say, he probably is stronger than he was 2 days ago, because what has been

presented in recent diplomatic efforts is not an indication of American strength but an indication of American weakness.

That is to say, the clear impression has been created that the

United States intends to relax the sanctions on Saddam. We can

call them smart sanctions if we like, but what they will look like

to the people of the region and, I think, the world, is a weakening

29

of American resolve in the face of pressure on those sanctions,

which is evident to everyone.

Does Saddam now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he

does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons. We have been unable to ferret them out and find

them. We could not do it when we had inspectors on the ground.

We will not be able to do it if the inspectors return.

How far he has gone on the nuclear weapons side, I do not think

we really know. My guess is it is further than we think. It is always further than we think, because we limit ourselves, as we

think about this, to what we are able to prove and demonstrate

and, unless you believe that we have uncovered everything, you

have to assume there is more than we are able to report, and that

is the history of these things, so I am sure Tony Cordesman would

agree that every time you eventually get behind the lines you discover there was more there than you thought.

How can we end his program to deliver weapons of mass destruction, to develop them and the means of delivering them? Well, I do

not think we can, as long as Saddam is there. As long as he is in

control of the territory and has sufficient financial and technical resources, he will continue to work at the development of those weapons.

We cannot learn much, in my view, in the absence of U.N. inspectors. I do not think we would learn much if the U.N. inspectors

were there. Even if the U.N. inspectors were there and free to operate in an effective manner, and the history suggests and the arrangements previously agreed to suggest that if inspectors were

permitted to return, they would be under such constraints that

their likelihood of their finding anything at all is very slim.

After all, Saddam has had plenty of time to destroy the data base

on which we once depended and, without intelligence of a kind that

we can get independent of the inspectors, there is really very little

that inspectors could do on the ground, so I do not think we would

get any additional confidence if inspectors returned.

I mention that because the suggestion has been made that we

would welcome Saddam back into the community of civilized nations if he only agreed to U.N. resolutions providing for inspections.

I think that would be a great mistake. Any agreement to inspections would be tactical and disingenuous, and the ticket to civilization should not be as cheap as that.

Needless to say, the return of inspectors would hardly justify the

normalization of relations with a man like Saddam. In fact, I do

not believe we ought to even aspire to normal relations with a man

who rules the way Saddam Hussein rules. There is nothing wrong

with distinguishing between those national leaders with whom we

wish to have normal relations and those who are beneath that

minimal standard.

Beyond the weapons of mass destruction, which I think we all

agree is proceeding to develop, how should we regard the view that

Saddam has been contained all these years during which we all

agree the situation has gotten worse? Well, containment became a

slogan rather than a policy some years ago. Contained maybe in

the sense that Tony Cordesman referred to.

30

He has been unable to buy weapons on the scale that he might

have been able to buy weapons otherwise, but there was a parade,

a military parade in Baghdad just a few days ago, and he demonstrated a thousand tanks, which I think is roughly double the

number he had at the end of Desert Storm, so he has managed to

double his tank force despite the constraints. Clearly, he would

have done more if he had been able to do more, so in that rather

narrow sense you could say that his military ambitions, at least for

conventional forces, has been contained, but that is about all you

can say.

The sanctions I think everyone agrees are not working in the

sense that they have not produced a significant change or, indeed,

any change in Saddam’s policy, in his ambition to acquire weapons

of mass destruction, in his defiance of U.N. resolutions and the

United Nations itself. They have been portrayed as damaging to

the people of Iraq. I think everyone on this panel agrees that the

suffering of the Iraqi people is being inflicted directly by Saddam

Hussein himself. The food that could be dispersed under the existing program is not being dispersed. The same thing is true of medicine. Money is piling up in Saddam’s bank. He is using the privation of his own people as a means of propaganda.

Now, the point has been made this morning, and I think the Secretary of State has been attempting to argue this on his recent mission abroad, that we should organize the sanctions differently in

order to make them more effective, and one of the things that he

means by that is that smuggling activities should be legalized. We

are not doing a very good job of controlling drugs, so let us legalize

the drugs. That is rather analogous to that. But there is oil moving

through a pipeline from Syria. That is smuggling, and Saddam has

access to the money, so let us make it legal.

The problem first of all is not money. Saddam has the money

that I believe he needs to do what he is doing clandestinely, and

since nobody envisions allowing him to spend that money openly on

weapons, you have got to ask, what difference is it going to make

to his program if the amount of money available to him is reduced?

It is far from obvious, but the fact is that putting money into the

U.N. program is no guarantee that it is kept from Saddam.

Saddam has a variety of means that I have not heard discussed

by which he siphons money out of the United Nations programs.

It includes everything from front companies that do business with

the United Nations that are, in fact, Iraqi proprietary companies,

to the standard techniques that are used all over the world to

evade restrictions on capital movements and the like, where imports are approved by the United Nations, invoices paid, and significant fractions of the money come back secretly to the regime.

So Saddam, even within the United Nations program, is able to

acquire all the money that he can usefully spend, in my view, on

his clandestine program to achieve weapons of mass destruction, so

at the end of the day you have to ask yourself, what is smarter or

better about smarter sanctions? They are weaker sanctions, to be

sure. They are intended to reshape opinion in the Arab world, by

which I think we should mean the street, because Arab leaders are

a good deal more sophisticated than we sometimes give them credit

for, and they understand perfectly well what is going on, but we

31

want to reshape the image in the street of the United States as

punishing the innocent civilians in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, I come to the conclusion after all of this that we

do not have an effective policy now. The changes that are being

talked about will be no more effective than we have had in the

past, that we will not be safe from the eventual development of the

means of delivering weapons of mass destruction against us,

against our friends and allies in the region, against our troops in

the field, as long as Saddam Hussein is in power. The risk will continue until the day he is removed from office.

Therefore, it seems to me worth concentrating our efforts on the

one policy that could actually work, and that is the removal of Saddam from power. Now, it is not easy. I concede, it is not easy, but

neither is it reasonable to characterize it as hopeless.

For one thing, before characterizing any ambitious program, one

ought to look at it carefully, and I have been struck by how much

of the comment about the prospects for success is based not on any

serious study, not on any serious analysis, not on sitting down with

the opposition to Saddam, who are prepared to risk their lives by

returning to Iraq and be mobilized within Iraq, but on pure assumption, pure speculation.

I keep hearing about Iraqi opposition sitting around hotels in

Mayfair. Who are we talking about? It is not true. It is simply

false. I spent the last 15 years getting to know the Iraqi opposition,

and when people in the comfort of their homes and offices in Washington, DC deride the Iraqi opposition for sitting around hotels in

Mayfair, when they have been in Iraq, when they are eager to return to Iraq, when they have seen their closest friends and associates and family murdered in Iraq, seems to me unfair to them and

an unreasonable conjecture about their motives.

So the question remains of their abilities. What can they do? You

know, I suspect if the sort of derision that is heaped on the opposition today had been around in the early days of our history, we

would still be a British colony. I am sure there were people who

said, those Americans are never going to get organized. They are

divided. The people in Virginia cannot agree with the people in

Massachusetts.

I do not mean to oversimplify this, but the fact is that when you

spend the time to understand the opposition, and when you look at

plausible opposition strategies, the picture that emerges is very different from the dismissive view that we have heard out of the Clinton administration for the last 8 years.

It is an opposition that has pulled itself together, that has a

structure within which it meets and takes decisions. It is an opposition that has made clear its intention to abandon weapons of

mass destruction and embrace democratic principles. It is an opposition that is eager to return to Iraq and, most of all, it is an opposition that in the past was able to organize itself in a major part

of the country that was beyond the control of Saddam Hussein.

Over a third of the country was, until 1996, outside Saddam Hussein’s control.

Now, Mort Halperin has repeated the specter that if we want to

do anything at all for the opposition we have to be prepared to

mount a military operation. I think he said it might be less than

32

Desert Storm, 1/2 million men, and I do not know what strategy

he is looking at, but I can tell you what strategy I think it makes

sense at least to consider, and that is this:

That is, to support the Iraqi opposition, to support the Iraqi National Congress in reestablishing its presence in parts of Iraq that

are not under Saddam’s control. That can be done, and it can be

done quickly. It requires some agreements with the two Kurdish

groups in the north, and it requires some work in the south, but

it can be done quickly. It can be done before the next hearing of

this subcommittee on this subject, of that I am absolutely certain,

and if they cannot do it, then we will know very quickly that they

cannot do it, but I believe they can.

That political presence is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of

Saddam’s rule, and every change in situations like this begins with

that. It happened to Ceaucescu, it happened to Milosevic, and it

will happen here, too. The moment people see there is an alternative, the moment that that veil of invincibility is pierced, there

is a political dynamic that takes place, and anyone who has ever

run for office knows how quickly things change, the moment it

looks as though you can stand up and oppose the power that dominates.

So the establishment of a political presence, coupled with broadcasting and publishing so that Saddam would lose his monopoly

over the flow of information could lead again, as it did in 1995, in

1996, to a situation in which Saddam would be politically challenged very fundamentally and, at that point, if he wished to take

military action, he would have to move his forces in a way that

would present us with very attractive targets.

I have heard it said today that we ought to go after serious targets. Mort Halperin said we should go after serious targets. I cannot imagine a more serious target than a column of tanks attempting to root out dissidents in the south who are clamoring for a

change of regime.

Do we always have to abandon our friends? Of course we do not.

They were abandoned in his administration. He did not have anything to do with it, I understand that, but there is nothing inevitable about abandoning your friends and allies, and to say we will

not even try because the last lot did not have the guts to stick with

it seems to me a recipe for defeatism. It is defeatism.

So I think there is a great deal that can be done with the opposition. I think those of us who have been privileged to know the opposition have come to appreciate and understand that potential.

The Congress clearly has recognized it in the action it has taken

before, and I hope that you will encourage the new administration

to take a new look, to sit down with the opposition and talk about

the ways in which, beginning with the establishment of a political

presence and leading ultimately to a political challenge to Saddam

Hussein, to which, if he makes a military response, we have available assets in the air to protect that opposition, I hope you will

urge the administration to consider that course, because none of

the other things that are under consideration, no matter how hard

we try to persuade ourselves about improved sanctions or smarter

sanctions, none of them are going to end the threat from Saddam

Hussein.

33

[The prepared statement of Mr. Perle follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD N. PERLE

Mr. Chairman: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I do

not have a prepared statement. For the convenience of the subcommittee I have listed on this page the key issues which, in my view, must shape any American policy

toward Iraq. I will try to cover each of them in a short opening statement.

1. Does the regime of Saddam Hussein pose a threat to the interests of the

United States and its allies? How does the magnitude of that threat today compare with what it was a decade ago at the end of Desert Storm? What about

this time two years ago? How about last year?

2. Does Saddam Hussein now possess weapons of mass destruction? How

much do we know about his programs with respect to chemical, biological and

nuclear weapons? Are any such programs proceeding?

3. How can we end Saddam’s programs to obtain weapons of mass destruction

and the means to deliver them?

4. In the absence of U.N. inspectors, how much can we expect to learn about

these programs?

5. Would a return of U.N. inspectors give us confidence that Saddam’s programs would be terminated and that any weapons of mass destruction he may

now have would be surrendered?

6. Would a return of inspectors justify the normalization of relations with

Saddam?

7. Beyond weapons of mass destruction, what should we think of the claim

that Saddam is ‘‘contained?’’

8. Are the present sanctions working? Can they be made more effective?

9. Can we—should we—rebuild the coalition that opposed Saddam following

the invasion of Kuwait?

10. Can we have confidence in the U.N. administration of programs affecting

Iraq?

11. Can we secure ourselves, our forces in the field and our friends and allies

in the region as long as Saddam is in power?

12. What are the prospects for removing Saddam’s regime from power?

13. How can we work with the INC to bring about a change in the Iraqi regime?

Senator BROWNBACK. This is an excellent discussion, and a good

starting point. Let us run the clock here 10 minutes, and then we

can bounce back and forth in a couple of rounds.

One of my frustrations with what it seems like has taken place

at least the last 5 years in U.S. policy toward Iraq has been this

lack of resolve, this kind of drift, just, well, we would like to have

him out of there, but we are not really sure how we would do that,

nor are we willing to really take the steps to get Saddam Hussein

out of office.

You each are talking about some different steps, and I think all

of you expressed frustration with where we are today in our policy

toward Saddam Hussein, and I want to use this policy toward Saddam Hussein rather than Iraq. I think that is a different issue.

All of you appear to support changing somewhat the rules of engagement on our air targets, if I am hearing you each correctly.

You are being critical of, or several of you are being critical of the

targeting we have done to date, and all of you would support a

more robust rules of engagement on air, on our targets for our air,

our airplanes and the British airplanes. Is that a correct reading

of each of your positions? Mr. Cordesman.

Mr. CORDESMAN. Senator, I think it would not be mine. I think

you have to be very careful about saying rules of engagement for

aircraft. What you would then mean is the daily aircraft we fly

34

would presumably do even more, every time they were illuminated,

or they saw a movement in ground-based radars, to engage individual systems or find some daily proxy to attack. We backed away

from that last summer. Let me note that the rules of engagement

have already changed.

But the problem is, these changes do not really do anything. At

the end, virtually the entire Iraq air defense system remains. Saddam can provoke an attack at the time and place of his choosing.

He can often do it in an area which produces collateral damage, or

serves his own political purposes.

I think the real issue has to be that if you are going to attack

at all, you must attack with sufficient force so you do him real

damage. That does not mean daily, or new rules of engagement. It

means that you allow a cumulative process of Iraqi action to buildup. You use this as a reason, and then you strike to the point

where you take out a significant percentage of his air defense assets, or you strike at your targets like Republican Guards headquarters. I do not think you can fix any aspect of the no-fly zone

patrols by simply saying, this is strengthening day-by-day rules of

engagement.

Senator BROWNBACK. I do not think I am quarreling with you on

this point. You are saying, though, that we should, when we respond, respond much stronger and on much clearer, bigger targets,

is that correct?

Mr. CORDESMAN. Much more selectively and much more rarely.

Go in hard, take the political cost, which is roughly the same as

if you conducted a minor strike, wait, and then hit him again if he

reconstitutes. But, do not do this in some sort of rigid game where

he can pick the way in which we respond and when we do it.

Senator KERREY. Mr. Chairman, I think it is extremely important—and it may be some modification of the no-fly protocols can

be changed, but I think it is extremely important that we not enter

into a process where it basically is the equivalent of a mission

creep.

I think what is needed is not only a fundamental reassessment,

but hopefully a bipartisan declaration from Congress, and that is

why I very much appreciate, Mr. Chairman, both you and Senator

Wellstone have stayed and listened to us yak on as we have done,

because what is needed is a bipartisan force that says, we want to

have the same experience we had when Kim Dae Jung, Nelson

Mandela, Vaclev Havel, and Lech Walesa came to a joint session

of Congress and said, ‘‘thank you for liberating us.’’ All four of them came to the American people and said—and I

agree with what Mort is saying, and I also agree with what Tony

is saying, you cannot do this on the cheap, and if you just let this

creep along because we think, well, we want to use more force with

our pilots, we may lose a few pilots, and then the American people

will say, what is this all about, I did not realize the mission had

changed.

I think it is very important for us to say, we believe in the liberation of Iraq, and if we believe in the liberation of Iraq, in my view,

our will equals feasibility. I completely agree with Morton. By the

way, it was not just in the Clinton administration. The first time

we called them up to arms was during the Bush administration,

35

and we did not provide them with cover, and they died as a consequence.

We call on them to be courageous, and then we do not back them

up, and it happened in two administrations. That cannot be allowed to happen this time, and I hope that you can get to a point—

I believe that if we recognize the provisional government and protect that provisional government in the north, and we lift the sanctions in the area we are protecting, I have absolutely no doubt that

the various factions are going to be able to work together, that if

they will see that the United States of America is open, sincere,

and is going to stay the course, I have no doubt that our will will

equal feasibility and will produce a liberation, and will produce a

celebration in Baghdad that is comparable to others that we have

celebrated in the latter part of the 20th century.

Dr. HALPERIN. Let me make two comments. First, I think when

we look at these comparisons we need to understand that this is

a regime that is much more ruthless than the ones that ultimately

we helped to liberate. This is a regime that still lives on absolute

terror, in which there is no space at all for any kind of not only

opposition, but civil society of any kind, in the areas that Saddam

Hussein controls, so I think the process of getting rid of this kind

of regime is very different than the South African Government that

ultimately was displaced and the Central European Government.

Senator BROWNBACK. What about Milosevic?

Dr. HALPERIN. Milosevic I think was as dangerous to our interest, but life in Belgrade under Milosevic was nothing like life—I

mean, there were independent radio stations. They tried to close

them down and they went on the Internet.

Senator KERREY. That does not tell us anything.

Dr. HALPERIN. It tells us it is going to be much harder.

Senator KERREY. But it does not tell us it is not feasible. The

question is, do we want to get the job done, and if we want to get

the job done, it becomes feasible.

Dr. HALPERIN. I agree.

Senator BROWNBACK. Actually, my point here, and if I could ask

you——

Senator WELLSTONE. Would you tell this witness here to please

behave himself?

Senator BROWNBACK. It seemed like toward Milosevic we decided

we do not want this guy in power, and that was projected, and that

was projected around the world. It seems like, toward Saddam

Hussein we are kind of going, we do not like this man in power,

but we are not willing to then go ahead and, OK, here is the steps,

then, you take to show the will that the United States needs to.

Dr. HALPERIN. I think the rhetoric has been the same about both

of them. I think the difference was, it was a lot easier to get rid

of Milosevic than it is Saddam Hussein, and I think it comes to the

question of military force.

Now, Richard says that if we encourage these areas and the

tanks start moving, that is a very tempting military target, and

one that we can attack. That is true, but I think the history of air

power is that you do not completely stop tank operations, or other

ground operations, with military power.

36

We saw that with Milosevic. The destruction in Kosovo continued

and was brought to an end only because Milosevic finally was

forced to give up, not because our bombing raids stopped him from

killing people, and I simply do not think we can count on either

the threat of air power or the actual implementation of air power.

I am not suggesting we not do it. I think we ought to have that

debate, but the debate I think has to accept that if he moves, we

bomb, and if the bombing does not work, we intervene with ground

forces, and that means having the ground forces there before he

moves, because if we wait to start sending in the ground forces

after we discover again that bombing does not stop tanks, you destroy a lot of tanks but you do not stop them from killing people,

it is going to be too late for the people who are being killed.

Senator BROWNBACK. I understand, and we have been down that

road before.

Richard.

Mr. PERLE. Mort wants smart sanctions, I want smart weapons.

We have both been in the Pentagon, but he was there before me.

With the really smart weapons we now have the capability, in

situations like the military situation that would exist in Iraq, to do

really quite extraordinary things with air power, to hit the targets

at which we aim almost all the time, and to do so without significant risk to our own pilots, particularly in a situation where we

control the air, and so there is no comparison between the air operation that we faced in Kosovo, in my view, and the kinds of air operations that would be required in the Iraqi desert, dealing with

columns of armor moving over a very thin road network and

through narrow defiles and passes in the north.

This is ideal territory for air warfare, as we saw during Desert

Storm. You saw the roads and the highways, so the potential for

air power is vastly greater. I am not saying you will never need

any ground force, but we are not talking about a Desert Storm

scale of activity.

Senator BROWNBACK. Senator Wellstone.

Senator WELLSTONE. Let us continue with this discussion. I want

to get back maybe at the end of my time to sanctions. Mort, I just

want to quote from part of your testimony, then bounce this off of

everyone, starting with you. You say, ‘‘anyone advocating a serious’’—and this is the issue we are focused on—‘‘a serious and determined effort to change this regime in the short run by a covert

force bears a very heavy burden of demonstrating that such an effort has a real chance of success without massive American military action.’’ Now, for each of you, starting with you, Mort, do you think that

the Iraqi opposition can undertake a major successful operation

without the United States being a part of this, or being dragged in,

or however you want to put it, and do you think the American people would support such an effort? That is, I guess, my question initially for each of you.

Dr. HALPERIN. I do not believe that they could sustain the safe

havens without substantial American military force, and I guess I

am less optimistic than Richard is, that if they were left in these

safe havens, which they occupied, as I said, a substantial portion

of the country earlier on, I do not believe it has the same kind of

37

impact as we see in political elections, or even as we saw in politics

in Eastern Europe because of the nature of this regime.

I believe it is a pure totalitarian regime that remains in power

based on the worst kinds of terrorism, and therefore I think, while

a miracle can always happen, that if we go into this, we have to

go into it with the notion that there is going to have to be a substantial American military involvement, and that air power alone

is not likely to be enough, and whether it is a smaller land force,

as Richard suggests, or a bigger one that I suggest, at least some

of the people in this administration would want to be sure that it

succeeded. I think we have to assume that.

I would also have to say that while I think one should never rely

entirely on experts, it is not true that this administration—I mean,

the past administration and, I assume, the one before that, did not

look at the hard question of whether you get rid of Saddam Hussein by supporting the opposition, and the people who get paid to

do that in various agencies of the government reached the conclusion that you could not. Now, they may be wrong, but it is not the

case that people just dismissed it without taking a look at it.

Senator WELLSTONE. The other part of my question for you, and

each of you, is, I asked you whether or not you thought this could

be done without major American involvement, both air and ground,

and you said you would need that. Would you advocate such a policy?

Dr. HALPERIN. I do not advocate it, because I think the cost to

the United States and the cost to our relationships with other

countries, and the cost to our ability to use the Security Council for

other purposes, would outweigh the value. I would like to get rid

of this man, but I think that cost is not worth it.

Senator WELLSTONE. Senator Kerrey.

Senator KERREY. I would answer unequivocally yes, it is worth

it. It is worth the price, and by the way, the opposition forces are

not asking for the kind of American intervention that Mort is advocating. I do think he is quite right that we have to make certain

that we are not going to start and then stop again. We have to understand, we have got to go the distance.

Senator WELLSTONE. But my question was whether or not you

think this opposition can undertake this effort without, in fact,

major involvement by us.

Senator KERREY. We have a major involvement. Nineteen Americans were killed at Khobar Towers in June 1996. Why? They were

killed because we are in Saudi Arabia. Why are we in Saudi Arabia? To contain Iraq.

In 1998, 11 more Americans were killed in West African Embassies. Why? Because Osama bin Laden wants us out of Saudi Arabia. And 17 more were killed—what I am saying, Senator, is, we

have a significant military operation in place right now, and we are

taking casualties.

The question is not, are we going to have a military operation.

The question is, what is the mission, what is the objective, and I

am saying with great respect that I believe the mission should

change from containment to replacement to liberate the people of

Iraq, and I believe it is entirely feasible for us to do it, and I think

the payoff is enormous, 20 million people of Iraq liberated.

38

Senator WELLSTONE. So your position is, you go from containment to replacement, and it would be Iraqi opposition forces, but

it would also necessitate major involvement by us militarily, and

we should do that? I am just trying to be clear.

Senator KERREY. I think it would take a continuation of military

involvement. It is not new military involvement. The point I am

making is, we are taking casualties today, Senator. We have at

least—we have several hundred million dollars of expenditures

right now on the line to try to contain, so I am saying it is a false

choice to say that what I am talking about to liberate Iraq would

require new military operation. It would require a different kind of

planning and a different military operation than the one we have

right now, but it is not a military operation versus none today.

Senator WELLSTONE. You know how you can do this—the last

word I get and that is not fair to you, and then move on to others,

but just so you respond to this, and then I promise to move on, but

really, it certainly—I mean, if we are talking about air strikes and

ground troops, that seems to me to be rather different. Yes, we

have a military presence. This seems to be a rather different order

from where we are right now, yes?

Senator KERREY. It certainly—if you say that my current mission

is to contain, we have taken 47 casualties and we have spent several billion dollars in order to contain over the last 10 years and,

as Tony says, we have gotten benefit out of it, and if you want to

liberate, it is going to take a different military operation than the

one we have in place right now.

But Senator, if we end up with a bipartisan effort coming out of

Congress, go to the opposition and ask them, what is the definition

of will? What is the definition of what they want out of the American people?

They will not say that they need a massive military intervention

in order to be able to carry this off. They are asking for much different. They are asking for recognition of a provisional government.

They are asking that we protect that provisional government in the

north. They are asking we lift the sanctions in those liberated

areas, and they believe, and in fact they came relatively close in

the past once before during the Clinton administration, when we

pulled back. We did not provide the follow-on support because of

the very reason you are saying.

Mr. PERLE. Senator, I do not want to propel us into an argument

about the advice that led to the policies of the past, but let me just

say that one of the documents that purports to be definitive with

respect to the quality of the opposition, prepared by an organization I will not identify, is short on facts, but one of the facts it purports to relate to the reader is that the head of the Iraqi National

Congress travels with 26 bodyguards.

Now, he happens to be in the room, and he is surrounded by no

bodyguards at all. That is the quality of the expert advice that we

have been given for years, and if this committee wants a really interesting and challenging assignment, it would be to review the

last 30 years of expert advice on the gulf from the institutions on

which we have come to rely.

There is some history here, and the history important. In 1995,

the Iraqi opposition in the north of Iraq planned a military operVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 16, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 71541 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
39

ation from which United States support was withdrawn at the last

minute. They thought it was too late to terminate the operation altogether, and it was initiated. It resulted very quickly in the destruction of two Iraqi divisions. This was with very little support

from the United States, and none at all at the crucial moment.

In 1996, when Saddam Hussein moved into the north, only after

securing the agreement of one of the Kurdish factions, and without

that agreement they could not have moved unopposed into the

north, when Saddam Hussein did that, he did it because the defections from his own military forces were mounting in such numbers

that he understood he had to act.

Now, unhappily, at that moment we did not have the will, we did

not have the resolve, we did not have the determination to exercise

the air power we had which in modest application would have, I

believe would have ended Saddam’s regime then and there.

This is not as daunting a prospect as people say it is, and it is

true Saddam is brutal beyond imagination. It is also true that men

who rule like that earn enemies in the millions, and when things

begin to turn, they can and do turn very fast.

This war, if it happens, this liberation of Iraq, if it happens, will

be conducted principally by Iraqis both from the armed forces joining the political opposition in the north and south, with a little bit

of help from American air power.

Senator WELLSTONE. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cordesman.

Mr. CORDESMAN. The problem is that we often end up attacking

the opposition when we should be noting that Saddam is a strong

and competent tyranny with a core of very effective military forces

which are heavy, well-armored, which have fought well against

much better organized opponents at the regional level.

I think we sometimes forget how different the gulf war was relative to what happened in the Iran-Iraq war. Because of that, I do

not believe that you can create an effective military opposition

without massive American participation. I think you would have to

have forces based in Turkey and defensive forces in terms of their

ability to operate really out of Saudi Arabia. Kuwait does not have

the basing capability that would approach several wings.

You would need a massive battle management support. It would

not be an extension of what exists today in the no-fly zones. You

would have to be prepared, frankly, to deal with the consequences

of what happens if the opposition should lose, and I strongly suspect they would lose. I have heard many reports of defections and

weaknesses and assassination attempts and coup d’etat attempts,

and I have listed quite a number of them in my books, but the fact

is, he is still there, and at least some of those coup d’etat attempts

never happened.

The other thing that we have not talked about and has to be

borne in mind is, are we really talking about unilateral war? Are

we going to bring Turkey along into this equation? Is Saudi Arabia

going to play, in spite of its stated fear of division? What is Kuwait

really going to do?

The last time I was in Kuwait talking to the opposition—and I

am afraid the history of that conference was not a happy one—I

was talking to someone who claimed to be a commander in the SuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 16, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 71541 SFRELA1 PsN: SFRELA1
40

preme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. In listening to his

call for American air support—and coming from an Iranian-backed

opposition this was interesting—it was quite clear he may have

been well able to launch small attacks inside southern Iraq, and

carry out pinprick attacks on the regime. But, he had absolutely no

idea whatsoever about what it meant to actually confront a modern

force and to deal with air power.

And let me note, there has to be an aftermath to military action.

We have found out the hard way that unless you have an almost

unified opposition arise, you have a massive exercise in nationbuilding, so when you begin with the military dimension you had

better be prepared to go on with all of the economic and other aid

required, something we have not done in Bosnia, and something we

certainly have not done in Kosovo, and if we are going to set a

precedent, so be it, but it will be the first one.

Senator BROWNBACK. It is troubling to me that we are sitting

here saying, I wish we could do this, I wish we had done that, but

if we continue on the current course we are on right now, if we go

into smart sanctions, which a couple of you have noted you deem

as a start toward no sanctions, toward just loosening up what is

taking place, we are further eroding the sort of resolve, and we are

probably just a few more years down the road from just saying, oh,

what the heck, let us just kind of dribble out of the region and Saddam stays, which is what I think most of our Arab allies in the region have concluded is actually what is going to take place anyway.

U.S. resolve loosens, weakens over time, we are here in the

neighborhood, we have to take the brunt of any fight, and if you

guys are not going to show resolve with this, then we are certainly

not going to poke a stick into Saddam Hussein’s eye.

That is why I think right now is really such a key time for us.

We have got a new administration, and one that has to make this

choice, and I think the choice they make now determines where

things end up within a couple of years, and we could make choices

now on policy toward Iraq, U.S. policy toward Iraq that may take

a couple of years in their implementation to be successful, but they

could ultimately, I believe, put us in a position where Saddam is

out of there.

It is not a 6-month strategy. I think it is a multiple-year strategy, but it is one of those forks in the road where, OK, we are going

to take a much more aggressive, robust position now, knowing that

it is not going to produce the solution we want in 6 months, but

it will, we hope, in 3 years, or we could stay on this one we are

on right now which just kind of dribbles down until we get occupied

with something else, and eventually we start pulling people, aircraft out of Saudi Arabia and we start focusing in different areas,

and we just do not go anywhere further forward.

I would hope all of you would actually work with us at this point

that we take the more robust approach now, where we have a new

administration in, and that we would all conclude together, as we,

I believe, have at the panel, that Saddam Hussein is the problem,

the regime that is currently in control is the problem, and now is

the time for us to take a different approach.

I would welcome your input at our offices, I am certain that Paul

would as well, of what that different approach would be, but more

41

importantly input toward the administration of saying, we will

need to come together on this as a country if we are going to implement this policy.

And I think, Dr. Halperin, what you note is correct, there are

costs associated with this, or difficulties associated with this. I

think long term there are far more difficulties associated with the

route we are currently on than picking a new one, that we can fill

a cavity now or we can pull a tooth later, that this is the time to

act and it will be much less costly on that.

That will be my final comment. I do not know, Paul, if you had

anything further you wanted to add, or the witnesses would care

to state.

Dr. HALPERIN. Senator, I agree with you that we cannot afford

to continue to drift. I think there are two disastrous policies. One

is to continue to drift, and the other is to start support for the opposition that we are not prepared to carry forward, but I think

there are two real policies, one is the one of deciding we are going

to get rid of him and support the opposition to the degree that that

is necessary. I do not see how you do that over 3 years, because

I do not think this can be a slow process.

Richard is right, you have got to do something decisive and be

prepared to back it up. I do not see a sort of gradualism here that

does any good, but I do think there is an alternative.

I do not believe that moving to a different set of sanctions of the

kind that I have outlined inevitably means we are getting out.

What I think it means is that we establish something that is permanent and something that will have the necessary support both

in the region and with the U.N. Security Council, not to stop everything, but to put Saddam Hussein in a position where he cannot

engage in conventional military operations either in his country or

beyond it, and where his ability to expand his weapons of mass destruction program is not eliminated, but contained, and that we

then confront them with a classic containment situation, which I

think we could sustain as long as we have to.

I think, in other words, we can go to a new form of containment

which is sustainable.

Senator WELLSTONE. Mort, I gather that—and I do not want to

take time away from Secretary Perle or Mr. Cordesman, but I gather in some ways what you just said goes back to the distinction

that Senator Kerrey was trying to draw between containment—you

are talking about a different policy of containment. You do not

want to go with drift versus what he called replacement, am I correct?

You are saying, as unhappy a prospect as it is, the containment,

a different kind of containment is a policy that you think is workable and sustainable, and I think Secretary Perle has a different—

I mean, let me try and just take 5 more minutes and draw out your

perspective. I do not want to preclude you.

Mr. PERLE. I think the distinctions will be lost on most observers

between containment and containment mark 2. It is bound to be

viewed——

Senator WELLSTONE. I knew he would say something like that,

Mort.

42

Mr. PERLE. We may not be as far apart as Mort thinks. I think

Mort has not looked at—and correct me if I am wrong—at ways in

which a policy of support to the opposition could entail containment

of risk, so that one would begin—I mean, Mort referred to arming

the opposition. He did not hear anything about arming the opposition from me, that the usual perception is we are going to start

issuing weapons to the opposition and invite them to march toward

Baghdad. That certainly is not my concept. It is not General

Downing’s concept. It is not the concept of the opposition figures

that I have consulted with.

Our views differ, but my own view is that you start with a return

of the opposition to the north, to the north and parts of the south

that are not under Saddam’s control. I do not think there is a lot

he can do about that in the near term, and he might not even be

motivated to do a lot about it in the near term.

As they begin to gather political strength, eventually they become a political challenge of some importance. We could talk then

about what you would need in terms of military resources from outside and from inside, and what you could expect to get from defections from the Iraqi forces, what might even be there, latent now,

underground because there is no external support of any kind, not

even financial external support, but I think you could contain the

risk in the sense that if the political operation did not appear to

be succeeding, then you would not necessarily take the next step.

One of the things that I think has discouraged people from looking at options in this area is the sense that a decision to support

an opposition strategy is the decision to launch an attack against

Baghdad, and that looks pretty daunting under current circumstances. I certainly would not recommend that.

But the opposition themselves are prepared to risk their lives.

They make judgments, have to make judgments every day about

how much protection they require and how much risk they are prepared to take, and they believe there are feasible options in which

they can engage, and I think we do not have to accept a 2 or 3-

year scenario to take those first steps.

Senator WELLSTONE. You know, Mr. Chairman, I want to hear

from Mr. Cordesman before we finish, but I was thinking about

this testimony, which I think has been very important, but it is not

as important as it should be if it is just a hearing and that is it.

One of the things we might do, because we have been apart on

this, is we might—the staffs get together and see exactly what area

of common ground we have. We should go through the same exercise as this discussion, and I will tell you, this committee, I think

we should.

The other thing is, I really believe we should, this committee, we

should put together a whole set of hearings on this issue, the whole

question.

Mr. Cordesman started out earlier saying ‘‘I do not think you can

decontextualize this from what is happening with Israel and in the

Middle East, and what was once the peace process, and where are

we heading.’’ I think we ought to do a whole set of hearings and

just stay with it, and I am committed to doing that, and we could

work together on it. I think it is really important to do.

43

By the way, I would like to thank all of you in advance. Thank

you.

Mr. CORDESMAN. Senator, a very few quick points. One thing I

think we all agree on is that people really need to understand that

smart sanctions will at best only work if you have strong and decisive military containment. Strong and decisive military containment means military action, and the willingness and demonstrated

ability to protect Kuwait, the Kurds, and halt any major deployment of weapons of mass destruction.

If we do not have that commitment, smart sanctions are, indeed,

a road to no sanctions. I do not believe the Bush administration

would make that choice, but it is a point to remember.

I do not believe the opposition today can be made strong or popular enough to overthrow Saddam. I do not necessarily disagree

with what Richard has said, but any effort to support the opposition has to be very well contained, without military adventures,

without creating the equivalent of a Bay of Pigs. I do not believe

you can create a Contra movement, which was not universally popular, as I remember it, in Congress on a bipartisan basis.

But more than that, we have forgotten the fact we cannot act in

a vacuum. This is not some game board. What about Turkey? What

about Saudi Arabia? What about Jordan? What about Syria? What

kind of structure of alliances does it take to really make this work,

as distinguished from having Saddam use it to discredit the opposition as tools of America, and use it to gain popularity in the Arab

world, and you had better answer all of those questions before you

start anything that you may not be able to finish.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you. That is all well-put. We will

work together, and let us see if there are things we cannot come

up with together. I do not detect the disagreements that I guess I

thought I would coming in here. Maybe there is on tactics or

thoughtfulness, maybe, of when you go in you cannot move one

piece of this chessboard without impacting four or five other chess

games you have got going on at the same time, and those have to

all be considered.

It has been an excellent discussion, particularly at an important

time for the country, and in looking at a new policy position here.

We appreciate very much your attendance.

The record will remain open for the requisite number of days to

make changes, if you desire, in your testimony. Thank you very

much. The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

Æ