Abstract
According to diplomatic observers, allied officials, former inspectors, government sources, intelligence analysts, Iraqi defectors and Pentagon insiders, Saddam Hussein still dreams of weapons of mass destruction. Despite bombing, sanctions, and eradication efforts by the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, experts believe that Iraq may be as close to the acquisition of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons as it was before the Gulf War.
What to do about Iraq is a perpetual preoccupation attended to by a now enormous coterie of post-Desert Storm veterans who have manned action and inspection teams, technical groups, negotiating sessions, analysis shops, and policy offices.
There is little consensus. Virtually everyone believes that renewed inspections are essential to maintain checks on Iraqi ambitions. But there is so much bad blood and soiled history about those inspections and how bombing ruined the hallowed effort, one wonders how the nonproliferation crowd can ever be satisfied.
“It is obviously made up from beginning to end, especially that it … uses such vocabulary as ‘doubts,’ ‘signs,’ ‘probably,’ and ‘might.’” Thus Al-Thawrah, the newspaper of the Iraqi ruling Ba'ath party, condemned reporting by the New York Times earlier this year on Iraq's continuing efforts to develop proscribed weapons.
Iraqi indignation should be completely unbearable to any thinking person. Baghdad's strategy has always been to preserve what it could of its weapons capability while waiting for the international community to exhaust itself. If Iraqi children die in the process, if civilians suffer, it doesn't bother Saddam Hussein.
The effectiveness of Iraq's secrecy and compart-mentalization, as well as its lies to inspectors, necessitated the aggressiveness that led to the very confrontations that ultimately killed the inspection effort. Nevertheless, the flailing about of the non-proliferation faithful inspires little confidence, especially when they cannot bring themselves to enough of a consensus that would allow them to “close” any portion of the Iraqi case.
Estimates of “excess” Iraqi civilian deaths since the imposition of sanctions in 1990 range from a couple of hundred thousand to more than one million.
Not all of these people died because of sanctions, but what to do about the humanitarian disaster is a perpetual preoccupation of activists and relief workers. They ignore the arms control imperative and argue for the lifting of sanctions on strict humanitarian grounds. But again, there is no consensus. The U.S. government argues that blame for conditions inside Iraq lies with Iraqi policy. Counter-arguments are made that the U.N.'s oil-for-food program is deliberately structured to fail, that it is part of a conspiracy to keep Iraq impoverished and to undermine the regime.
Of course, no one professes to want ineffective arms control, but the humanitarian-inclined, as well as a coterie of anti-American activists who love to take a stance on Iraq for their own purposes, believe that disarmament efforts have not been seriously pursued because of an intentional policy to destroy the country and Saddam.
Further, the lack of inspections simply increases uncertainty. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and one of the most consistent Iraq observers, offers somewhat rhetorically, “they may have nuclear weapons now.”
So why should anyone accept the precedence of arms control over human demands when it indeed seems as if there is no end result?
This is an especially difficult argument because the Iraqi regime has manipulated health conditions as part of its effort to undermine the international nonproliferation consensus. And short of a miraculous coup that brings democracy to the nation, any replacement for Saddam will likely continue the current Iraqi strategic thrust.
But should Baghdad just be let off the hook? As we approach the tenth anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, neither war nor arms control has beaten Saddam. A legion of inspectors and diplomats have quit, retired, or been fired—victims of frustration or exhaustion. Their counterparts in the humanitarian program have been equally defeated.
Iraq says it will not permit inspections to resume until sanctions are lifted. If this is its final answer, more bombing is likely. Sure, it will be another expression of frustration and failure. Sure, it will further undermine prospects for normalization. Sure, it may even aid Saddam in attaining his dream.
But bombing is also the dire solution compelled by nonproliferation nightmares, no matter how contrived they might be.