Scorecard For Moscow’s ‘Double Game’ In Iraq

Introduction

As President Bush prepares to meet Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Helsinki on 9 September, the question of Moscow’s true intentions in the Persian Gulf crisis is moving to the forefront of the policy debate. For his part, Mr. Bush has repeatedly emphasized his satisfaction with what he has called the Soviets’ "superb cooperation" with the United States to date.

Senior Administration figures like National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, moreover, have described Moscow’s constructive role as the stuff of which a new Post-Cold War "world order" can be made, based fundamentally on U.S.-Soviet joint leadership of the international community in resisting aggression. The USSR’s support for five U.N. Security Council resolutions criticizing and punishing Iraq for the invasion of Kuwait are cited as proof positive of the emerging partnership said to be replacing the mutual hostility and competition of yesteryear.

Further proof was offered in the aftermath of Secretary of State James Baker’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 5 September 1990. On that occasion, several senators — notably Sen. William Cohen (R-ME) — took strong exception to duplicitous Soviet activities in the Persian Gulf crisis. Seemingly in response, a unnamed "senior Administration official" backgrounded the Chicago Tribune to the effect that Moscow was providing U.S. intelligence officials with "reams of useful intelligence information about Iraqi capabilities." (Emphasis added.)

What is more, White House press spokesman Marlin Fitzwater has intimated that the Bush Administration is far more favorably disposed than previously toward assisting the Soviet Union with its pressing economic and financial needs in light of the USSR’s new constructiveness. On 5 September, Fitzwater opined that Soviet cooperation on U.S. policies "has impressed us to the point that we are even more interested in being supportive economically if we can."

Such statements by senior figures in the Bush Administration seem to designed to telegraph the bottom-line of the Helsinki summit: Gorbachev expects to be paid — and paid handsomely — for his country’s "cooperation" in the Gulf crisis. The threshold question now must be: Is Soviet "cooperation," such as it is, really worth paying anything for?

The True Character of Soviet Activities in the Gulf Crisis

Even as it seeks to extract significant new economic, financial and technological, and particularly energy-related assistance from the United States, the Soviet Union is pressing a four-part agenda quite inconsistent both with its own public rhetoric and with U.S. interests. This agenda involves determined efforts:

1. to maintain strong ties to one of its most strategically and economically important clients, namely the Saddam Hussein regime;

    

 

2. to undercut U.S. leadership in the crisis while constraining American options for dealing with Iraq militarily;

    

 

3. to help generate and exploit rising Arab animosity to the United States’s role in the Middle East to the Kremlin’s long-term advantage in the region; and

    

 

4. to advance the strategy of dividing the United States from its European allies, notably Germany.

    

Consider the following Soviet activities that promote one or more of these purposes:

Military Support

At least 7,000 Soviet advisers (civilian as well as military) remain in Iraq. Many of such advisors provide vital support to the armed forces, intelligence and security apparatuses of the Saddam Hussein regime. While Moscow has tried to minimize the significance of this support — maintaining that there are only 193 military advisers in Iraq and describing their continuing presence as a function of merely fulfilling the USSR’s contractual obligations — the facts indicate otherwise:

• Soviet personnel in Iraq are enabling Saddam Hussein’s forces to field Soviet-supplied military hardware that might otherwise be unusable or less effective against American troops in the event of armed conflict. For example, U.S. intelligence is reported to have determined that Soviet advisers are still working at a plant near Baghdad that produces advanced T-72 tanks. In other words, should war break out, more U.S. and allied personnel could perish as a result of the USSR’s so-called "supportive" role in the Gulf crisis.

 

• Even if they are pulled out this weekend with great fanfare — perhaps as part of a deal struck at the summit — it is reasonable to assume that Iraqi forces and equipment will be better prepared for action than they would have been had the Soviets departed five weeks before.

   

• Worse still, Western intelligence sources believe the Soviets themselves may be operating some of the more sophisticated equipment Moscow has exported to Iraq, like jammers being employed to try to deny U.S. and Saudi Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft vital information concerning Iraqi military movements.

 

• It is worth noting that the contracts Moscow insists on honoring by definition violate the U.N. sanctions on goods and services to Iraq for which Moscow has voted. In fact, "contract sanctity" is an excuse that has all too often in the past been used by the Soviets (and those who have collaborated with them) to persist in activities that — once revealed — cannot otherwise be justified.

 

• There are reports that the Soviet Union has continued, also in violation of the U.N. embargo, to provide Iraq both directly and indirectly with military equipment and spare parts needed to maintain its war machine. For example, Moscow continued in the post-embargo period to send parts for Iraq’s Mi-17 transport helicopters. Cuban, Libyan and North Korean stocks of Soviet weaponry have evidently been transported by air — again with the effect of helping Saddam Hussein field a more lethal array of capabilities against U.S. forces than could otherwise be the case.

 

• There is, moreover, no evidence that the close collaboration between the Soviet KGB and Iraq’s intelligence and internal security organizations has ended. In fact, it is only reasonable to presume that this cooperation now involves the provision to Baghdad of vital strategic warning and tactical information about the multinational force arrayed against Iraq — potentially decisive capabilities which Iraq sorely lacks.

Diplomatic/Political Support

The Soviet Union has provided Iraq with tangible, perhaps invaluable, diplomatic support even as Moscow has publicly condemned Saddam Hussein’s aggression and voted for U.N. Security Council resolution toward that end. It is noteworthy, for example, that the Soviets have expressed no interest in seeking a fundamental change in the character of the Iraqi regime, let alone the destruction of its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction — two goals increasingly viewed by Washington as essential direct or indirect consequences of any satisfactory resolution of this crisis.

Instead, the USSR has pursued the following sorts of initiatives which appear to have as their common purpose keeping Saddam Hussein in power and preserving his military capabilities:

• The USSR has embraced the centerpiece of the destructive "peace" proposal currently being promoted by Jordan, Libya and the PLO on Saddam Hussein’s behalf. This involves the creation of an international conference designed to obfuscate the Arab-Arab character of the present crisis and shift the focus of world attention back to the Arab-Israeli confrontation.

 

• This is, simply put, a proposal that would greatly expand and infinitely complicate the terms of reference for any diplomatic solution to the Gulf crisis; as such it is an example of vintage Soviet obstructionism, not evidence of its vaunted "team player" orientation.

   

• Similarly, the Soviets have endorsed the demand of Saddam Hussein and his sympathizers for "an Arab solution" to the crisis, perhaps under U.N. auspices. Inevitably, such a solution boils down to insistence that multinational forces be withdrawn from the region in exchange for Iraqi forces being moved a relatively short distance up the road.

 

• Further, tangible evidence of where the Gorbachev regime truly sits vis a vis Iraq is to be found in the recent visit of Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz to Moscow. Gorbachev’s willingness to provide such a dignified platform for a top representative of Saddam Hussein — at a time when the Bush Administration and others have specifically rejected the idea of opening discussions with Iraq so long as its troops remain in Kuwait — amounts to breaking solidarity with the West. (That platform, predictably, was used by Aziz to launch a blistering personal attack on President Bush and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.)

 

• Perhaps most portentous of all is Moscow’s drumbeat that only a political or diplomatic solution is acceptable. This implicitly raises the prospect of renewed superpower friction if the United States contemplates acting militarily against Saddam Hussein — without the Soviets having to utter an express threat that would jeopardize their standing as "cooperative" partners in the Gulf crisis.

 

• Promoting European fears about that prospect was the obvious intention of the Commander of Warsaw Pact forces, General Vladimir N. Lobov, who recently averred that the U.S. military buildup could "wreck" the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) talks underway in Vienna.

Clearly, Moscow’s diplomatic initiatives are aimed at promoting Moscow’s role as an intermediary or broker in the crisis — a role explicitly sought by Aziz yesterday. Needless to say, such a Soviet position would be the very antithesis of the international isolation the Bush Administration hopes will force Iraq to retreat.

The Piece de Resistance: Soviet Forces in the Multinational Military Operation

Moscow’s efforts to have it both ways are likely to reach dazzling new heights this weekend when, (de facto if not explicitly) in exchange for far-reaching U.S. economic concessions, the Soviet Union agrees to dispatch modest numbers of ground and/or naval forces to join those multinational elements already in Saudi Arabia.

By so doing, the Kremlin could simultaneously accomplish several important objectives:

• It could obtain the guarantee thus far not provided by the United States or Britain — namely that the use of elements of the multinational force would not occur without the express approval of the Soviet Union, either through bilateral contacts or through the U.N. Security Council.

 

• It provides an unparalleled opportunity for Soviet military and intelligence personnel to obtain information about American military technology, equipment and operational practices. Not only would integration of Soviet forces into Operation Desert Shield threaten to compromise day-to-day operational security; it also risks the compromise of long-term U.S. capabilities through unauthorized but inevitable disclosure of the specifications or performance of key weapon, communications and intelligence systems.

 

• It also would enable the USSR to attain unprecedented entree into nations like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Oman — nations that have traditionally taken a dim view of Soviet activities in the Gulf. The United States went to great lengths in the course of the Kuwaiti reflagging exercise a few years ago to prevent the Soviets from obtaining precisely such access to friendly strategic nations in the region.

 

• Of greatest concern, however, are the misapprehensions the apparent reuniting as allies of American and Soviet forces would create among Western publics and governments. Inevitably, this step will be perceived as irrefutable evidence that East-West military confrontation can never return. It must be expected that such a perception will translate, in turn, into sharply eroding support for the maintenance of U.S. and allied defenses sufficiently robust and ready to contend with the USSR’s abiding capacity for armed aggression.

In short, even as the Soviet Union seeks to retain its privileged position in Iraq, it is striving to establish an impressive new beachhead in the West. With feet firmly planted in both camps, it will have unprecedented opportunities to promote Soviet interests in the region and internationally — regrettably, at the expense of those of the United States.

The Quid Pro Quo

Incredible though it may seem given the aforementioned dangers, the Bush Administration is prepared to pay handsomely to enable the Soviet Union to secure such a strategically advantaged posture. The following are a few of the significant economic concessions President Bush appears prepared to make to Gorbachev in Helsinki (or shortly thereafter) as a reward for Soviet participation in the new ‘world order:’

Equipment and Technology Infusions into Soviet Energy Sector

The Bush Administration is nearly as intent as Moscow on adding the Soviet Union to the list of U.S.-approved, "secure" foreign suppliers of oil and natural gas. Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher announced yesterday that he will lead a delegation of 15 business executives to Moscow this Saturday to bolster Moscow’s energy sector. As he observed: "Energy is their No. 1 source of hard currency. If they can get large amounts, they can accomplish their goals. We hope to help them turn around their dropping production rate if they so desire." (Emphasis added.)

If, as now seems likely, President Bush at Helsinki conveys an unprecedented willingness to transfer sensitive technologies and to encourage American capital investment in the Soviet energy sector he will be facilitating:

• the resuscitation of the very centerpiece of the Moscow’s hard currency earning structure, the proceeds of which have traditionally gone, in part, to support Soviet adventurism overseas. Today, oil and gas exports produce 60-65% of Moscow’s roughly $38 billion in total annual hard currency earnings; expanding the earning potential of this sector could potentially constitute a powerful windfall for the Gorbachev regime;

 

• further expansion of the political leverage that accrues to the Kremlin from others’ dependence on Soviet oil and gas. This leverage was brazenly utilized to break the Lithuanian independence drive. In addition, the Soviet Union’s highly disruptive reductions in energy supplies to the struggling democracies of Eastern Europe — notwithstanding contractual obligations — may also have political motivations;

 

• the undermining of the hard-fought International Energy Agency Agreement of May 1983, designed to limit undue West European dependency on Soviet natural gas supplies; and

 

• the ill-advised technology transfer efforts of those in the energy industries of the United States and other allied countries who are among the most powerful constituents for expanding Soviet trade and economic relations. As it happens, this constituency is well represented within the senior reaches of the Bush Administration.

In short, this aspect of the Bush Administration’s quid pro quo for Soviet "cooperation" in the Middle East does not represent mere tinkering with "technical assistance" to Moscow. Rather, it amounts to a strategic breakthrough in arguably the single most important element of the USSR’s economic power — its energy sector.

It also represents a further, unmistakable alignment of the United States with the central authorities in Moscow over the reform-minded governments coming to power at the republic and local levels. In effect, the U.S. government is taking sides, potentially significantly impeding the crucial devolution of communist economic and political authority away from Moscow center. Ironically, as a consequence, the United States will be party to postponing the realization in the Soviet Union of a system that promotes individual freedoms and opportunity and that reduces the threat to the West still posed by Soviet armed forces.

Other Economic Initiatives

In addition to the effort to help jump-start the Soviet energy sector, President Bush will likely offer some or all of the following in the course of the Helsinki meeting:

• generous settlement of defaulted czarist debts opening Soviet access to U.S. security markets (e.g., bond offerings);

 

• an accelerated program for securing Senate approval of the new U.S.-Soviet Trade Agreement (possibly shelving the Administration’s commitment to withhold action on a trade agreement pending enactment of a new Soviet emigration law, certainly without waiting for a genuine resolution of the Baltic problem);

 

• restored access to Eximbank credits and loan guarantees, and OPIC official insurance coverage;

 

• access to Commodity Credit Corporation three-year loan guarantees for purchase of grain;

 

• eligibility for all benefits offered under the pending "SEED II" legislation intended to help emerging Central and Eastern European democracies;

 

• other "in-kind subsidies" (e.g., giveaways of surplus U.S. foodstuffs);

 

• relaxation of the terms constraining Soviet access to the resources of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (i.e., abandoning the current limit on Soviet borrowing to the amount corresponding to Moscow’s capital contribution to the EBRD);

 

• a commitment to lend U.S. weight to an early and favorable conclusion of the Group of Seven (G-7) and EC studies considering the question of direct aid to the USSR — and virtually assuring Soviet membership in the IMF and World Bank;

 

• assistance to the Soviet effort to gain a formidable share of the nascent commercial space-launch market (the practical effect of the decision announced yesterday by the National Space Council concerning Soviet launches of Western payloads from a new site to be built at Cape York, Australia);

Naturally, the foregoing are of considerable value to the Soviet Union in their own right. They are considerably more important, however, when one takes into account the effect they will have in adding to the already withering pressure on Japan to dip into its deep pockets to assist Moscow.

As it happens, the joint communique issued yesterday in Tokyo by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and his Japanese counterpart suggests that the Kremlin’s determined efforts to break into the Japanese vault is now beginning to bear fruit. For example, the two sides agreed to prepare documents concerning the transfer of Japanese technical assistance for the ailing Soviet economy.

In short, the Bush Administration’s economic game-plan for the summit seems to envision sizeable new credit exposure for the U.S. taxpayer arising from Soviet commercial risk. Through the device of a multi-billion dollar end-run using less known government lending and trade agencies, multi-prong commitments are going to be made that will make a Soviet replay of the recent decision to write off Egypt’s debt likely, if not inevitable.

The Bottom Line — A Summit Agenda in the U.S. Interest

In sharp contrast to the script for the Helsinki summit seemingly envisioned by the Administration, the Center for Security Policy recommends a different — and far more prudent — course. It includes the following elements:

• The United States should restate that its objectives are to thwart Iraqi aggression against Kuwait and the threat Saddam Hussein poses to the region as a whole. It should, moreover, amplify that these goals will not be satisfied so long as the present Iraqi leadership and its arsenal of chemical, biological and incipient nuclear weapons remain intact.

 

• The Soviet Union should be told to stay basically on the sidelines of this dispute. Their personnel in Iraq should be removed at once, irrespective of ostensible "contractual obligations."

 

• Specifically, Gorbachev should be told that cosmetic Soviet contributions to the multinational force and unhelpful diplomatic initiatives are not welcome — particularly if they are certain to limit U.S. freedom of action, obscure the reason for such action if it must be taken or otherwise divide the opposition to Saddam Hussein’s aggression.

 

• The United States should also insist that the Soviet Union demand an immediate halt to the efforts of other Soviet clients — such as North Korea, Cuba and Libya — to serve as "surrogate suppliers" of weaponry and spare parts to Iraq.

 

• The U.S. should strongly request — if not demand — that the Soviet Union share the debilitating burden of increased oil prices on beleaguered East European economies. One way of doing this would be to postpone for at least six months Moscow’s demand that, starting on 1 January 1991, payments for Soviet oil and gas supplies be made in hard currency.

 

• President Bush should reiterate his commitment made in connection with the Houston Economic Summit that three conditions must be satisfied before there can be any U.S. taxpayer guarantees or aid offered to the USSR (i.e., that systemic economic reforms — including price reforms — be fully in place, that the percentage of Soviet GNP spending dedicated to the military be sharply reduced and that the estimated $15 billion dollars annually flowing to Cuba and other Soviet client states around the globe be drastically curtailed). None of these has been satisfied to date.