Center Welcomes Sen. Lugar's Leadership On Need To Topple Saddam Hussein

The Center for Security Policy today strongly commended United States Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) for his vision and leadership in establishing as conditions for the satisfactory resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis the end of Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror in Iraq and the elimination of Iraqi capabilities to threaten Western interests and neighboring states in the region.

On today’s CBS Morning News, Sen. Lugar — a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and widely respected authority on international affairs — said:

I think [if Saddam Hussein merely takes his troops and leaves Kuwait, it would] leave us in a very unsatisfactory situation. I think that would be an important step concerning the deterrence of aggression…, independence for Kuwait, restoration, at least of oil supplies.

These are all very important, but nevertheless, we are left at that point with Saddam Hussein building potential nuclear weapons, having chemical capability — which he’s used before — and an enormous army that could be a threat, once again, very rapidly. It seems to me important that Saddam Hussein must either leave or be removed. Likewise, those nuclear facilities and the chemical facilities should be destroyed. (Emphasis added.)

"Senator Lugar is the first senior U.S. official to say what many privately understand, but evidently lack the courage or perspicacity to say publicly: There can be no lasting peace in the Middle East as long as Saddam Hussein remains in power and retains at his disposal an arsenal replete with weapons of mass destruction," Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, said. "The costs to the United States and all civilized nations of eliminating the threat posed by Iraq will be infinitely smaller if the job is done sooner, rather than later."

The Center for Security Policy has, from the outset of the Gulf crisis, called on the United States government to move against the impetus behind this act of aggression — Saddam Hussein, himself — and not simply attempt to restore the Kuwaiti status quo ante. For example, in a 6 August 1990 response (No. 90-P 76) to published reports that President Bush had "ordered U.S. government agencies to begin a secret planning effort aimed at destabilizing and eventually toppling President Saddam Hussein from power," the Center observed that, "The White House appears at last to be responding properly — by preparing to attack the Iraqi cancer itself and not just its symptoms."

Unfortunately, from that time forward — even as the Administration has assembled in the Middle East the forces needed to perform surgical attacks on key Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons facilities, ballistic missile sites, command and control complexes and other power projection-related parts of Baghdad’s military infrastructure — it has appeared increasingly unprepared to use them to eliminate the present and future threat represented by the Saddam Hussein regime.

The Center expressed particular concern in an analysis released on 27 August 1990 entitled Caveat Emptor : A Consumer’s Guide to the Post-Iraq ‘World Order’ about the Bush Administration’s apparent misconceptions about relying on Soviet cooperation and organized international opprobrium to deter Saddam Hussein from future acts of aggression. Such misconceptions, if allowed to guide U.S. policy, will almost certainly ensure the very unsatisfactory situation Sen. Lugar has warned against.

Instead, the Center believes that the time has come for President Bush to issue an ultimatum to the Iraq government of Saddam Hussein. It should require within 48 hours:

the immediate withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from and relinquishing of Baghdad’s control over Kuwait;

an agreement to destroy within thirty days and under international supervision all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons-related facilities and stockpiles and ballistic missile sites; and

the immediate release of all Western nationals now being held hostage.

Such an ultimatum may encourage Iraqi opposition elements to remove Saddam Hussein if he refuses to comply. Absent Iraqi compliance, the United States (and such allied forces as are willing to participate) should move swiftly and with deadly effect against his regime and its power base.

Copies of the Center’s materials on the Iraq crisis are available on request.