Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Truth and Consequences for Saddam

(Washington, D.C.) At his press conference last Thursday, President Bush reiterated a commitment he has made repeatedly in recent months: Saddam Hussein will not be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

As the President put it: “The primary goal is to make it clear to Saddam that we expect him to be a peaceful neighbor in the region and we expect him not to develop weapons of mass destruction. And if we find him doing so, there will be a consequence.”

Consequence Time

Unfortunately, there is now compelling evidence that Saddam not only is developing WMD, but that he has some. More worrisome still, it appears his arsenal includes more than just chemical and biological arms. Dreadful as these are, the Butcher of Baghdad may also have acquired atomic and perhaps even thermonuclear weapons, as well.

It has been universally recognized that, given the well-established state of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons programs before Operation Desert Storm and the international inspections that followed it, Saddam could resume production of various toxic chemical agents and strains of lethal viruses in fairly short order once he forced the withdrawal of inspectors with a mandate to conduct intrusive on-site monitoring. (This actually was the best-case assessment; given the comprehensive secretiveness and inveterate deviousness of the Iraqi regime, it is entirely possible that its covert programs in these areas were actually never suspended.)

Going Nuclear

Of even greater concern, however, was the prospect that — left to his own devices — Saddam would quickly reconstitute his bid to build at least crude atomic weapons. If a report in the Sunday Times of London is accurate, however, Saddam already has as many as three such weapons and perhaps as many as three of the far more powerful thermonuclear ones.

The Times article, entitled “Was this Saddam’s Bomb?” draws upon a wealth of circumstantial evidence and debriefings of Iraqi defectors by investigative reporter Gwynne Roberts. It features heretofore unpublished — and alarming — revelations by a man going under the alias of “Leone” who is described as “a military engineer who was a member of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. Simultaneously…he worked for the Republican Palace in Baghdad.”

According to Leone, the Iraqi despot had more than one nuclear program. As the Times put it: “After [Iraq’s] defeat in the ensuing Gulf war, UN arms inspectors discovered an Iraqi crash program to build a nuclear bomb, known as PC3. But, according to Leone, they missed the most successful part of the programe. [Leone said,] They thought they had stopped the Iraqis from building the bomb, but they overlooked the military organization code-named Group Four. This department is a comprehensive section that was involved in assembling the bomb from the beginning to the end. It was also involved in developing launching systems, missile programs, preparing uranium, purchasing it on the black market, smuggling it back into Iraq.'”

Roberts was able to get confirmation of key parts of Leone’s story from other sources — including scientists who had also been involved in Saddam’s closely guarded WMD programs who managed to escape with their lives from Iraq. They validated his claim that in the years prior to the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein acquired perhaps as much as 50 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from South Africa via Brazil. His cadre of Western-trained physicists then secretly used some of this material to fashion a relatively unsophisticated Hiroshima-style “gun-type” atomic device. It was placed in a natural tunnel near Lake Rezazza some 150 kilometers southwest of Baghdad and, on September 19, 1989, it was exploded, unleashing a force equivalent to approximately ten thousand tons of TNT.

The Iraqis went to extraordinary lengths to conceal preparations for and evidence of this underground test. For example, the sorts of above-ground activity that might have been detected by spy satellites were masked as part of an agricultural project. The explosion itself was “decoupled” so as to reduce the chances that even nearby seismic monitoring stations would pick up and recognize the resulting tremor, which registered 2.7 on the Richter scale. And political prisoners were given the deadly job of cleaning up the radioactive residue of the test; they were subsequently liquidated by Saddam’s security forces as were all external signs of and access to the tunnel.

Lessons from Saddam’s Bomb

These revelations have a number of profound implications. For one thing, they strongly suggest that Saddam is already in possession of radiological, atomic and perhaps nuclear weapons. He may also have the capability to deliver such weapons — either by aircraft or perhaps via ballistic missile — to targets perhaps as far away as Israel and American troops or population centers in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait (whose liberation from Iraqi occupation occurred 10 years ago this week).

For another, Leone’s charges validate President Bush’s opposition to the fatally flawed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was rejected by a majority of the U.S. Senate in October 1999. As National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice put it in a White House press briefing on Thursday: “The President made clear when he was running for President that he did not believe that the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty furthered the non-proliferation goals that we do think are extremely important because it was not verifiable, because it didn’t include certain parties, and because it certainly did nothing about the states that we are most concerned about….” Any further thought of resuscitating this treaty should now be moot.

The Bottom Line

Finally, these revelations — taken together with other evidence that Saddam is back in the weapons of mass destruction business — oblige Mr. Bush to make good his threat that there will be “consequences.” Fortunately, many of his senior advisors (including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense-designate Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of State-designate Richard Armitage, Under Secretary of State-designate John Bolton, Under Secretary of Defense-designate Dov Zakheim and a number of others said to be under consideration for top posts [notably, Zalmay Khalilzad, Jeffrey Gedmin and Douglas Feith]) have developed a blue-print for such consequences.

Specifically, in a February 19, 1998 open letter to President Clinton, they called for the United States, among other things, to: “recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq”; “restore and enhance the safe haven in northern Iraq to allow the provisional government to extend its authority there and establish a zone in southern Iraq from which Saddam’s ground forces would also be excluded”; and “lift sanctions in liberated areas.” In short, we must now help with the liberation of Iraq.

For, as a practical matter, the only hope for effectively addressing Saddam’s determination to stay in the WMD business is to put him and his ruling clique permanently out of business. Mr. Bush is putting into place the team with a plan to do it. There isn’t a moment to lose in effecting these “consequences.”

Ten Years after Saddam Survived Desert Storm, It’s Time To adopt Bush Team’ Blueprint For Ending His Dangerous Misrule

(Washington, D.C.): Few in the West are cheering the 10th anniversary of the start of Operation Desert Storm. Why such a subdued response? Simply put, a decade of living with the decision to allow Saddam Hussein to survive the war has clearly shown it to have been a mistake of epic proportions: Saddam continues ruthlessly to suppress his own people — exploiting what remains of the UN’s economic sanctions so as to inflict maximum hardship on the poor, the young and the unhealthy for the cynically ruthless purpose of engendering popular hostility to the United States and maximizing domestic and international support for his regime. He has also resumed his effort to amass weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and other dangerous offensive military capabilities that pose an increasingly grave threats to the region, and beyond.

Saddam’s Malevolent Ambitions

For example, Saddam has not abandoned his ambitions on Kuwait. As General Amir Saadi, head of Iraq’s missile program, once told the first Chairman of the UN Special Committee on Iraq (UNSCOM), Rolf Ekeus, “Iraq needs its military equipment. The war is not over. It was only a cease-fire.”1 As Ekeus subsequently told the U.S. Senate, “The Iraqi Government does not consider the Gulf War was a war with an ending. . . It was a battle of Kuwait, not a war of Kuwait.”2

Saddam’s ambitions are also reflected in his continuing work on WMD and their delivery systems. Reports of his collaboration with the terrorism-, genocide- and slavery-sponsoring regime in Sudan to construct a Scud ballistic missile-manufacturing facility, suspicions about the resumption of his production of chemical and biological arms and his renewed pursuit of at least crude atomic weapons capabilities are ominous straws in the wind.

In addition, at the time of Operation Desert Fox at the end of 1998, then-British Minister of Defense (and current NATO Secretary General) George Robertson warned that Iraq was developing what he dubbed the “drone of death”:

In 1995, Saddam launched a new program using a converted training aircraft code-named L29. The first flights were started in 1997 and the testing program is still continuing. This aircraft has been fitted with two under-wing weapon stores capable of carrying 300 liters of anthrax or other nerve agents. If this were to be sprayed over a built-up area such as Kuwait City, it could kill millions of people. Once perfected, we suspect that Saddam had intended to deploy these drones of death in Southern Iraq as a direct threat to his neighbors.

Unsaid but self-evident is the fact that this drone’s estimated 500-mile range would enable it to reach not only Kuwait but targets in Israel, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, as well.

The fact that Iraq never turned over any of its biological stockpile to UNSCOM is of particular concern. As a result, the full dimensions of this program remain what UNSCOM’s second chairman, Amb. Richard Butler, has called a “black hole.”3 This is all the more striking insofar as the Iraqi BW program would be the easiest of Iraq’s proscribed programs to reconstitute.

Dr. Seth Carus of National Defense University suggests that the explanation for Saddam’s adamant refusal to reveal anything about this aspect of his WMD activities may lie in the fact that biological agents have DNA. All other things being equal, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to determine who had been behind it. But, if authorities had samples of the stockpile from which the biological agents used in the attack had come, DNA testing might enable them to assign responsibility. By maintaining the covert status of his entire biological stockpile, Saddam may believe he retains the option of carrying out biological terrorism with impunity.4

Liberate Iraq

For the foregoing reasons, among others, one of the most worrisome legacies Bill Clinton is bequeathing to his successor is Saddam Hussein’s abiding malevolence and increasing ability to translate it into violent attacks against his enemies. It is enormously heartening, therefore, that senior ranks of the incoming Bush-Cheney Administration are likely to be populated by individuals who have, in the past, condemned the feckless Clinton effort to “contain” the Butcher of Baghdad — and advocated a dramatically different approach aimed at ending Saddam’s misrule and the threat it poses to his own, long-suffering people and others beyond his borders.

Specifically, on 19 February 1998, Secretary of Defense-designate Donald Rumsfeld, his reported choice for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and a number of others said to be under consideration for top posts (including John Bolton, Richard Armitage, Dov Zakheim, Zalmay Khalilzad, Jeffrey Gedmin and Douglas Feith) offered a blueprint for liberating Iraq in an Open Letter to the President.5

The following were the elements of the “comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime” recommended by these and thirty other former senior officials and experts:

  • “Recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq.
  • “Restore and enhance the safe haven in northern Iraq to allow the provisional government to extend its authority there and establish a zone in southern Iraq from which Saddam’s ground forces would also be excluded.
  • “Lift sanctions in liberated areas. Sanctions are instruments of war against Saddam’s regime, but they should be quickly lifted on those who have freed themselves from it. Also, the oil resources and products of the liberated areas should help fund the provisional government’s insurrection and humanitarian relief for the people of liberated Iraq.
  • “Release frozen Iraqi assets — which amount to $1.6 billion in the United States and Britain alone — to the control of the provisional government to fund its insurrection. This could be done gradually and so long as the provisional government continues to promote a democratic Iraq.
  • “Facilitate broadcasts from U.S. transmitters immediately and establish a Radio Free Iraq.
  • “Help expand liberated areas of Iraq by assisting the provisional government’s offensive against Saddam Hussein’s regime logistically and through other means.
  • “Remove any vestiges of Saddam’s claim to legitimacy’ by, among other things, bringing a war crimes indictment against the dictator and his lieutenants and challenging Saddam’s credentials to fill the Iraqi seat at the United Nations.
  • “Launch a systematic air campaign against the pillars of his power — the Republican Guard divisions which prop him up and the military infrastructure that sustains him.
  • “Position U.S. ground force equipment in the region so that, as a last resort, we have the capacity to protect and assist the anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of Iraq.”

The Bottom Line

The incoming members of the Bush-Cheney Administration and other signatories made clear that “It will not be easy — and the course of action we favor is not without its problems and perils. But we believe the vital national interests of our country require the United States to [adopt such a strategy].” It is a tragedy for the people of Iraq and a potential nightmare for the rest of us that President Clinton did not act on this sound advice.

If there is to be any chance that the world will not observe additional anniversaries of the international failure to end his malevolence — possibly marked by devastating examples of its lethal potential — the strategy for liberating Iraq that was advanced three years ago by the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf must finally be adopted and fully implemented.



1From an interview with Dr. Laurie Mylroie January 16, 1996. Dr. Mylroie is a member of the Center’s National Security Advisory Council and her contributions to the preparation of this Decision Brief is greatly appreciated.

2Testimony before Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Governmental Affairs, March 20, 1996.

3Amb. Butler appeared last night on the hour-long Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program “Counter Spin” with, among others, Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. In the course of the program, the former UNSCOM chief categorically rejected statements by his former inspector, Scott Ritter, to the effect that Saddam’s BW capabilities (and, for that matter, all other WMD programs) have been eliminated.

4Some experts believe that Saddam has already demonstrated his willingness to employ terrorism against Americans. See Dr. Mylroie’s new book, Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinised War Against America (Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press, 2000).

5A copy of the Open Letter appears as an attachment to a Decision Brief entitled, ‘Serious Consequences’: If Clinton Means It, Here’s the Alternative to His Failed Strategy of ‘Containing’ Saddam (No. 98-D 33, 24 February 1998).

Camp David Outcome: Assisted Suicide’ for Israel?

(Washington, D.C.): At this writing, there is no deal at Camp David. But it is hard to believe that there will not be one before it is all over.

After all, Ehud Barak believes that his only hope to remain prime minister of Israel is to bring back a deal, however flawed, that he can — with the help of the Clinton political team that got him elected (James Carville, Robert Shrum and Stanley Greenberg) — induce a majority of the Israeli people (or more precisely a minority of Jews and Israel’s Arab voters) to accept.

For his part, President Clinton has invested incalculable political capital in this summit and is determined that his legacy be one of hatching an accord, not one of failing to do so. Since his concern is exclusively with the present — and not with a deal’s dire medium- to longer-term consequences — he has plenty of latitude to fashion an agreement. As Richard Pollack put it in an insightful essay in Friday’s Wall Street Journal (see the attached), “What’s disappointing is Mr. Clinton’s deadlinitis,’ redolent as it is of pure political calculation and scant regard for the quality of the deals he brokers.”

And Yasser Arafat’s stake in “getting to Yes'” is the most clear. With it he gets an internationally recognized — and subsidized — state, one whose affairs Israel will not be able to stymie or control, short of war. The authoritarian Arafat can remain untroubled by popular unhappiness that the particulars of the deal will fail to reflect his maximum demands. He will tell them, as he has repeatedly in the past, that this is no “final status” agreement; rather, it is the next in a series of “phases” leading to the ultimate “liberation” of all “Palestine,” and the concomitant destruction of the state of Israel.

Krauthammer: Finality’ Required

It is for this reason that Charles Krauthammer has insisted, with characteristic brilliance, in a syndicated column that appeared in last Tuesday’s Washington Post (see the attached), that any Camp David agreement include a proviso saying “that this agreement marks the end of Palestinian claims against Israel and thus closes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” He defines this “finality” to mean that “Palestinian claims against Israel have come to an end. No more demands for territory, no more demands for refugee resettlement, no more demands for financial compensation.”

Of course, if a deal does emerge from the marathon negotiations at Camp David, it will almost certainly have no such finality to it. It may be that some issues, like the natty problem of Arab insistence that Israel relinquish sovereignty and control over at least parts of Jerusalem, are left unresolved. Others, like Israel’s obligations to allow the return of Palestinian “refugees” may be worded in such an ambiguous way as to permit a temporary papering over of fundamental differences, but only at the cost of providing pretexts for future conflicts.

The Cumulative Effects

Unfortunately, the problem will not lie simply with individual provisions that represent disproportionate concessions by the Jewish State. There will be plenty of those, ranging from commitments to surrender areas of the West Bank that have, since 1967, provided Israel with invaluable strategic depth, to the attendant relinquishing of control over aquifers there that provide, literally, the life-blood of Israel in its parched region. Then, there will be the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Israeli citizens, who were encouraged by successive governments in Jerusalem to populate and secure high ground and other valuable territory in what has historically been known to the Jews as Judea and Samaria.

Taken individually, none of these steps may seem to be an undue hardship, a sacrifice too great to make in the interest of securing an elusive peace.

In this regard, they will seem akin to judgments now being made by the U.S. government as it undertakes to sell $475 million worth of advanced air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia and $300 million in electronic aircraft identification gear to Egypt. In notifications to Congress about these sales, the Clinton Administration has used the formulaic line that “the proposed sale of this equipment and support will not affect the basic military balance in the region.”

The point, of course, is not whether any individual transaction — whether it involves geographic and other diplomatic concessions or the sale of military hardware — would “affect the basic military balance in the region.” Rather, it is a question of whether these steps taken together with other developments will have precisely such a destabilizing effect.

The Shape of Things to Come

Regrettably, it seems ever more clear that the cumulative effect of the surrender of territory and other changes to its security posture that Israel has been undertaking in connection with the so-called “peace process” are giving rise to conditions that will “affect the basic military balance in the region.” Specifically, the elimination of the strategic depth it has enjoyed since 1967 is inexorably returning Israel to its earlier, indefensible boundaries — which Abba Eban once pointedly called the “Auschwitz line.”

Especially worrying is the exacerbating effect of the arms the United States has been assiduously providing Israel’s Arab neighbors — and most especially Egypt — as a reward for their participation in, or more accurately, their generally grudging acquiescence to the “peace process.” Over the past twenty years, an Egyptian government that remains unreconciled to genuine peaceful coexistence with Israel has become equipped with many of America’s most formidable weapon systems, substantially degrading the qualitative edge upon which Israeli security has traditionally relied.

The Bottom Line

In short, the process of which Camp David II is but the latest manifestation has had a horrifying effect: To render Israel sufficiently indefensible and her one-time (and possibly future) adversaries sufficiently powerful as possibly to persuade the latter that the war option effectively denied them since 1973 has been renewed.

At best, this means that America’s most important ally in the Middle East — a nation that has known plenty of terrorism and other forms of violence over the past twenty-seven years but no full-scale Arab attack — is now once more at risk of such a danger. At worst, Israel’s very survival might be at stake. If so, the United States role in this “peace process” would be akin to Dr. Kevorkian performing an assisted suicide on the Jewish State.

If Camp David does produce an agreement, Israel will likely be forced to revert to the strategy of preemption upon which it relied the last time its borders were indefensible. It is very difficult to see how such an inherently unstable arrangement would be an improvement over Israel’s present, relatively robust posture — or how it will advance the goal of securing a just and durable peace for the region.

U.S. Forces on the Golan Heights?

General John Foss (USA, Ret.),
Commanding General U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command;
formerly responsible for U.S. forces in the Sinai

General Al Gray (USMC, Ret.),
Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps

Lieutenant General John Pustay (USAF, Ret.),
Assistant to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff;
President, National Defense University

General Bernard Schriever (USAF, Ret.),
Commander, U.S. Air Force Systems Command

Admiral Carl Trost (USN, Ret.),
Chief of Naval Operations

Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr. (USN, Ret.),
Chief of Naval Operations

Douglas J. Feith,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense;
Middle East specialist, National Security Council

Frank Gaffney, Jr.,
Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Policy);
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

Richard Perle,
Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Policy)

Eugene Rostow, Director,
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency;
Under Secretary of State (Political Affairs)

Henry S. Rowen,
Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs);
Chairman, National Intelligence Council, Central Intelligence Agency.

The Golan Heights

The Golan is a semi-mountainous escarpment of some 400 square miles, ranging in height from 400 to 3,000 feet. It rises steeply from the eastern and northern shores of the Sea of Galilee, runs the length of the Huleh Valley, and overlooks the coastal plains of the Galilee and northern Israel.

At the end of World War I, during the division of the defeated Ottoman Empire, the Golan Heights were included in the territory of British Mandate Palestine. In 1923 they were transferred to French Mandate Syria under a Franco-British agreement delineating the boundary between Mandate Syria and Mandate Palestine. After Israel declared independence in 1948 and defeated the Syrian and other Arab forces that invaded to destroy the new state, that boundary became the basis for the Syrian-Israeli armistice line negotiated in 1949.

For the next eighteen years, until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Syria used its position on the Heights to shell Israeli farms and settlements in the Galilee below and to attack Israeli water projects in the Huleh Valley. Syrians on the Golan attempted to divert the headwaters of the Jordan River, which would have severely curtailed Israel’s water supply. Israel used military force to oppose the diversion.

Israeli soldiers captured the Heights in the Six Day War of 1967. Six years later, at the outbreak of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syria mounted a massive armored attack into the territory. In a costly stand, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) stopped the Syrian thrust across the Golan and then counter-attacked, driving a fifteen mile bulge into Syria. Israel later withdrew from this bulge, but stayed on the Heights. In December, 1981, Israel enacted legislation extending its civil law and administration to the Golan, replacing the military authority which had ruled there for 14 years.

Since 1967 and the subsequent attempt in 1973 to retake the Heights, Syria has used various means, including terrorism and diplomacy, to press Israel to relinquish the Golan. Successive Israeli governments, under both Labor and Likud, have characterized the Golan Heights as essential to Israeli security.

The Strategic Importance to Israel of the Golan Heights

First, holding the Heights gives Israel strategic depth. The Golan territory is roughly 10 miles by 40 miles. All of Israel, including the Golan and the West Bank, is only approximately 45 miles wide by 270 miles. (First-time visitors to Israel almost invariably remark on how small the country is.) Thus, in the north, the Golan Heights makes the territory under Israel’s control nearly fifty percent wider than it would be otherwise. This buffer zone, this extension of territory where Israel faces its most formidable enemy, is an important military asset for Israel. This remains true even in the age of missile warfare. It bears noting that, in the summer of 1990, all of Kuwait’s valuable assets were in easy reach of Iraq’s forces, which took them quickly. But Saudi Arabia’s key assets lay across wide stretches of desert, which made an Iraqi conquest far more difficult. Though Iraq had Scud missiles, Saudi Arabia’s strategic depth spared it the fate of Kuwait.

Second, control of high ground on the Golan gives Israel direct line-of-sight surveillance and warning of threatening Syrian movements in the plains below or in south Lebanon. Early warning is important to a defense posture that relies, in the event of war, upon a thin line of active forces to hold while reserves mobilize to meet the kind of attacks that Syria’s large and well-equipped standing army might mount.

Third, modern technology has by no means eliminated altogether the disadvantages of having to fight uphill, a reality acknowledged by military commanders everywhere. The operational planning of the U.S. military, for example, still places great emphasis on command of the high ground as a critical force multiplier.

Fourth, possession of the Golan puts the IDF within easy striking range of Damascus. This contributes to Israeli deterrence against Syria. If deterrence fails and war occurs again, Israel’s Golan position enables it to mount spoiling attacks against likely staging areas. And its proximity to Damascus can help deter especially heinous actions — for example, missile attacks on Israel’s cities.

Fifth, the Golan highlands are a major watershed. In that arid region with its growing population increasing the demand for water, control of water resources can have strategic consequences. The significance of this point is often overlooked in military and political analyses, especially those not produced locally. Control of the Golan permits control of Lake Kinneret (the “Sea of Galilee”) which supplies roughly thirty percent of Israel’s consumption.

Control of the Golan watershed and the Kinneret basin will further increase in importance if Israel makes concessions regarding its other main source of water, the watersheds of the West Bank. Water sources there now satisfy more than thirty-three percent of Israel’s needs. These are at issue in Israel’s negotiations with the PLO.

Demilitarization

One of the key security arrangements envisioned for a Syrian-Israeli agreement involving Israeli withdrawal on or from the Golan is demilitarization of the territory from which the Israeli forces are withdrawn. Some analysts expect Israel also to insist that additional Syrian land beyond that territory be demilitarized or made subject to force limitations, perhaps in return for Israel’s agreement to limit its own forces on the Israeli side of the border.

IDF Reserve Major General Moshe Bar-Kochba has noted:

The Syrians are now able to shift the main body of their military force against Israel within one night. Demilitarization must be such that it does not allow them to marshall their forces so fast; that is, they must be removed to north of Damascus.

Other military officers sympathetic to the Rabin government’s general diplomatic policy toward Syria have made similar arguments. According to Major General (Res.) Avigdor Ben Gal, “It is important that in reality a buffer zone emerge, without any armies, and this zone must include two elements — the Golan Heights and all of South Syria.” And Major General (Res.) Abraham Tamir, who had responsibility for designing the security arrangements for the Sinai in the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, has called for:

a buffer consisting of: a demilitarized Golan; the Horan [the area of Syria immediately to the east of the Golan Heights] in which there will not be more than a mechanized division; and South Syria, the Golan, and the Horan demilitarized from military aircraft and missiles.

Notwithstanding any demilitarization arrangement, it would be far easier for Syrian forces in a war to remilitarize the Golan from the plateau behind the Heights than for Israel to return from below. The Syrians could move two to three divisions unhindered into the Golan overnight from their staging area around Damascus, even if Syria accepted an additional 40 km demilitarized zone extending beyond the Heights. If Syria seized control of a demilitarized Golan, it would be difficult and costly for Israel to move armor up the Heights under fire. The IDF would have to fight its way up the steep, almost sheer cliffs that face the Israeli side.

Demilitarizing a large portion of south Syria beyond the Golan Heights would mitigate but not eliminate altogether the risks to Israel of withdrawal from the Golan. Demilitarization agreements between adversaries are inherently brittle. The history of Germany’s reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 illustrates the point. Pledges by democratic states to respond promptly and forcefully to any violation of an arms control arrangement with a non-democratic state have often proven hollow when the time for action came. This was true for the Allies after World War I, for the United States during the Cold War and for Israel after signing the peace treaty with Egypt.

So, as desirable as the actual demilitarization of south Syria might be, Israel cannot be expected to rely heavily on a demilitarization accord. Ultimately, Israel’s security depends not on a demilitarization arrangement that Syria may or may not respect indefinitely but on the IDF’s ability to prevail over Syrian forces if Syria renews military hostilities — and on the costs of such a victory.

While the Golan’s most difficult and most elevated terrain faces Israel, the topography on the northern and eastern sides facing Syria also constitutes a defensible barrier to massed armored attack. During the 1973 Yom Kippur war, control of the Golan’s rocky highlands enabled two brigades of the IDF to hold off an attack of over 1,000 Syrian tanks.

Israel’s current Chief-of-Staff, Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, has recently reiterated that, even under conditions of peace, the IDF must remain deployed on the Golan. Maj. Gen (Res.) Yossi Peled, the previous commander of the IDF Northern Command which has operational control of the Golan, warned in December, 1993 that an Israeli withdrawal from the Heights would constitute “national suicide.” If Israel found itself at war again with Syria, General Peled doubted that Israel could ever retake the Golan as it did in the 1967 War, because of the changes since then in the balance of forces.

Strategic Depth in the Age of Missiles

Even in the missile age, land — strategic depth — still matters. The Syrians have missiles. But they are still investing heavily in their ground forces. Major General Uri Sagi, head of the IDF Intelligence Branch, noted in April 1993:

…In the conventional field, Syria has improved and is improving its tank fleet in a very impressive manner. If and when Syria will complete its procurement transactions that it has already signed, all of its armored divisions will be equipped with the latest model T-72 tanks. Today Syria has over 4,000 tanks and 300 self-propelled artillery tubes that provide it with an enhanced offensive capability in land battles.

Many Middle Eastern nations are working to acquire ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and many of these nations maintain a longstanding hostility toward Israel. Nevertheless, the principal threat to Israel’s existence for the foreseeable future will remain the danger of a physical invasion and occupation by heavily armored forces.

Simply stated, even though missiles can fly over the highest terrain feature, including the Golan Heights, they do not negate the strategic significance of territorial depth. The military value of missiles depends on their accuracy — on their ability to strike specific military targets. Inaccurate missiles like the Scuds used by Iraq in the Gulf War can terrorize large urban areas. But they are not reliable against military targets — airfields, command and control centers, bridges — where precision is required.

If, however, the Syrians — by violating a demilitarization regime, for example — were able to move heavy artillery up to the edge of the Golan escarpment overlooking the Galilee and northern Israel, they could use their relatively accurate artillery against military targets within a range of approximately 25 miles, depending on their ability to observe and correct fire. Artillery munitions, of which Syria has large quantities, are relatively inexpensive, especially compared to missiles. Destroying significant military targets within this range would be a matter, in essence, of firing enough rounds.

On the other hand, if Israeli control of the Golan ensures that Syrian artillery is confined to the plateau behind the Heights, few targets in Israel would be within range of the Syrian artillery. Syria could attempt to strike those targets with ballistic missiles, but then they would encounter the problem of inaccuracy, not to mention the prohibitive cost and limited number of weapons in inventory. Also, the United States and Israel both have programs to develop defenses against ballistic missiles. Given adequate resources, these programs may substantially limit the military effectiveness of offensive missiles. There are, however, no defenses available against artillery other than counter-fire to destroy the artillery pieces themselves, which is a task of great difficulty, especially in rugged terrain like that of the Golan Heights.

What is more, succeeding with missile attacks on distant military targets would be nearly impossible in part because the essential function of damage assessment would not be possible for Syrian missileers well behind the Golan. (Targeting and damage assessment abilities would, however, be enhanced if Syria gained access to high quality, real-time satellite imaging.) In short, possession of intermediate-range ballistic missiles does not give Syria a capability to fight Israel as effectively from behind the Golan Heights as it could from the Heights themselves.

Achieving military success in a war requires more than lobbing a few score (or even a few hundred) missiles of limited accuracy at soft targets. Iraq fired approximately forty Scuds at Israel in the Gulf War, killing fewer than ten civilians and no soldiers and achieving nothing of military significance. To win a war against Israel, Syria must move armor, infantry and artillery forward and down into Israeli proper, and then destroy Israeli forces on the ground. This was true in 1948, it was true in 1967 and 1973, and it remains true in today’s Age of Missiles.

Land for Peace

Proponents of a Golan withdrawal commonly state that “peace is a better basis for security than territory.” That assertion is essentially a political, not a military judgment. If a military officer, for example, makes this assertion, his opinion on the reliability of a peace treaty with the Assad regime carries no special weight because of his military status. No military expert in Israel (or anywhere else) argues that, in the event of war, Syrian possession of the Heights would not matter. The argument that “peace is better than territory” is valid only as long as there is peace. But if war were to break out again, no one can seriously suggest that Israel would be better off holding a treaty signed by Assad than holding the Golan Heights.




For more information see U.S. Forces on the Golan Heights:
An Assessment of Benefits and Costs

Assad’s Syria is No Reliable ‘Partner for Peace’

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration has made clear that, as soon as the Israeli
election process is finished, its campaign will resume to induce the Jewish State to make territorial
concessions on the Golan Heights in order to secure a “peace” agreement with Hafez Assad. 1
Mr. Clinton and his subordinates have made no effort to conceal their hope that Ehud
Barak, a
man reportedly disposed to take such steps, will be elected the next prime minister of Israel.
Indeed, they have repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of a democratic ally to assure that
outcome. 2 Whether the Administration’s wish is realized or
not, the time has come for a fresh
assessment of whether Assad’s Syria can be considered a worthy, not to say reliable,
“partner for peace.” On the basis of the available evidence, the answer must be “No.”

Consider a few of Assad’s alarming activities that belie any contention that he is now
committed
to peace with Israel and a constructive regional role:

Syrian Preparations for War

As the Zionist Organization of America noted in a press release issued yesterday3:

The Middle East Newsline, a news service run by Israeli and Palestinian Arab
journalists, reported
on 3 May 1999, that [Syria is building a nationwide network of] tunnels to hide and
protect
its Scud ballistic missile force]…with the assistance of North Korea, which has its own
network
of tunnels to hide its missiles and nuclear weapons development.

So far, Syria has completed the construction of five tunnels to conceal Scud C
missiles, with a
range of 500 kilometers, Middle East Newsline reported. “This would put Syrian
missiles in
striking distance of virtually any target in Israel.” An additional nine tunnels are under
construction, to house Syria’s entire stock of 1,000 Scud C missiles.

[Furthermore,] Damascus, with the help of North Korea, is developing the Scud D missile,
with a
projected range of more than 700 kilometers. Syria also has produced non-conventional
warheads for its missile arsenal. These include warheads filled with the nerve agent, Sarin.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Unfortunately, Sarin is not the only weapon of mass destruction Syria has
acquired. Assad is
believed to have a thriving chemical weapons program that, with the help of the Russians, has the
ability to disperse VX nerve gas from aircraft as well as surface-to-surface missiles.

Syria has not only the capability indigenously to produce VX and Sarin. It probably has a
biological weapons capability, as well. And it can certainly independently manufacture and/or
augment the range of its Scud missile force of some 600 ballistic missiles and at least 60
transporter erectors launchers (TELs), affording Assad the means to strike Tel Aviv, Beirut and
Amman.

Abetting Hizbollah

Iran is the primary patron of the Islamic terrorist group Hizbollah operating in southern
Lebanon.
Iranian clerics and Revolutionary Guards played a key role in creating Hizbollah in 1982. Like
Hizbollah, Iran has consistently called for Israel’s destruction, an end to Middle East peace talks
and the purging of Western influence from the region. Despite recent cutbacks in Iranian aid to
Hizbollah, Iran still provides about $300 million annually to underwrite Hizbollah activities, and it
arms and trains Hizbollah through its Revolutionary Guard contingent in Lebanon.

Syria’s support for Hizbollah is less obvious, but still material. It maintains
about 35,000
troops in Lebanon. These forces serve to protect Hizbollah’s base of operations; they also allow
the Islamic extremists to operate in Syrian-controlled territory, notably the Bekaa Valley. In
addition, Damascus has clearly tolerated, if not actually instigated, attacks by Hizbollah against
Israel’s forces, southern Lebanese allies and communities. Syria also allows Iran to use Syrian
territory and facilities, such as the Damascus airport, to provide arms to Hizbollah.

Destabilizing Regional Activities

Despite Assad’s decision to expel the leader of the terrorist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK),
Abdullah Ocalan — in the face of overt warnings from Turkey of hostilities if he did not do so —
Syria continues to antagonize Turkey by covertly supporting the PKK. [Add
here?]

In addition, Hafez Assad has recently taken several ominous steps toward collaboration with
his
long-time enemy, Saddam Hussein. As the ZOA reported yesterday:

The Times of London, quoting Middle East intelligence sources, reported on 8
March 1999 that
Syria has agreed to provide Iraq with 60 million worth of military equipment,
including
“spares for anti-aircraft facilities hit by recent American and British bombing, lorries, aircraft and
helicopters, and ammunition.” The report noted that “Since the 1991 Gulf War, President
Saddam Hussein has faced a severe shortage of spare parts for his army because of the
international arms embargo.” Under the Damascus agreement [with Iraq], Syrian spare
parts
for military equipment would be converted for use by the Iraqi Army. The parts would
include engines for Russian-made tanks and tracks for armored fighting vehicles. (Emphasis
added.)

Garrotting Lebanon

Syria’s continuing occupation of Lebanon has contributed to the latter’s economic decline, a
situation evident in the steady attrition of the country’s human and capital assets. In the absence
of any sustained international pressure, Syria has paid no price for breaching its November, 1989
pledge made at Taif, Saudi Arabia to withdraw its forces from most of Lebanon and limit its
deployment in that country to the Bekaa Valley.

Far from bringing much desired stability and prosperity — the reasons the Syrians cite to
justify
their continued occupation, Lebanon under de facto Syrian rule has been afflicted
with human
rights abuses, political intrigue, economic exploitation, violence in the south, drug-trafficking and
the continued usage of Lebanon as a haven for international terrorism. Since this arrangement
serves Assad’s strategic interests, there is no basis for believing that he will agree to
relinquish Lebanon even if he secures from Israel the Golan Heights as part of what will be
presented as a “peace agreement” between Syria and the Jewish State.

The Bottom Line

The Syrian government of Hafez Assad remains not only a totalitarian menace to its own
people
but a threat to any hope that Israel, Lebanon and Jordan might harbor for peace, political freedom
and economic opportunity. Irrespective of the outcome of the incipient Israeli election, the
United States must come to grips with the reality that the Syrian dictator is not now and
can
never be a constructive and reliable force for peace in region. Rather than concentrating
on
ways to weaken Israel’s ability to protect itself against his abiding malevolence, the U.S.
government should be seeking ways to undermine Assad’s regime, freeing Lebanon and
safeguarding Syria’s neighbors from the multifaceted threat that regime will pose as long as
it lingers on.

In particular, the United States should do everything it can to ensure that Hizbollah is not
“legitimized” in Lebanon. Only this country has the resources, both human and technological,
needed to monitor and counter the international terrorist cells Hizbollah is building beyond
Lebanon as a hedge against a future in which that country may no longer be available as a base
from which to launch attacks against Israel and its friends. The United States should make use of
all such assets to stymie Hizbollah’s efforts to “go global.” And it must insist that Syria move
against Hizbollah in conjunction with Lebanese forces as a first step toward, at last, its withdrawal
from Lebanon and as a precondition to any Syrian rapprochement with Washington.

1 In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on 22 April 1999,
Assistant Secretary of State
for Near Eastern Affairs Martin Indyk made the following statement:

After the Israeli elections, the timing may also be propitious for a new effort to
achieve a
final status agreement on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks. There have been no direct
negotiations in 3 years; when there were negotiations, progress was made but significant gaps
remained, particularly in the all-important area of security arrangements. If the parties
are
willing to match our effort, we are prepared to make peace between Israel and Syria a high
priority in our Middle East diplomacy. This is not only because of our commitment to a
comprehensive peace. It is also because an Israel-Syria peace agreement would have important
regional benefits: a secure Israeli-Lebanese border; the ending of the Arab-Israeli conflict; the
isolation of those parties that continue to reject peace and reconciliation; and the easing of
pressure against normalization of relations between the Arab world and Israel.

2 See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Is The Clinton Administration Really Pro-Israel —
Or Merely Pro-Labor? (No. 99-D 49, 27 April
1999).

3 See the Zionist Organization of America web site (www.zoa.org).

The New ‘Giant Sucking Sound’: Clinton’s Crumbling Iraq and Russia Policies

(Washington, D.C.): It turns out there is a “giant sucking sound,” after all. At the moment, it
is
not coming as Ross Perot suggested from the economic effects of North American Free Trade
Agreement. Rather, the sound you can currently hear in official circles in Washington is the sharp
intake of a collective breath as two pillars of what passes for a Clinton foreign policy come
crashing down.

Unraveling Iraq Policy

Scarcely a day goes by without fresh evidence that, contrary to repeated Administration
assurances, Saddam Hussein is not being “kept in his box.” For example, on
Monday he
dispatched Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, to Ankara in a transparent attempt to drive
a wedge between Turkey and the United States.

The Iraqis understand that there may be fertile ground for handing the Americans a severe
diplomatic and strategic reverse: Turkey has lost untold millions of dollars in oil revenues by
complying with the UN-mandated sanctions regime. Its public has become increasingly restive at
Ankara’s complicity in what is seen as economic warfare waged against the Iraqi people. And the
American government’s erratic behavior towards the Kurds of northern Iraq — working closely
with them one day, selling them out to Saddam the next — has fueled Turkey’s anxieties about the
serious threat posed to its own internal security by the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) separatists
operating from Iraqi territory. (It remains to be seen if this threat will be markedly alleviated now
that Turkey finally has the leader of PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, in custody.)

To make matters worse, Turkey senses with good reason that its U.S. and European
allies
inadequately appreciate the importance of having that nation’s democratic secular Muslim
government and powerful military promoting Western interests in a very troubled
region.
Indeed, NATO member states — largely in deference to the Greek’s historic and abiding hostility
towards their Turkish neighbors — have repeatedly taken steps that give offense to the latter and
that tend to drive them into the arms of common enemies like Saddam Hussein.

Against the possibility that shortsighted Western policies and Iraq’s latest overtures prove
inadequate to accomplish Saddam’s objective of dividing-and-conquering in Turkey, the Butcher
of Baghdad, had his vice president deliver a stern warning to the Turks on Monday (in the midst
of Tariq Aziz’s visit!): Turkey risked grave consequences should it allow the United States to
continue to use its Incirlik air base for the purpose of enforcing the northern no-fly zone and
destroying Iraqi air defense assets trying to down an American crew.

This warning that Turkey faced Iraqi attack came hot on the heels of similar threats issued
over
the weekend. Baghdad has served notice on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and any Gulf State that
permits the U.S. or Britain to make similar use of their military facilities may experience Saddam’s
wrath. Unfortunately, since the United States has thus far chosen not to field the means
to
deploy anti-missile defenses to protect these (or other) friendly states, such threats must be
taken seriously.

Primakov’s Malevolent Agenda

Which brings us to the Administration’s second crumbling foreign policy pillar. Under Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov, the Russia that was supposed to be America’s partner in
international affairs is taking steps that will greatly increase Saddam Hussein’s ability to inflict
harm upon U.S. military personnel overseas and the allies they are defending.

That Primakov is so disposed should come as no surprise. Notwithstanding Madeline
Albright’s
assurances that he is a man we can do business with, this lifelong KGB operative has made a
career of implacably opposing the United States at every turn. According to press reports, he is
now personally drumming up business for Russia’s arms industry in ways calculated to conflict
with American interests. A case in point was a meeting last month between Primakov and Tariq
Aziz for the purpose of resuming Iraq’s purchase of substantial quantities of front-line weaponry
from Russia.

According to the London Sunday Telegraph, Primakov has authorized the sale of more than
$100
million in advanced fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and other hardware that Saddam can
use to attack American and British pilots. If that were not bad enough, reflect on this reality: if
the Kremlin is willing to transfer this sort of highly visible material to Saddam in violation of
international sanctions regime, doesn’t it stand to reason that it is prepared to sell know-how and
equipment on which the Iraqi dictator places a special emphasis — and that could be relatively
easily concealed. Into the latter category would fall chemical, biological and/or nuclear
technology and that associated with missiles capable of delivering these weapons of mass
destruction over increasingly long distance.

Of course, Iraq is not the only tinderbox into which Russia is trying to introduce
high-tech
weapons. Primakov has tried to inflame Greek and Turkish enmity by inserting
advanced S-300
surface-to-air missiles into Cyprus. He is actively negotiating with Syria for the sale of such
missiles, Sukhoi-27 jet fighters and T-80 tanks. Meanwhile the preeminent pariah state, Iran, is
obtaining nuclear- and missile-related technology from Moscow, in addition to an infusion of
formidable conventional arms. The fact that such sales are going forward suggests that
Primakov’s Russia has completely discounted the U.S. government’s appeals for these
transactions to be suspended and its threats of modest sanctions if they are not.

The Bottom Line

With the bankruptcy of the present American policies towards Iraq and Russia now much in
evidence, there is no choice but to adopt different approaches towards both. With respect to Iraq,
time is clearly not on the United States’ side. Saddam Hussein must not be
given additional
opportunities to exploit the combined effects of bribes and threats in eroding the Iraq sanctions
regime, thereby providing a new lease on life and substantially enhanced military capabilities to his
regime. Nothing less than a wholehearted, urgent U.S. effort — undertaken in coordination with
the Iraqi National Congress and, as appropriate, other opposition groups — to create conditions
leading to Saddam’s removal from power will suffice.

Concerning Russia, the time has come to speak in the only terms that the likes of Yevgeny
Primakov understand — with the authority of power. The United States must make clear that
Russia can no longer have it both ways, undermining American interests in the Middle East and
around the world while benefitting from this nation’s financial largesse and political consideration.
An appropriate, if asymmetric, response would be to serve notice that the U.S. is going to
proceed to deploy anti-ballistic missile systems on AEGIS fleet air defense ships at the earliest
possible moment — a step prohibited by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty but urgently needed
in light of Saddam’s latest threats. Nothing would more clearly demonstrate to Moscow — and
the world — that the United States is prepared to protect its vital interests, rather than rely on
unrealistic expectations of other’s good behavior to safeguard them.

Accept No Substitutes: Clinton Address On Iraq Signals Continuing Failure To Grasp Need For Toppling Saddam

(Washington, D.C.): In his remarks to a Pentagon audience and the Nation today, President
Clinton made a persuasive case — up to a point.

He described authoritatively the malevolent character of the Iraqi leadership, its determination
to
pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and its attendant, repeated violation of
Iraq’s obligations under various cease-fire accords and UN resolutions. The President
impressively asserted his Administration’s determination to prevent Saddam Hussein from once
again wielding such deadly weapons.

Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton rendered his address ludicrous — if not contemptible —
by
repeatedly emphasizing that if only Saddam would make new promises, the crisis
would
pass. No serious observer can believe that any future commitment from Saddam’s
government to
allow “free, fair and unfettered access” to all locations in Iraq, as demanded by President Clinton
today, will be worth more than the earlier, repeatedly violated ones.

What is Wrong With This Picture?

Holding out the prospect of a “diplomatic solution” in circumstances like these — where
diplomacy can only postpone the day of reckoning, not prevent its occurrence — signals to friend
and foe alike that the United States lacks the strategic vision, will and/or military power to use
force effectively. Matters are made worse by the repeated contention that such power as the U.S.
does command is going to be sent on a fool’s errand: “We want to seriously diminish the threat
posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity
to threaten his neighbors.”

The truth is that such an objective, even if it could be made less nebulous and more
achievable,
would be utterly ephemeral as long as Saddam Hussein and his ilk rule Iraq. It is in
the nature of
chemical and particularly biological weapons programs that within weeks — if not within days
or
hours — of an attack that “seriously diminished” Iraq’s WMD program, new dual-use and
covertly
stockpiled dedicated military equipment can resume production of lethal agents, toxins or viruses.

Far from bringing Saddam to heel, military action with this limited purpose will only
embolden the
Iraqi despot and his ruling clique. This is not conjecture; it is a forecast born of hard experience.
As syndicated columnist Tony Snow recalled in an article published in yesterday’s
Washington
Times: “Intelligence officers report that in the waning hours of the Gulf War,
Hussein asked
two questions: ‘Will they kill me?’ and ‘Will they cross the Euphrates?’ Upon hearing
that the answer to both queries was ‘no,’ he reportedly smiled and said, ‘Then I
win.‘“
(Emphasis added.)

Key Congressional Figures Get It, Why Not Mr. Clinton?

This reality is increasingly understood by leading Members of Congress. As the Center has
noted
in recent weeks, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Senate
Majority Leader Trent
Lott (R-MS) have made clear their view that Saddam is the problem. href=”#N_1_”>(1) On 12 February,
Republican Representatives Dan Burton (IN), Chris Smith
(NJ), Dana Rohrabacher (CA)
and Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham (CA) added their influential voices in a letter
President Clinton.
It said, in part:

    “…In order to be effective, any military action must not target the innocent
    people of Iraq, but instead must be aimed at Saddam and the underpinnings of
    his blood-stained regime    ….A critical objective…must be to get rid of Saddam. And
    how we do that is to assist the Iraqi people so they will have the freedom to select
    leadership that is not threatening to their neighbors and their own well being.

    “To this end, and consistent with the national objective that you articulated in
    your State of the Union address, there are three fundamental pillars of
    Saddam’s strength and his ability to destabilize the region: 1) weapons of
    mass destruction; 2) the Special Security and Special Republican Guard
    security forces; and 3) a close circle of political and military decision-makers.

    “These three components of Saddam’s power pyramid can be put at risk
    using a combination of TLAMs, stealth F-117 and B-2(2)
    bombers using their
    most capable weapons, and B-52s with stand-off cruise missiles.     We are
    concerned that relying on non-stealth, non-standoff systems is a recipe for U.S.
    and allied airmen being sacrificed and potential hostages to be paraded before the
    media by Saddam. To risk mass casualties by blowing up chemical and biological
    weapons bunkers, which would put at risk civilians, Iraq’s neighbors and
    American troops stationed in the region, while leaving Saddam in power is
    foolhardy. This would turn public opinion against the operation and threaten the
    stability of our regional allies.

    “There is no guarantee that air strikes will eliminate Saddam’s chemical and
    biological stockpile or prevent him from replenishing his arsenal. A sounder
    objective would be to disable Saddam. To this end, an intensive psychological
    operation should be integral with military action. A psy-ops campaign may
    include overriding Iraq’s national radio and television signals with programming
    to assure that Iraqi people understand that we are trying to help them….

    “…We now understand that we will never resolve the weapons of mass
    destruction issue so long as Saddam remains in power. We will support
    strong action. But it must be strategically sound and decisive, with the
    ultimate goal to free the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.    “
    (Emphasis added.)

The Military Gets It, Why Doesn’t Bill Clinton?

Today’s Washington Post reports that such an assessment is shared by senior
military leaders, if
not by all the President’s political appointees(3):

    “Defense and foreign policy officials said the President’s national security team
    remains divided over the aims and expectations of the intended bombardment, and
    frustrated senior officers said the target lists accumulating in the converted Bedouin
    village of Eskan in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Central Command’s forward air
    headquarters, are still subject to daily revision….

    “As bombing plans have expanded to encompass what one senior flag officer
    described as ‘thousands of aim points’ in Iraq, a large share of the intended
    violence is now directed at the apparatus maintaining Iraqi President
    Saddam Hussein in power, from networks of secret police to Baath Party
    organs.     Apart from the long-shot hope of a change of government, officials said,
    the aim is to crush Saddam Hussein’s defiance by threatening his most
    valued assets of internal control.

    “The 1991 Persian Gulf War featured a similar but largely abortive effort to
    target Saddam Hussein’s power base. But the objectives of that war’s six-week
    air campaign were largely elsewhere    , and target planners then devoted less than
    1 percent of their bombing missions — 260 of 36,046 ‘strike sorties’ — to the
    category they designated ‘L’ for leadership.

    “‘The emphasis is not just on chemical and biological [weapons],’ a top flag
    officer said. ‘The emphasis is on, you’re going to make it hurt, and the best
    way to hurt him is his core infrastructure.     We’re not going to leave that alone
    as we have in the past….If he feels threatened enough with his regime’s stability,
    then he has no choice but to acquiesce. It’s typical dictator mentality that the
    biggest thing that drives him is holding onto power.'”

    The Military Bridles at Administration Disingenuousness

It is ironic that, according to the Post, “The administration does
not wish to advertise
this intention, according to several accounts, because it fears the plan may not work. ‘In
our
public discourse of this we need to focus on an achievable
objective,’ said one senior
administration official.”

Like the growing chorus in Congress, the U.S. military understands that “seriously
diminishing”
Saddam’s WMD program is, if anything, less achievable — and certainly less
efficacious — than
disrupting his “core infrastructure” or security apparatus. As the Post put it:

    “But President Clinton’s stated intention — to damage forbidden weapons stocks from
    the air, rather than compel Iraq to give full access to United Nations inspectors charged
    with discovering them on the ground — has been challenged by some in Congress and
    elsewhere as too limited. When critics in and out of government noted that Iraq could
    quickly reconstitute its biological and chemical weapons programs, Secretary of State
    Madeleine K. Albright declared last week that, ‘We reserve the right for a follow-up
    strike.’

    “There is broad dissatisfaction with that strategy in the military
    establishment, several senior officials said    . ‘We pay such a huge price
    politically that we have fewer friends next time and even fewer the time after
    that,’ said one military planner. ‘Every six months doing maintenance strikes on
    Iraq for the next 10 years doesn’t seem to be good foreign policy or military
    strategy.'”(4)

Another Presidential Blind Spot: Russia is No ‘Partner for
Peace’

In his remarks today, President Clinton glossed over one other natty problem with his Iraq
policy:
His continuing confidence that, as he put it, “the international community does have the wisdom
and the will and the way to protect peace and security in a new era.” This formula ignores the
fact that three out of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Russia, China
and France — are actively running interference for Saddam Hussein, or worse. href=”#N_5_”>(5)

Take, for example, the case of Russia. Even before Boris Yeltsin started warning that
U.S.-led
military action against Iraq could precipitate “World War III,” the Russians were materially
contributing to the problem posed by Iraq. According to the 12 February 1998 Washington
Post,(6) “United Nations inspectors in Iraq last fall
uncovered what they considered highly
unsettling evidence of a 1995 agreement by the Russian government to sell Iraq
sophisticated
fermentation equipment that could be used to develop biological weapons, according to
sources.” What is more:

    “The evidence of an illicit deal is [but] one element of a close collaboration
    between Moscow and Baghdad on matters of interest to the United Nations
    Special Commission on Iraq    ….U.S. intelligence agencies have privately warned U.N.
    officials that Russian intelligence operatives are spying on the commission and its
    personnel in New York and overseas,     the sources said. They have further warned
    that the Russian spy agency, which was formerly headed by Foreign Minister
    Yevgeny Primakov, may have passed some of the information it collects directly
    to Iraq.

    “In some cases, Moscow has made little effort to conceal efforts to learn what
    the commission is doing and to influence the scope and timing of certain sensitive
    inspections, according to sources….In the summer of 1996, for example, a team of
    inspectors retreated to a remote English town for a training exercise to prepare
    for a surprise visit to a highly sensitive Iraqi site. After checking into a local
    hotel, an inspector recognized a Russian official later identified as the London
    resident for the Russian foreign intelligence service, according to three sources.
    Each night, the official was observed attempting to debrief Russian
    members of the inspection team, the sources said. When inspectors
    eventually tried to reach the site targeted by the commission, they were
    blocked by Iraqi military forces.

    “In another incident cited by several sources, commission officials in charge of
    another highly sensitive inspection in March 1996 deliberately disseminated false
    information to members of their own team about which Iraqi site they had
    targeted. Shortly afterward, a Russian political counselor in New York, Gennadi
    Gatilov    , who is now Moscow’s chief expert in New York on commission
    matters, approached a senior commission official to complain that inspecting that
    site would be highly disruptive.

    “Gatilov further threatened that if the inspection went forward, Moscow would
    oppose implementation of a U.N. plan for long-term routine monitoring of
    imports and exports to Iraq related to weapons of mass destruction — a threat that
    commission officials ignored, sources said.” (Emphasis added throughout.)

These are the sorts of problems that must be expected to intensify
if the Clinton
Administration allows a new “diplomatic solution” to be brokered by UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan that will permit representatives of the “Perm Five” (read, Russians,
Chinese
and French “diplomats”) to accompany UNSCOM inspectors on some or all of their future on-site
visits in Iraq.

The Bottom Line

The American people, their elected representatives and those who have volunteered to put
their
lives on the line for their country will readily support President Clinton in his bid to end the
danger posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction — provided he addresses that
danger systemically, and not in a symptomatic, if not completely phony, fashion.

Should he chose, once again, to do otherwise, however, Mr. Clinton should be under no
illusion:
He will secure for himself no real, let alone durable, diminution in the threat from
Iraq. Instead,
he will likely secure a place in that circle of the Inferno reserved for those who recklessly sacrifice
their country’s interests and servicemen by compromising with, rather than effectively resisting,
unappeasable tyrants.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Clinton’s Huffing-And-Puffing On Iraq — But Lack
of a Coherent Strategy — Looks Like a Formula for Disaster ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_22″>No. 98-D 22, 4 February 1998).

2. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
What’s Wrong With This Picture? Clinton Doesn’t
Get the Need for Strategic Air Strikes — Or the Right Tool for Conducting Them
(No. 98-D
26, 9 February 1998).

3. See “Raids May Strike At Power Structure,” Barton Gellman,
Washington Post, 17 February 1998, p. A1.

4. A good policy in this area requires in addition to the military
strikes and psychological warfare
campaigns described above, what Richard Perle has called a “serious political program.” As
described in a Washington Post op.ed. article by former Assistant Secretary of
Defense Perle (See
No. 98-D 26) such a program would involve a concerted effort to
foster, empower and legitimate
a provisional government of Free Iraq and to delegitimate Saddam Hussein and his ruling clique.

5. A.M. Rosenthal’s syndicated column in today’s New York
Times brilliantly describes the double
travesty of so-called allies who subvert efforts to stop Saddam on the one hand and that of
an
American government that tries to conceal this practice: “Our real difference with Russia, China
and France [is] their decision to put lust for Mideast influence and Saddam’s trade above concern
about his chemical and biological weapons. The decision besmirches all countries who take it.
Prettifying it besmirches us.”

6. See “Did Russia Sell Iraq Germ Warfare Equipment?” by R.
Jeffrey Smith, p. A1.

What’s Wrong With This Picture? Clinton Doesn’t Get the Need For Strategic Air Strikes — Or the Right Tool For Conducting Them

(Washington, D.C.): The latest refusal of a U.S. ally — Saudi Arabia — to provide the U.S.
access
to the ports and airfields necessary to support an effective military campaign against Iraq ought to
be a wake-up call for the Clinton Administration. For one thing, those facilities would likely be
available if only the objective of American military action were the liberation
of Iraq from
Saddam’s tyranny. For another, the inability to utilize them, and those of Turkey,
underscores
the folly of the Administration’s refusal to use the ideal instrument for long-range air strikes over
heavily defended territory — the B-2 bomber.

Our Allies Will Follow If the United States Leads
Properly

Saudi Arabia and Saddam’s other neighbors understand all too well the bottom line that eludes
—
or is anathema to — the Clinton Administration: The Iraqi regime is the problem, not
just its
products.(1) Regrettably, Mr. Clinton and his
subordinates insist that they are only concerned
with the latter and will not seek to bring about an early end to the former.

This approach is doomed to fail. If the seven years since Operation Desert Storm prove
nothing
else, military strikes can destroy at best just some of Saddam’s weapons of mass
destruction. And
as long as his clique rules Iraq, it will be but a matter of time before the danger posed by these
weapons is reconstituted.

What is Required: In the attached article
from Sunday’s Washington Post, Richard Perle — a
former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy who now serves as a
resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a valued member of the Center for
Security Policy’s Board of Advisors — offers a different approach. In contrast to the Clinton
Administration’s doomed, symptomatic course of treatment for the metastasizing
cancer Saddam
& Company represent, Mr. Perle recommends a systemic one.

Specifically, Mr. Perle argues such a strategy should begin with substantial air strikes
designed to
take out what weapons programs it can, while targeting the Republican Guard infrastructure upon
which Saddam relies to terrorize his people into submission. Working in combination with such
military measures, Mr. Perle proposes “a serious political
program” designed to foment dissent
against the regime and encourage effective opposition to it. This program would include:

  • Recognition of “the democratic opposition [i.e., the broad-based Iraqi National
    Congress]
    as the legitimate, provisional government of Iraq and support its claim to Iraq’s seat at
    the United Nations    ;”

  • a plan to “disburse to the provisional government some of the billions in Iraqi
    assets
    frozen after the Kuwait invasion;”

  • “lift[ing] the sanctions on the territory (now principally in the north but likely to
    spread)
    not under Saddam Hussein’s control.     This would catapult these areas into significant
    economic growth and attract defectors from within Iraq. Much of Iraq’s oil lies in areas
    he
    cannot now control or over which he would quickly lose control     if an opposition
    government were established there;”

  • “assist[ing] the opposition in taking its message to the Iraqi people by making radio
    and
    television transmitters available to them    ;”

  • And “logistical support and military equipment to the opposition and to use air
    power to
    defend it in the territory it controls.    ”

Mr. Perle believes — and the Center for Security Policy agrees — that this approach holds
out
the best prospect of “eliciting a full-blown insurrection against Saddam Hussein, taking off from
territory he does not control and spreading as his opponents find security and opportunity in
joining with others who wish to liberate Iraq.”

An Indispensable Tool

Whatever the purpose of future air strikes against Iraq, the United States has at its disposal a
weapon system ideally suited for the task. The absence of nearby ground-based airfields and the
absence of stealthy sea-based aircraft though, places a particular premium on the only manned,
penetrating bomber capable of precisely delivering ordinance anywhere in Iraq from outside the
region. As General Charles Horner (USAF, Ret.), who commanded U.S. air forces during the
Gulf War, observed in an op.ed. article published in the 7 February New York
Times: “The
advanced Block 30 B-2 aircraft in Whiteman, Mo., need not rely on bases in Saudi Arabia to
bomb with impunity.”

Yet, the Clinton Administration refuses to employ the B-2 in an air campaign against Iraq. Its
refusal, however, is motivated by political considerations, not military ones. Should the
extraordinary, unique capabilities of this weapon system ever be demonstrated in combat, Mr.
Clinton’s campaign to truncate this program at ridiculously low levels would likely become
unsustainable. As a result, his Administration may needlessly expose American personnel to
enemy fire and invite avoidable collateral damage by using less efficient and capable forces. href=”#N_2_”>(2)

The Bottom Line

The Center strongly endorses Mr. Perle’s conclusion that “It can no longer be argued
that
stopping halfway is good enough. The idea that we and our allies could find safety in a
‘contained’ Saddam Hussein encouraged the Bush administration to halt Desert Storm before the
job was done.” The Clinton Administration’s refusal to address the root of the problem in Iraq —
that is, Saddam Hussein’s regime — will inevitably result in further decay in the constraints placed
on the Butcher of Baghdad after the Gulf War. While the futility, not to say reckless
irresponsibility of this course is clear to Saddam’s neighbors, the question remains: When will it
become clear to the Clinton Administration, and at what cost?

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Clinton on Iraq: Wrong Question, Wrong Answer:
It’s Not the Weapons — It’s the Regime, Stupid (No.
98-D 25, 6 February 1998).

2. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Bureaucratic Foul Play is a Threat to the B-2
Bomber, Not Foul Weather (No. 97-D
116, 25 August 1997).

Clinton’s Huffing-And-Puffing On Iraq — But Lack Of A Coherent Strategy — Looks Like A Formula For Disaster

(Washington, D.C.): For seven years, the Center for Security Policy has been arguing that the
object of American policy toward Iraq — and the purpose of any military and other actions taken
against that nation — must be to bring about the removal of Saddam Hussein from
power.(1)
For seven years, first the Bush Administration and then the Clinton Administration have tried
various alternative approaches focused primarily on containing Saddam.

What’s the Point?

Through much of this period, the U.S. government has sent conflicting — or at least
alternating —
signals about whether the Iraqi despot’s overthrow or demise were desirable, or whether it would
be enough if he complied fully with the various UN resolutions adopted at the end of (or
subsequent to) Operation Desert Storm. This ambivalence, not to say incoherence, has
contributed greatly to the present crisis. It has also undermined the confidence of regional
partners in America’s leadership and their willingness to support further U.S. military strikes.

The Clinton Administration is much given, nonetheless, to bragging about all that has been
accomplished during the intervening seven years. Its representatives, from the President on down,
repeat the mantra served up at today’s press briefing by State Department spokesman Jamie
Rubin: “The UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) has destroyed more weapons of mass
destruction than were destroyed in the Gulf War.”

Unfortunately, this misses the point entirely. Even if every
single Iraqi chemical weapon,
biological weapon and nuclear weapon-component and ballistic missile delivery system were
actually ferreted out and destroyed, it is absolutely predictable that this would be a very ephemeral
situation. As long as Saddam Hussein remains in power — and particularly once he gains
renewed access to Iraq’s petrodollar-earning potential — he will see to it that the Iraqi
scientists who know how to produce such weapons are assigned to rebuild these
capabilities.

A Growing Chorus

Consequently, it is now clear to leading Members of Congress, key allies and,
according to a
front-page article in today’s Washington Times, that the U.S. military must design its
next
military operation for the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein from power.

    Congress:

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) said today: “We have to
adopt a position that
[Saddam] will either agree to unlimited UN inspections or we will have to replace him with a
regime that will agree to end this kind of (weapons) program.” According to Reuters, “when
asked if he was proposing that a U.S. military attack should aim to replace the Iraqi government,
Gingrich said: ‘This is a real problem that requires a real solution. And incremental timidity,
which only punishes Saddam [but] leaves him in place to build the weapons, is a defeat, not a
success.'”

Meanwhile, the Washington Times reported that:

    “Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican,
    [yesterday] called for
    decisive military action that would wipe out not only Saddam’s weapons
    stockpile, but the Iraqi leader himself.     ‘If we’re going to do this, let’s go all the
    way,’ he said. ‘Until we get [Saddam] out of Iraq, we’re never going to get this
    situation under control,’     Mr. Lott said, adding that if the proper steps are taken,
    ‘Let’s hit ’em hard, right up front.'”

    “Mr. Lott, whose comments on Iraq came as a surprise to some senators, added
    that the United States must have a clear ‘end game’ and that it would make no
    sense to put Saddam ‘back in his cage and then have him back out in six
    months.'”

    Regional Allies:

The Washington Times also reported today on the
results of Madeleine Albright’s
whirlwind tour of the Middle East. It said, in part:

    “Saudi Arabia’s leaders are concerned that sentiment for the Iraqi people is so strong in
    their own country that a sustained U.S. bombing campaign will provoke a fierce
    anti-Western backlash, Middle East intelligence sources said yesterday. That fear
    appears to lie behind the reluctance of the Saudis to offer more support to Secretary of
    State Madeleine Albright, who was in Riyadh yesterday explaining the reasons behind
    planned U.S. air strikes on Baghdad.

    “‘For the first day of an air bombardment, everything will be quiet’ in Saudi
    Arabia, one intelligence source said. ‘And maybe the second day, too.’ But the
    Saudis and other Arab governments have serious concerns that there may be
    massive demonstrations of popular support for Saddam if the air attack is a long
    and sustained one….

    “The Saudi press, which usually reflects official views, strongly
    opposes air
    strikes that could cause civilian casualties in Iraq. Articles argue that the
    United States should try to ‘surgically’ kill Saddam himself    ….Why don’t they
    consider getting rid of President Saddam Hussein through means that will cost the
    Iraqi people the least in terms of suffering    ?” the Al-Riyadh newspaper asked
    yesterday.” (Emphasis added.)

    The U.S. Military:

The uniformed military senses that the Clinton Administration is seeking to circumscribe
any
future military operation against Iraq in a manner that is frighteningly reminiscent of the
Johnson/McNamara-micro-management of bombing strikes against North Vietnam that
contributed to the U.S. defeat in that conflict. According to this morning’s Washington
Times:

    “The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are angry with a White House-designed
    bombing campaign against Iraq because it does not target Saddam Hussein’s security
    forces or his top aides. Instead, cruise missiles and bombs will be primarily targeted at
    military facilities and sites known or suspected of holding nuclear, biological or
    chemical weapons components, during a three-day campaign, according to senior
    military officials. ‘The White House is only interested in putting on a show,’ said a
    disgruntled military source.”

    “‘This is turning into a political, not a military, option,’ said one of
    several senior military officials who spoke to The Times. ‘This is not a
    political and military effort that has a strategy. All it is is a list of targets
    trying to be forced into something they claim is a strategy.'”

‘We Don’t Talk to the Military’

With the sort of contemptuous condescension that has frequently characterized the Clinton
Administration’s attitude toward the armed forces — and others who dare challenge its
stewardship of U.S. national security, Jamie Rubin dismissed the growing chorus for a different
strategy towards Iraq:

    “…I say to those people…that when you’re outside of government it’s always
    nice
    to write articles about what can be easily done. When you’re in government and
    you’re responsible for policies, you deal with the way the world really works.     And
    our view is that the President and the Secretary [of State] and the Secretary of Defense
    are focused on the national security concern that faces the world. And that is the
    prospect of a Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction threatening his
    neighbors and threatening the world. And our policy and our actions, whether
    diplomatic or otherwise, are focused on meeting that national security threat, and that
    is thwarting Iraq’s capacity to develop and use weapons of mass destruction and to
    limit his ability to threaten his neighbors.”

    “So these same critics who would have had us — who made the same argument
    that as long as Saddam Hussein is there, you’re never going to be able to deal
    with the weapons of mass destruction threat need to take into account that
    UNSCOM has done a superb job and destroyed more weapons of mass
    destruction than were destroyed in the Gulf War, when the opportunity for other
    measures might have existed. But that’s a long, long time ago. And we’re
    focused on the problem that faces the nation and the world, and that is this
    weapons of mass destruction threat.”

The Bottom Line

In truth, the critics are right. Using U.S. military power for the purpose of liberating the
people
of Iraq is at least as feasible — and far more therapeutic — a strategy than trying to destroy
some
of Saddam’s concealed weapons of mass destruction and hope that by so doing he will allow us,
at last, to find the rest of them with renewed inspections.

The reality is that the next American-led military action against Iraq may be the last
one in
which we enjoy the initiative. The Russian parliament has adopted a resolution urging
that the
Yeltsin government end its participation in the embargo if an attack is launched. Yeltsin himself,
in the latest of his increasingly erratic pronouncements, said today that such a strike could “lead to
world war.”(2) If allied nations can barely bring themselves
to offer tepid support for Mrs.
Albright’s current appeals, they assuredly will decline to do so if Saddam once again survives an
American attack to become a still greater threat. And, let there be no doubt: If Saddam is not
stopped, he will, in due course, acquire sufficient WMD capabilities certainly to deter further
coalition action against him, and perhaps even unilateral U.S. strikes.

Accordingly, the United States must, at long last, use its military power — principally
an air
campaign — to disrupt, if not permanently to destroy, Saddam Hussein’s police state
apparatus. It must accompany this step with the formal recognition of the broadly based
opposition Iraqi National Congress as a provisional government. America must provide
the
provisional government with frozen assets claimed by Saddam’s regime and broadcasting
capabilities to enable it to aid, communicate with and empower the Iraqi people so as to bring
about the early, permanent overthrow of Saddam and his brutal regime. Such a course of action
offers the only hope for an Iraq that is a contributor to regional peace and stability and a nation
truly free of dangerous weapons of mass destruction.

– 30 –

1. See, for example, the following Center products:
Take Out Saddam (No. 97-D
168, 10
November 1997); Unfinished Business: Christopher, Perry Depart But Saddam
Abides — Will
‘Clinton II’ Finally Put Him Out of Business? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=96-T_111″>No. 96-T 111, 8 November 1996); Overdue,
Underdone: What the Air Strikes on Iraq Should Have Been About, But Weren’t
(No. 93-D 06,
13 January 1993); Getting Saddam: The Most Important Foreign Policy Initiative
in the ‘State
of the Union’ Address (No. 92-D 10, 26
January 1992); and On to Baghdad! Liberate Iraq ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=91-P_16″>No.
91-P 16, 27 February 1991).

2. The State Department’s spokesman desperately grasped at the
straw offered by Yeltsin’s
damage-limitation officer, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, who claimed that American reporters had
mis-translated the Russian President’s remarks. Jamie Rubin blithely responded that: “We have a
very strong and constructive relationship with Russia. The two Presidents are frequently in touch.
Their relationship is strong. Secretary Albright and Foreign Minister Primakov talked at length
about Iraq, and this was not a major part of their conversation.” Others who are less
romantic
about — or who have less of a personal investment in — the U.S.-Russian “relationship” than
Rubin and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott have a far more accurate “real world” view
about the Kremlin’s machinations on Iraq in general and Primakov’s in particular.

Hill Leadership Endorses Prompt Deployment of Missile Defenses: Will Tel Aviv ‘Burn’ While Clinton Fiddles?

(Washington, D.C.): Against the backdrop of renewed rumors of war with Iraq and mounting
evidence of an emerging Russian-abetted Iranian missile threat, both of the Nation’s top elected
Republican officials have issued a warning — and an urgent personal appeal to President Clinton:
According to both Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich
(R-GA) and
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), the United States must
begin deploying
effective ballistic missile defenses.

Speaker Gingrich Puts His Marker Down

On 20 January, Speaker Gingrich pointedly wrote Mr. Clinton:

    “As you know, should any of our adversaries around the globe today fire a ballistic
    missile capped with a nuclear, chemical, or biological warhead at the people of the
    United States, we have no defense capability to prevent the destruction of its
    intended target and the death of hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of
    American men, women and children.     In our arsenal, there is not one
    defense system
    or weapon that could be used to prevent the devastation of our country.

    “Our Nation’s policy of relying solely on offensive weapons to deter a nuclear
    missile attack from the Soviet Union has been overtaken by events. The Soviet
    Union no longer exists and our multiple adversaries in this more complicated
    world no longer play by the familiar Cold War rules….

    “In this rapidly changing context, continuing to hold the security of the
    American people hostage to what is, in effect, a policy of ‘assured
    vulnerability’ makes no sense and could be characterized as irresponsible.

    “There is a solution. We have the technical capability to correct this glaring hole
    in our Nation’s defense. Congress has for three years been urging, cajoling,
    legislating, and appropriating in an effort to convince you of the importance
    of committing your Administration to the deployment of ballistic missile
    defense systems to protect all Americans.

    “Until now, you have prevented us from achieving this objective. I urge you to
    reconsider your opposition and use the opportunity of your State of the
    Union speech to announce your commitment and intent to deploy a national
    missile defense system    .”(1)

Clinton’s ‘Response’ — Samo, Samo

Unfortunately, if to no one’s great surprise, President Clinton chose to ignore the Speaker’s
sound advice in the State of the Union address.(2)
Active defenses against missile attack
remain ideologically taboo in the Clinton Administration. While it continues to pay lip
service to the problem posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Clinton
team proposes to do nothing about it, except to promote ineffectual — and probably
counterproductive — arms control regimes.(3)

For example, the one concrete proposal concerning the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction that was unveiled in the State of the Union address was Mr. Clinton’s intention to
“strengthen [the Biological Weapons Convention] with a new international inspection regime to
detect and deter cheating.”

It is ironic that this statement was juxtaposed with a pronouncement that Saddam Hussein
would
not be allowed to have biological and other WMD capabilities. href=”#N_4_”>(4) After all, the fact that such a
threat has to be made at all is evidence of the utter futility of seeking verifiable arms
control
limitations on biological weaponry. Indeed, the President is reportedly considering air
strikes
against Saddam’s covert weapons programs precisely because the latter has, over the
past six
years, successfully thwarted a far more intrusive and robust on-site inspection regime than any
that could be negotiated in an arms control context.

More likely than not, the upshot of the Clinton Administration’s misplaced reliance
upon
phony arms control agreements to deal with real security threats will once again turn out to
be a net liability for U.S. interests. As with the Chemical Weapons Convention — seen
by some
members of the Clinton team as the template for comprehensive verification arrangements href=”#N_5_”>(5) — the
inspection regime will be insufficient either to detect or deter cheating on the BWC.
It will,
however, be plenty intrusive to open unprecedented opportunities for commercial and
militarily-relevant espionage against one of the United States’ most dynamic and competitive
business
sectors — the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

Enter Senator Lott

To his great credit, Senator Lott affirmed the essence of Speaker Gingrich’s missive in his
rejoinder to the President’s State of the Union address. As Sen. Lott put it:

    “You know, as hard as it is to believe, right now our country has no national defense
    against missiles carrying nuclear, chemical or biological warheads. Those who hate
    America most in Iraq, in Iran and elsewhere, they know that.

    “President Clinton, I urge you to reconsider your opposition to having a
    national missile defense for America. Join us in taking the steps that will
    actually deploy a national missile defense system for the United States.    “

The Gathering Storm

Recent developments in the Middle East have only reinforced the nature of the warning issued
by
the Republican leaders — and the urgency of their call for action. Consider the following:

  • Iran: In his 20 January letter, Speaker Gingrich advised the
    President that “fears of the
    proliferation of Russian ballistic missiles and related technology have been confirmed.
    Iran
    reportedly has dramatically accelerated ongoing improvements in its offensive missile
    capability as a result of acquisitions from Russia, and is now poised to produce
    ballistic
    missiles capable of reaching American forces in the Persian Gulf and even NATO.”

    Interestingly, in testimony this week before the Senate Select Committee on
    Intelligence, CIA Director George Tenet confirmed that the Russo-Iranian axis
    is
    greatly contracting the time before Tehran fields such long-range ballistic missiles:

“When I testified here a year ago, Mr. Chairman, I said that Iran, which had received
extensive missile assistance from North Korea, would probably have medium-range missiles
capable of hitting Saudi Arabia and Israel in less than ten years. href=”#N_6_”>(6)

“Since I testified, Iran’s success in gaining technology and materials from Russian
companies, combined with recent indigenous Iranian advances, means that it could have a
medium range missile much sooner than I assessed last year.”

    While Director Tenet refused further to specify in open session when such a threat
    would be realized, the Washington Times’ national security correspondent
    Bill Gertz
    reported yesterday that “a classified U.S. intelligence report, based on U.S. and
    Israeli sources and obtained by The Washington Times, concluded last year that
    Iran is expected to field the first prototype of its Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 missiles
    within 18 months.    ” (Emphasis added.)

  • Iraq: If the danger arising from Iran’s emerging missile
    programs were not worrisome
    enough, that already posed by Iraqi missiles should be downright alarming. The
    New York
    Times     reported on 26 January that, in a meeting with its editorial board,
    “[UNSCOM
    Chairman, Richard] Butler confirmed earlier reports that his team had evidence that Iraq
    has
    loaded biological weapons onto missile warheads.    ” The paper went on to add:

“Mr. Butler said the biological weapons were loaded onto missiles that could be put on
mobile launchers and driven away to avoid being hit by bombs. While he did not specify the nature
of the evidence or exactly how the team obtained it, he said Iraqis had enough biological
material like anthrax or botulin toxin to ‘blow away Tel Aviv’ and that some of the
missiles
‘were very crude, but they work.’ He also said the team did not know how many missile
systems the Iraqis had.”

    What is more, on 21 January, British Foreign Minister Robin Cook
    made clear just
    how pressing the Iraqi biological weapons problem is becoming. Speaking at a press
    conference in Hong Kong Cook warned, “With every passing day, Saddam Hussein can
    continue to expand his arsenal of chemical or biological weapons. Every
    week,
    Saddam Hussein is creating enough additional anthrax to fill two missile
    warheads.”

The Aegis Option

In the horrible event that ballistic missiles are indeed used to “blow away” Tel Aviv — or a
European capital or American city — it is a safe bet that the United States will promptly field an
effective, global missile defense system. It will almost certainly involve, at a minimum, a system
recommended three years ago by a blue-ribbon committee sponsored by the Heritage
Foundation.(7) This program could be rapidly and highly
cost-effectively brought on-line thanks to
the nearly $50 billion investment already made to date in the Navy’s AEGIS fleet air defense
system. According to the Heritage “Team B” study, within two-to-three years for a
further
investment of as little as $2-3 billion, the United States could begin to deploy effective,
mobile, world-wide defenses against shorter- and longer-range missiles.

Of course, it will then be too late for those who were needlessly sacrificed as a result of the
failure
first and foremost of President Clinton to field the AEGIS option and the inability of the Congress
to muster the majorities necessary to overcome his opposition. The blame will probably
be
widely shared, however — unless the Messrs. Gingrich and Lott take steps now to translate
their welcome rhetoric into the required action.

The Bottom Line

Speaker Gingrich and Senator Lott are to be commended for their leadership in defining, at
long
last, one of the most profound differences on national security matters that exist between the
Republican-led Congress and the Clinton Administration. Now they must sharpen this difference
further — and translate it into an issue of real political accountability. President Clinton
must be
compelled at the earliest possible moment, ideally on the expected FY 1998 supplemental
appropriation measure, either to accept or to veto funds appropriated to complete
development and concurrently to begin deployment of the AEGIS-based missile defense
system the United States and its allies and forces overseas so urgently require.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Words to Live By: Speaker Gingrich Asks Clinton
to Use Speech to the Nation to Begin Protecting It From Missile Attack ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_15″>No. 98-D 15, 23
January 1998).

2. On the other hand, the President did throw a sop to Speaker
Gingrich by not repeating the
offensive statement he has made on more than ninety occasions — including last year’s State of the
Union — to the effect that “there are no missiles pointed at America’s children.” As the Center
observed in its 23 January Decision Brief, Mr. Gingrich and the
rest of the House Republican
leadership felt constrained to write the President last May objecting to this statement on the
grounds that it “distorts the truth, misrepresents the facts and, sadly, is a terribly misleading
statement to make to the American people.”

3. A detailed analysis of the Clinton Administration’s sorry
performance on the non-proliferation
front can be obtained from The Proliferation Primer, a report recently released by the
Senate
Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services.
For highlights of this report, see the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
A Policy Indictment: Sen.
Cochran’s Subcommittee Documents Clinton Incompetence/Malfeasance On
Proliferation
(No. 98-D 4, 12 January 1998). The Primer itself may
obtained via the Subcommittee’s Web site
at www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/ispfs.htm.
Please note that if you “click” to this site, you will
leave the Center for Security Policy’s World Wide Web site.

4. The credibility of this bit of saber rattling is, unfortunately,
diminished by the eerie parallels
between it and Mr. Clinton’s earlier pledge that North Korea would not be allowed to obtain a
nuclear weapon — a pledge he has ever since failed to make good.

5. See the following Center Decision Briefs:
CWC Watch # 3: U.S. Underestimating the Costs
of One Ineffective Ban; Will It Repeat Them In Another? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_05″>No. 98-D 5, 12 January 1998) and
Truth or Consequences # 5: The CWC Will Not Be Good for Business — To Say
Nothing of
the National Interest (No. 97-D 27, 17
February 1997).

6. This pollyannish assessment squared with a National Intelligence
Estimate first disclosed by the
Clinton Administration in the midst of a contentious Senate debate on missile defenses. Its
preposterous conclusion that no long-range missile threat to the continental United States could
emerge in less than ten to fifteen years were properly regarded by knowledgeable experts to have
been driven by seriously flawed — and highly politicized — assumptions. One of these was the
premise that rogue states would not secure missile-related technology or expertise from either
Russia or China.

Presumably, this dark day in the annals of U.S. intelligence was what Senate Intelligence
Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) had in mind when he said in his opening statement
at the Tenet hearing: “To be useful, intelligence must be timely and accurate. Equally
important, the Intelligence Community must ‘call it as it sees it’ reporting the facts to
policy-makers without bias, even if the intelligence findings do not support a particular
policy or decision.“

7. See, for example the following Center products:
Unhappy Birthday: Twenty-Five Years of the
AMB Treaty Is Enough: Sen. Kyl Points Way To Begin Defending America ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_72″>No. 97-D 72, 23
May 1997); Validation of the Aegis Option: Successful Test Is First Step From
Promising
Concept To Global Anti-Missile Capability (No.
97-D 17, 29 January 1997); Unfinished
Business: Defending America (No. 96-D
132, 19 November 1996); and Why Doesn’t Rep.
John Spratt Want His Colleagues To Know About A Cheap, Effective, Near-Term Missile
Defense Option? (No. 96-D 51, 31 May
1996).

The Heritage Foundation’s blue-ribbon study can be accessed via the World Wide Web at
the
following address: href=”http://www.heritage.org”>www.heritage.org.