Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Time for A ‘Sanity Check’ On Syrian Intentions: Assad’s Continuing Malevolence Should Be Warning To Israel, US

(Washington, D.C.): With the resumption of open hostilities between Arab terrorist organizations operating from Syrian-controlled Lebanon and Israeli security forces, Secretary of State Warren Christopher is obsessed with "preserving" what passes for the Middle East "peace process." In recent days, he has urged "restraint" on the parties, in effect equating Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah and Palestinian forces with the incessant attacks launched by the latter against Israeli population centers and other sites.(1)

Secretary Christopher’s "even-handed" condemnation of the Israeli use of defensive force and the wanton violence that provoked it as "counterproductive to the peace process," however, is symptomatic of a far larger failure: Neither Mr. Christopher nor the President he serves appear to appreciate that Syrian behavior — and that of its allies and proxies in Lebanon — is preventing the negotiating process from becoming a real peace process.

‘Jaw, Jaw, Jaw’ Does Not Prevent ‘War, War, War’

In fact, the Clinton Administration in general — and Warren Christopher in particular — seem determined to confuse the process of negotiation with negotiating in good faith.(2)

The truth of the matter is that Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein and now Slobodan Milosevic have all "negotiated peace." The result of such negotiations, however, have consistently borne little resemblance to genuine peace.

Even before Washington started urging Israel to exercise restraint in the face of aggression from Syria’s proxies in Lebanon, it was propounding a no-less-dubious policy prescription: With the collapse of its superpower sponsor — the Soviet Union — Hafez Assad’s Syria was asserted to be a nation with nowhere else to go but to rapprochement with the United States.

According to this reasoning, such a realignment will translate into a greater readiness in Damascus to come to terms with the Israelis. At the very least, the Administration wants Israel to show an increased willingness to compromise with Syria — specifically, with respect to territorial accommodations on the Golan Heights.

It Ain’t Necessarily So

There are, however, worrisome indications that this analytical model is every bit as flawed as Warren Christopher’s moral equivalence between aggressors and victims. To be sure, Syria is in need of hard currency, investment and especially U.S. assistance with respect to developing its deep oil reserves, primarily for export. Still, there is little evidence that Assad’s weakness has translated into exploited U.S. leverage.

To the contrary, the exploitation seems to have been largely on the other side:

  • Syria parlayed a purported "concession" — i.e., its willingness to line up with the allied coalition against its worst enemy, Iraq — into a multi-billion dollar transfusion from Saudi Arabia. Such funds were, in turn, largely expended on vast new offensive arms purchases. These included advanced fighter aircraft, tanks, artillery, ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

    •  

  • There has also been no appreciable diminution in Syria’s participation in the illegal drug trade. This involves producing, refining and distributing cocaine and heroin both in Syria proper and in Syrian-controlled Lebanon. A recent U.S. government estimate calculated that some forty percent of the heroin to be found today on U.S. streets emanates from these sources. The value of such substances to cash-strapped Syria is in the billions of dollars.

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  • Western oil companies are now facilitating Syrian efforts to tap its considerable petroleum holdings, creating yet another source of hard currency for Assad’s regime. Syria sold $1.7 billion worth of oil in 1992 and is expecting to earn $2.0 billion or more from oil sales in 1993.

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  • Syria’s post-Gulf War rehabilitation in Western eyes has also enabled it to resume borrowing from international financial institutions. To date, it has run up millions of dollars worth of new debts to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

In short, Assad has taken a number of steps — some with official U.S. support, some that merely benefit from American passivity — to diversify his revenue streams and offset substantially the loss of Moscow’s subsidies. While the Syrian despot may find it expedient to promote the notion that he is anxious to improve relations with the United States, it would be unwise in the extreme to assume that a lasting basis of bankable strategic dependence has been created.

A Member in Good Standing of the ‘Radical Entente’

A development half-a-world away recently underscored this point. On 23 May, a secret arms cache in Managua, Nicaragua blew up, providing irrefutable evidence of the emergence of what the Center for Security Policy has dubbed "the Radical Entente." Found in the cache were documents, financial records, diplomatic papers and weaponry that served to illuminate the dimensions of a loose consortium between terrorist organizations and their state sponsors among the world’s pariah nations and communist parties, such as the Sandinistas.(3)

Syria plays an important role in the Radical Entente insofar as it allows terrorist groups to have their headquarters in Damascus or otherwise to use Syrian territory or Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to train cadre, launch attacks and receive arms. Assad shares with others in this informal alliance an abiding antipathy toward the West and its institutions and a common need to find alternative means of financing anti-Western operations in the absence of the sponsorship previously provided by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. The Syrians, like the Sandinistas, have found that there is money to be made — as well as strategic advantage to be secured — in aiding and abetting terrorist actions including: kidnappings of wealthy businessmen and their families; extortionary protection rackets; the covert supply of armaments; and supplying fabricated diplomatic documents and other cover.

Back in Business with the PKK

Notably, Syria has apparently concluded that it stands to benefit — financially or otherwise — from providing renewed support to the Kurdish Workers Party (known as the PKK), a Marxist terrorist group at war with Turkey. Less than four months after Damascus promised the Turks that it would act to prevent PKK operations against Turkey from Syrian soil, this group is once again brazenly training and mounting attacks from bases in Syria.

Indeed, on 8 June, the PKK’s leader Abdullah Ocalan brazenly held a press conference in Barr Ilyas, Lebanon at which he announced an "all-out war against Turkey." This episode confirmed the freedom of movement enjoyed by the PKK in Syria-controlled territory and lent credence to reports that Palestine Liberation Organization and other camps in Lebanon are being made available to PKK operatives.

Assad’s renewed cooperation with the PKK is yet another important indicator of his willingness to take actions at the expense of a close American ally and irrespective of any possible risk to Syria’s relations with the United States. As such, it should serve as signal lesson to both the U.S. and its other key ally in the region — Israel.

The Bottom Line

Syria continues to engage in activities inimical to U.S. and Western interests. While Assad clearly finds it expedient and profitable to profess an interest in improved relations with Washington, his conduct both within and outside of the "peace process" has yet to translate into evidence of an abiding commitment to peace.

The Center believes that — if Hafez Assad’s behavior is genuinely ameliorated when he is broke and relatively weak militarily — it is incumbent on U.S. policy-makers to resist the temptation to continue to try to alleviate his economic difficulties and to enable a reconstitution of Syria’s offensive might through arms build-ups and Israeli territorial concessions on the Golan Heights.

At the very least, the explicit price of extending the American hand of friendship to Damascus must be predicated upon a wholesale change in Syrian policy including, but not limited to: an end to Assad’s support for international terrorism at home and abroad; a cessation of drug-trafficking from Syrian and Syrian-controlled territory; a suspension of the accretion of advanced offensive military capabilities; and an unconditional — and actualized — commitment to effect a complete and lasting peace with Israel.

– 30 –

1. The extent of Syria’s presence in and control over the areas attacked by Israel is evidenced by the fact that two of the casualties were Syrian occupation troops. In this regard, see also "In Lebanon, Syria Gets Away With Murder," an op.ed. in today’s Wall Street Journal by Steven Emerson.

2. In a thoughtful article entitled "Lament of a Clinton Supporter" in the current edition of Commentary, a member of the Center for Security Policy’s Board of Advisors, Joshua Muravchik, recounts and reacts to a passage from a monograph published by Warren Christopher’s law firm — Diplomacy: The Neglected Imperative:

"…Christopher declared: ‘I believe we should grasp, as a central lesson of the [Iranian hostage] crisis, the wisdom in seeking negotiated settlements to international disputes.’ Insofar as it was not just vacuous, this sentiment revealed the same spirit that Scoop Jackson had characterized as appeasement. Why label Iran’s unprovoked attack on American civilians as a ‘dispute’ to be ‘negotiated,’ rather than a crime to be punished, an aggression to be repulsed, or an injury to be avenged?"

 

3. For additional insights into the significance of the Managua explosion, see "Sandinista Hidden Hand Revealed" by Vince Cannistraro, a distinguished member of the Center’s Board of Advisors, in the 21 July 1993 edition of the Washington Times.

WILL LEBANON EVER ESCAPE SYRIAN IMPERIALISM? DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH!

(Washington, D.C.): According to the
accord signed in Taif, Saudi Arabia in
September 1989, Syria was to have
completed by last week the withdrawal and
redeployment of the army of occupation
through which it has effectively ruled
Lebanon. To the surprise only of those
who fatuously believed President Hafez
Assad would actually honor his
commitment, there has been no
evident relocation of forces or other
relaxation of Syria’s iron grip on its
neighbor/colony.

Assad’s contemptuous disregard for his
obligations under the Taif accords is the
more remarkable, however, insofar as the
need for continuing physical
Syrian control of Lebanon would seem
sharply diminished thanks to the recent
Lebanese elections — which assured
Damascus effective political
control of the country. That
outcome was, of course, no accident;
indeed, it was pre-ordained.

How Assad Has Effectively
Annexed Lebanon

For one thing, the fact that the
balloting was conducted literally under
Syrian guns prompted Christian voters to
boycott the election and helped assure
the triumph of pro-Syrian factions. A
less obvious, but no less real
consideration, has been Syria’s success
in the wake of the Taif accord in
burrowing deeply into the entire national
fabric of Lebanon.

Although the Syrians have had a
substantial military presence in Lebanon
since 1976, the Taif accord marked their
first significant step toward
establishing permanent political
dominance there. This agreement, brokered
by the Arab League — with the active
support of the Bush Administration —
amounted to a Faustian deal with Assad:
The ongoing civil war in Lebanon was to
be brought to an end by legitimizing
Syrian administration of the country
for two years. During this period,
political reforms were to be undertaken
and free elections held. After the
election, Syria agreed to end its
occupation of most of Lebanon and to
confine such troops as would remain to
the strategic Bekaa Valley.

On 23 September 1988, Lebanon’s
vehemently anti-Syrian General Michel
Aoun had been appointed head of a
national emergency government by outgoing
Prime Minister Amin Geymayel. Immediately
after his appointment, Aoun and his
government’s supporters came under
withering military attack from pro-Syrian
and pro-Iranian forces, escalating the
civil war dramatically. After
withstanding nearly a year of this
violent aggression, 62 out of the 99
members of Lebanon’s Parliament agreed to
accept the conditions imposed by the Taif
agreement and stripped Aoun of his
office.

Following the signing of that
agreement, Syria wasted no time in
attempting to liquidate General Aoun and
his army and otherwise consolidating its
control over Lebanon. After the 22
November 1989 suspicious assassination of
the first president appointed under the
accord, Renee Moawad, Syria quickly
installed the pro-Syrian Elias Hrawi as
the new president. In October 1990, Syria
launched a successful military offensive,
utilizing some 30,000 troops to drive
Aoun out of Lebanon.

Then, in May 1991, Syria dictated the
terms of a new “Treaty of
Brotherhood, Cooperation and
Coordination” to Hrawi, assuring
that all actions by the
government in Lebanon would be taken in
coordination with Syria. One of
the first manifestations of this
agreement — and instruments for its
implementation — was the Hrawi
government’s prompt appointment of 40 new
Syrian-approved members to the
Parliament.

By this time, Syria had already gained
control over much of the political,
military, judicial and economic life of
Lebanon — including the lucrative (i.e.,
$1 billion-plus per year) drug trade
emanating from the Bekaa Valley. The
absoluteness of Syria’s domination of
Lebanese affairs was demonstrated in
March 1992 when Elias Hrawi went to
Damascus to seek Assad’s permission
to appoint a new Cabinet — only
to have his request turned down.
What is more, in Lebanon, as at home,
Assad took steps to neutralize any
significant political opposition; for
example, the popular anti-Syrian
Christian leader Dany Chamoun was
assassinated on 21 October 1990 amidst
widespread political arrests.

Evidently satisfied that the outcome
had been adequately rigged, Syria gave
its blessing for elections to be held in
Lebanon from 23 August-7 September 1992.
Just to be sure, they took pains
to control the election process itself;
according to numerous reports, the
Syrians stuffed the ballot boxes by
including large numbers of Syrians and
Palestinians on the voting rolls.
Understandably, the Christian parties
refused to legitimize such elections by
participating in them.

The Election Results Are
In: Syria Won

It was, therefore, hardly astonishing
that the final tally gave a substantial
victory to Islamic fundamentalist
extremists and others supported by both
Syria and its ally, Iran. The
Iranian-supported Amal, for example, won
the largest bloc of seats — eighteen —
in the 180 seat Parliament, with the
Syrian-sponsored Hezbollah coming in
second with a twelve-seat bloc. In
southern Lebanon, moreover, the Hezbollah
won 22 out of 23 seats in the local
council. The Christian boycott ensured
that they would have no
representation in the Parliament.

In practice, the 1992 Lebanese
elections mean that the factions backed
by the Syrians and Iranians now have
total dominance in the parliament in
Beirut. Syria and Lebanon have
agreed to delay the
“redeployment” of Syrian troops
until after the new government assumes
power. In reality, this means
that no redeployment will take place —
if it takes place at all — until Syria
is satisfied with their control over the
new government.

The recent balloting is also likely to
have consequences beyond Lebanon itself:
The elections effectively legitimated
Hezbollah’s political — as well as
military — hegemony in Southern Lebanon.
This area has historically been a jumping
off point for terrorist attacks into
Israel or its security zone in the border
area. In recent weeks, surely with
Syria’s consent if not its
active support, these attacks have
intensified.

Bush-Baker Sacrifice
Lebanon as Part of Coddling of Assad

In commenting on the outcome of the
elections, State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher stated on 8 September
1992 that “The United States is
clearly disappointed that the elections
were not prepared and not carried out in
a manner to ensure the broadest national
consensus.” Such official
“crocodile tears” cannot
obscure the fact that this outcome was a
result to which the U.S. policy of
appeasing Hafez Assad directly
contributed.

Importantly, this policy of pandering
to Assad did not begin — as many believe
— with the effort to recruit Syria into
the anti-Iraq coalition prior to the Gulf
War. In fact, it was initiated as early
as the fall of 1987 when the Syrian
despot was confronting myriad crises that
threatened his regime’s long-standing
strategic objectives, if not its
continued survival. These objectives
included creating a “Greater
Syria” and amassing the political,
economic and military power necessary to
extend Damascus’ influence elsewhere in
the Middle East.

Ever the skillful opportunist, Assad’s
response to these crises was to seek to
turn his increasingly desperate position
to advantage. He did so by striking more
moderate stances in one area after
another. For example: He initiated a
reconciliation with Egypt and Yassir
Arafat’s Palestine Liberation
Organization; he let it be known that he
was distancing Syria from Iran; and he
exhibited a new openness to progress in
the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Assad gave no indication, however,
that an end to Syria’s occupation of
Lebanon was in the offing. Worse yet, the
other steps appear to have represented
merely a tactical adjustment; they
in no way altered Assad’s determination
to achieve his ominous strategic
priorities.

Shades of the Pre-Kuwait
Policy Toward Baghdad

Regrettably, the Bush
Administration’s response to this new
“moderate” Hafez Assad was of a
piece with its now notorious policy
towards another Middle Eastern despot:
Saddam Hussein. The operating
principle towards both Syria and Iraq
seems to have been: Give the
“strongman” virtually anything
he wants. This policy was, in at least
one sense, even more reprehensible in the
case of Assad than that of Saddam: Coddling
the Syrian tyrant involved overlooking
Syrian complicity in the terrorist
murders of hundreds of American citizens. href=”#N_2_”>(2)

One of the first victims of this
benighted U.S. policy was the sovereignty
of Lebanon. As early as the spring of
1988, the State Department was openly
siding with the Syrian occupation forces
as they sought to compel the Christian
and Muslim Lebanese communities to accept
a replacement for Prime Minister Amin
Gemayel acceptable to Damascus. Not
coincidentally, these discussions took
place roughly at the same moment that
Syria was expressing its willingness to
aid in the release of American hostages
held in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Christian factions
resisted such initiatives as a blatant
infringement upon their nation’s
sovereignty. These sentiments did
not find favor in Washington. To
the contrary, even after Prime Minster
Gemayel appointed Gen. Aoun to head an
interim emergency government, the United
States actively supported Syria in its
efforts to establish a government
subordinated to Damascus’ control.
Washington went so far as to lend its
authority to Assad’s initiatives by
inviting principals from the various
Lebanese factions to attend meetings at
the U.S. embassy in Beirut — where they
were lobbied to accept his proposals.

When this campaign failed to bear
fruit, the Bush Administration decided to
support Syria’s idea of having the Arab
League broker a proposal with a view to
getting the League to induce the Lebanese
to accept Damascus’ terms. The result was
the meeting in Taif, Saudi Arabia. For
reasons that have now been fully
vindicated, Aoun’s forces refused to
attend the meeting unless Syrian troops
were first withdrawn. Despite the
fact that the legitimate government of
Lebanon was not party to the agreement,
the United States gave full backing
to Taif, and urged the Aoun
government to work with Syria — its
occupier and oppressor — to implement
“reforms.”

The ultimate betrayal of an
independent Lebanon, however, occurred
during the run-up to the war with Iraq.
At that time, the United States was
frantically beseeching Assad to
participate in the coalition — or at
least to refrain from opposing it. Like a
naive tourist being shaken down in the
bazaar, Washington foolishly offered
concession after unnecessary concession, all
to secure Syria’s assent to the
destruction of its worst enemy.

On 13 October 1990, Syria launched a
final offensive aimed at driving Aoun out
of power. Thirty thousand Syrian troops,
tanks, artillery and aircraft were thrown
into the assault. With tons of bombs
raining down on his headquarters and a
gross disparity in firepower and
resources, Aoun sought refuge in the
French embassy and exile in France.
Thereafter, Syria’s puppet government
assumed unchallenged power in Beirut.

Despite the documented slaughter of
hundreds of Christian troops — including
reports of the cold-blooded murder of
Christian soldiers after they
surrendered, the elimination or
disappearance of many others in and out
of uniform and the assassination of Dany
Chamoun and his wife, the Bush
Administration raised no protest against
the Syrian conquest of Lebanon.
Instead, with the sort of moral turpitude
that has come to characterize U.S.
reactions to genocide around the world,
Administration spokesmen blandly
expressed concern at “excessive
violence,” and did nothing.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy
strongly agrees with the views expressed
by one of the distinguished members of
its Board of Advisors, Ambassador Jeanne
Kirkpatrick, who wrote in her column in
the Washington Post on 29
October 1990:

“It seems almost incredible
that the United States should
have tacitly accepted Syria’s
final aggression….Instead an
anonymous official was reported
to have piously ‘hoped’ that the
Lebanese would finally be in a
position to get on with building
a united stable government. That
is like saying the Nazi conquest
of France paved the way for
strong executive leadership in
that country.“
(Emphasis added.)

The United States’ betrayal of Lebanon —
and the larger policy of appeasing Hafez
Assad of which it is a part — is an
odious blot on the good name and people
of the leader of the Free World. Like its
betrayal of democrats in China, its
coddling of Saddam Hussein, its propping
of Mikhail Gorbachev’s communist empire
and its outrageous indifference to
Slobodan Milosevic’s carnage in Bosnia
and Croatia, this policy must not
be permitted to stand.

The failure of Syria to redeploy its forces
in accordance with the Taif accord —
even after it has succeeded in assuring,
through a rigged election, continued
domination of Lebanon — must be
condemned in the strongest terms.
A nation that persists in enslaving and
exploiting its neighbors, among other
reprehensible activities, is an
unreliable partner in Middle East peace
and an unworthy beneficiary of U.S.
diplomatic and other support.

– 30 –

1. This
is the fifth in a series of Center for
Security Policy Decision Briefs
on the Bush Administration’s misbegotten
and potentially recklessly dangerous
policy toward Hafez Assad’s Syria.

2. See
the Center’s Decision Brief “‘Getting
Away With Murder’: Bush-Baker Enable
Assad To Go On Sponsoring International
Terrorism,” ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=92-D_102″>No. 92-D 102, 30
August 1992).

THE IRAQ SYNDROME: BUSH ADMINISTRATION IGNORES, FACILITATES SYRIAN ARMS BUILD-UP

(Washington, D.C.): Amidst
expectations that Syrian-Israeli
negotiations may soon produce a separate
peace in one of the Middle East’s most
deadly confrontations — expectations
heightened by official leaks and news
reports — a sharply discordant and
alarming note is being sounded: Damascus
appears simultaneously to be preparing
for a new and far more lethal war with
Israel.

The role of the Bush Administration in
ignoring — if not, in some respects,
actually facilitating — Syria’s
efforts to acquire vast quantities of
advanced conventional weaponry and
weapons of mass destruction technology is
eerily reminiscent of its admittedly
failed policy toward Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq prior to the invasion of Kuwait. The
Center for Security Policy believes that
a “sanity check” concerning
U.S. policy is in order concerning: the
extent and character of Syrian
arms-related activities; what those
activities suggest about the true
intentions of the Syrian despot, Hafez
Assad; and the possibility that the
consequences of a possible repetition
towards Syria of the Bush
Administration’s “Iraq
syndrome” could have even more
disastrous consequences this time around.

What is Syria Up To?

Many Middle East analysts have noted
Syria’s failure in recent years —
despite its seemingly unlimited access to
then-Soviet arms exports — to achieve
military parity with Israel. Recent
developments suggest that Assad has not
given up on the realization of that goal.
Indeed, in some respects, he may be
closer than ever to achieving functional
equivalence with the Jewish state, at
least with respect to weapons of mass
destruction. Consider the following:

  • Shortly before the Middle East
    peace talks resumed in Washington
    last month, the Syrian
    regime tested a Scud-C missile
    that it had purchased from North
    Korea shortly after the Gulf war.
    At least two shipments of Scud-Cs
    are known to have been received
    by Syria in early and late 1991.
    There have also been reports of a
    third delivery in late 1991. The
    Bush Administration initially
    signalled a determination to
    interfere with one of these North
    Korean shipments before it
    reached its Iranian transshipment
    point in October 1991. In the
    end, the Administration decided
    to pull its punch, permitting the
    missile-bearing freighter to
    elude U.S. naval patrols.

  • Missiles of this type can be
    fitted with chemical warheads and
    offer far greater accuracy and
    range (roughly 400 miles) than
    the older Scuds already in
    Syria’s arsenal. In Syrian hands,
    such Scud-Cs can pose a credible
    threat to the entirety of Israel
    — and much of Saudi Arabia.
    There is a certain irony to the
    latter nation’s new
    vulnerability: The $500 million
    Damascus paid Pyongyang for these
    missiles is believed to have come
    out of the approximately $2
    billion Assad received at
    Washington’s urging from the
    Saudis     as a reward for
    Syria’s decision to join the
    anti-Iraq coalition.

  • There are also indications that Syria
    intends to develop its own
    ballistic missile production
    capability    . Intelligence
    reports suggest that Damascus is
    importing, presumably from North
    Korea, manufacturing equipment
    associated with liquid-fueled
    missiles like the Scud-C. It may
    also be acquiring — possibly
    from China — similar equipment
    needed indigenously to produce
    solid-fueled missiles like the
    Chinese M-9. (The latter
    transaction, if confirmed, would
    be a serious breach of Beijing’s
    commitment not to sell such
    missiles or related technology
    overseas in accordance with the
    terms of the Missile Technology
    Control Regime.)

  • Syria is judged already to have
    established the capability to
    produce and fill chemical
    warheads that could be used on
    such missiles. Experts believe
    that Damascus may also have the
    capacity to manufacture and
    employ biological weapons. Assad
    is, as a result, in the process
    of becoming ever less reliant
    upon foreign sources for such
    weapons of mass destruction. In
    doing so, he is evidently taking
    a page out the playbook used by
    Iraq and other developing nations
    bent on establishing independence
    not only of supply but of action.

  • Syria also utilized much of its
    remaining stipend for
    “services rendered” in
    the Gulf campaign for a massive
    conventional weapons shopping
    spree. This has included: some
    600 T-72 tanks from
    Czechoslovakia; negotiations with
    India for both T-72s and MIG-29s;
    and new contracts with Russia
    worth hundreds of millions of
    dollars for T-72 and T-64 main
    battle tanks, MIG-29 fighters,
    early warning radars, command and
    control systems, and SAM-11, -13,
    and -16 surface-to-air missiles.

Syria Plans To “Go
Nuclear”

Still more alarming are the recent
indications that Syria appears to be
seriously committed to developing a
nuclear weapons program. In November
1991, Syria signed an agreement with
China to purchase a 30-kilowatt nuclear
reactor, ostensibly for research
purposes. The International Atomic Energy
Agency initially opposed the deal out of
concern over its proliferation
implications. The IAEA relented, however,
on 25 February 1992 when Syria signed a
full-scope safeguard agreement, allowing
international monitors inspection rights
at all Syria’s nuclear sites. Three days
later, Beijing filed a statement with the
IAEA formally notifying it of China’s
intention to deliver a small neutron
source reactor and a small quantity of
enriched uranium to Syria.

To date, the IAEA has not been
provided a list of Syrian nuclear sites,
raising several issues: If the Chinese
delivery has already been accomplished,
Syria is required to provide the site
information to the IAEA immediately,
giving inspectors the right to visit it
at once. The failure by Syria to provide
such site information — if it has
received the reactor — would constitute
a serious violation of the IAEA
safeguards agreement.

The Bush Administration has evinced
little of the concern one would expect at
the prospect of yet another
Middle Eastern dictatorship seeking so
dangerous a technology. Even though its
own Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
stated in a September 1991 report that
Syria is developing a “nuclear
program with suspicious intentions”
and even though Syria has no need for a
nuclear power program, the Administration
seems approximately as unconcerned as it
previously was when Saddam Hussein was
amassing the wherewithal to develop
atomic and thermonuclear weapons.

In fact, an unnamed U.S. official a
few months ago pooh-poohed the
Syrian-Chinese program, telling the California
B’nai B’rith Messenger in January
1992, “It’s not a weapons type
technology; it’s not something that
raises concerns.” This statement
ignores a reality well understood by
nuclear proliferation experts: a common
first step in building a nuclear weapons
program is to develop expertise through
acquisition and operation of
“research” reactors.

Official U.S. insouciance about the
Syrian nuclear program also ignores two
other worrisome bits of evidence: First,
a joint Syrian-Iranian working committee
on nuclear weapons development and
strategy was reportedly established in
January 1992. Second, according to the 17
August 1992 edition of the respected
Paris-based Middle East Defense News
(MedNews) Syria’s advanced
weaponry research agency (Centre
d’Etudes des Recherches Scientifiques)
purchased numerous German “hot
isostatic presses and high temperature
ovens which are of use in producing solid
rocket fuel and in manipulating nuclear
weapons material.”

The Bush Administration —
Part of the Problem?

In addition to helping Assad secure
funds with which to carry out his
arms-buying binge and
looking-the-other-way on its alarming
nuclear and other weapons of mass
destruction aspects, the Bush
Administration has taken more direct
steps in support of the Syrian build-up.
For example, in February 1992, over
opposition from subcommittee chairmen and
other ranking members of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, the
Administration loosened the restrictions
on two categories of “dual-use”
technology exports to the Syrians.

Historically, these technologies —
which can be utilized for either
commercial or military purposes — have
been very tightly controlled when
countries on the terrorism list or others
deemed to have hostile intentions towards
U.S. allies are involved, lest they be
used in acts of violence or aggression
against American citizens, friends or
interests. In particular, there has
heretofore always been a presumption
of denial when it came to Syria; it
was, after all, correctly assumed that no
matter what the stated application for
the controlled technology was supposed to
be, the ultimate end-user for such
dual-use items would inevitably be the
Syrian military. The Bush Administration,
however, chose to abandon this assumption
in favor of conducting a
“case-by-case” review of
applications in two categories of
dual-use technology.

The Administration has made no secret
of the fact that this ominous policy
shift — like so many other dubious
initiatives involving Syrian arms, drug
and terrorist activities href=”#N_1_”>(1)
— was a reward paid to Syria for its
“cooperation” in the Gulf war,
for its “help” in freeing
American hostages held in Lebanon, and
for its “constructive role” in
the Middle East peace process. This is
evident, for instance, in a letter to
Rep. Dante Fascell (D-FL), chairman of
the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent
in response to legislation that would
have limited the Administration’s
discretion in approving dual-use exports
to countries like Syria. On 3 February
1992, then-Acting Secretary of Commerce
Rockwell Schnabel opposed placing
limitations on exports to Syria and Iran
contending that:

“…In light of [Bush]
Administration efforts to promote
a Middle East peace process as
well as an end to the hostage
crisis…now is not the time to
introduce unnecessary export
restrictions against states that
are central to these
efforts.”

More Commerce Department
Shenanigans?

In the face
of continuing congressional criticism
over such a dangerous loosening of
restrictions governing the transfer of
technology to Syria, Administration
officials have simply dissembled. For
instance, Commerce Deputy Assistant
Secretary James LeMunyon did so in
responding to accusations that he and his
colleagues were simply repeating with
respect to Syria the mistakes they
earlier made toward Iraq. In testimony
before the House Foreign Affairs
Committee in July 1992, LeMunyon stated
that “most” applications to
both Syria and Iran were still routinely
refused.

In fact, the Commerce Department’s own
data with respect to Syrian licenses
suggests that this statement is, at best,
misleading. At worst, it
represents the same sort of willful
misrepresentation to Congress perpetrated
previously by LeMunyon’s organization
regarding licensing of dual-use
technology to Iraq. During the
present fiscal year to date, out of a
total of 74 applications for licenses of
dual-use technology to Syria, many
more have been approved (thirteen) than
have been rejected (three).
Importantly, the preponderance
(fifty-eight) are still pending. Since 1
October 1985, moreover, some 511 export
license applications for Syria valued at
some $198 million were received by the
Commerce Department; of these 259 have
been approved. Only 10 percent of them
were rejected and the balance are still
pending.

Given present Administration policy,
it seems reasonable to expect that most
of those will also be approved.
Incredible as it may seem, among the
pending license applications are:
“equipment for production of
chemical weapons precursors,”
“items on the International
Munitions list” and
“commodities on the International
Atomic Energy list.” Even more
sobering is the reality that — thanks to
the Bush Administration’s benighted
efforts to decontrol many sensitive
dual-use technologies — no licenses are
required for their export to Syria.
Consequently, it is most problematic to
establish precisely what strategic items
are now in the hands of the Syrian
military.

Has the U.S. Government
Once More Approved Nuclear
Weapons-related Exports?

It is also noteworthy that a large
percentage of those licenses that have
been approved involve sales to Syria
of equipment to be used for oil-field
exploration and logging operations. While
the shipment of these highly advanced
technologies has been critical to
developing Syria’s oil production
potential, the technology at issue is
considered also to have potential utility
for Syria’s incipient nuclear weapons
program.

According to a Simon Wiesenthal Center
Special Report published with MedNews
this year entitled, Weapons of Mass
Destruction: The Cases of Iran, Syria,
and Libya:

“The equipment used to
detect underground oil deposits
and carry out seismic analysis
has direct application to nuclear
weapons research and development.
Indeed, the Syrian engineers who
handle such research for the
major oil-welling and logging
companies are almost exclusively
nuclear physicists. High power
neutron generators, with a
similar design to those used to
trigger a nuclear explosion, are
used in oil exploration….”

Needless to say, the U.S. decision to
change Syria’s access to dual-use
technology has a multiplied
effect insofar as it sends a
signal to other Western nations that
Damascus enjoys Washington’s equivalent
of the “Good Housekeeping Seal of
Approval.” Unfortunately, even in
the absence of such encouragement,
several of these nations — notably
Germany and France — have been all too
willing to do business with Middle
Eastern terrorist nations. The American
signal can only serve to expand and
accelerate such recklessly shortsighted
transactions.

The Bottom
Line

Far from its avowed purpose of
preventing an arms race in the Middle
East, the Bush Administration seems to be
encouraging — and in some ways abetting
— a qualitative and quantitative
military build-up in the region. The fact
that the principal beneficiary of that
build-up is Syria, a nation that sponsors
international terrorism and remains
firmly in the grip of a dictatorial
regime known for its regional ambitions
and immutable commitment to the
destruction of the state of Israel, is
all the more frightening.

Real or imagined progress in
the peace process is unlikely to alter
the likelihood that Hafez Assad’s Syria
will soon become a far greater threat to
U.S. allies and interests in the Middle
East than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq ever was.
This grim prospect adds further urgency
to the Center for Security Policy’s call
for immediate and full congressional
hearings into the Bush Administration’s
misguided and increasingly risky Syrian
appeasement policy.

– 30 –

1. See,
for example, the Center’s recent Decision
Briefs entitled “The
Syrian Connection: Bush’s Determination
To Befriend Assad Ignores Damascus’ Huge
Role As U.S. Enemy in Drug War ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=92-D97″>No. 92-D 97, 19
August 1992); and “‘Getting
Away With Murder’: Bush-Baker Enable
Assad To Go On Sponsoring International
Terrorism,” ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=92-D_102>No. 92-D 102, 30
August 1992).

GETTING SADDAM: THE MOST IMPORTANT FOREIGN POLICY INITIATIVE IN THE ‘STATE OF THE UNION’ ADDRESS?

(Washington, D.C.): In the transparent
White House effort to manipulate and
inflate public expectations about
President Bush’s State of the Union
address Tuesday night, there has been
scarcely any mention made of a foreign
policy agenda. Presumably, this is merely
a matter of political handling and spin
control. It appears to be an entirely
predictable response by an Administration
consumed with its standing in the polls
— polls that show, at the moment, a
public angry with what it perceives as
the President’s preoccupation with
foreign affairs and his neglect of
domestic issues.

In fact, of course, this speech will
have to deal at some length with the
State of the World, and Mr.
Bush’s view of the U.S. role in it. At a
minimum, this is so because he must
explain how it is that he can safely
undertake the radical reductions his
Administration now proposes (according to
officially sanctioned, so-called
“structured leaks” to the
press) to make in defense spending,
nuclear forces and military-industrial
production. Such an explanation will
require more than a footnote about
dramatic events in the former Soviet
Union — events which offer considerable
hope of a dramatically reduced threat
from that quarter but which, ironically,
he did everything imaginable to impede
through his open-ended support for
Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Saddam Question

Both the national interest and Mr.
Bush’s personal political fortunes will
oblige him to speak as well to the great
unfinished foreign policy business of the
last year — the incomplete victory over
Saddam Hussein. The Nation needs to know
just what are the security implications
of the President’s decision to stop the
war short of removing the Butcher of
Baghdad and his ruling clique from power.
And the campaign to date has made clear
that what was supposed to be the
President’s ticket to a virtual free ride
to a second term has disappeared in the
face of Saddam’s continued, malevolent
rule in Iraq.

There is considerable evidence that
the Bush Administration is currently
seized with the problem posed by Saddam
Hussein — the man it frequently, and
correctly, characterized as a
Hitleresque figure — remaining in
tyrannical control in Baghdad. For
example, there have been renewed calls
from presidential press spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater for a popular uprising against
Saddam. In the absence of any evidence of
a greater American willingness to render
critical logistical and military support
to so risky a business in a police state
like Saddam Hussein’s, however, these
statements merely serve as an appalling
reminder of Mr. Bush’s earlier
encouragement to, and then abandonment
of, the Kurds and Shiites at war’s end.

Accordingly, there have also been a
number of apparently “structured
leaks” from the Bush Administration
suggesting that the United States is
undertaking to organize, facilitate or
otherwise support a coup against the
ruling Iraqi regime. New York Times
Columnist William Safire recently hinted
that the White House is working on an
“April surprise,” aimed at
removing Saddam from power far enough in
advance of the November election to
obtain positive political benefits
without laying the President open to
charges of doing it for purely
political reasons.

Administration sources also revealed
to the Times on 19 January 1992
that they were responding favorably to
pressure from Saudi Arabia for “a
large covert action campaign in Iraq
aimed at dividing [its] army and toppling
Saddam Hussein.” The paper reported
that the Deputies Committee, the senior
subcabinet interagency decision-making
body, has been working actively
“since mid-December to consider and
refine military and covert action options
for Iraq.” National Security Advisor
Brent Scowcroft is said to have
“argued that the use of American air
power to support rebel Iraqi military
units could have the decisive effect of
breaking the back of Mr. Hussein’s core
security force in Baghdad.”

It’s About Time

If such reports are true, they would
be most welcome. Indeed, the Center for
Security Policy has, from the moment of
the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, insisted
that the removal of Saddam Hussein from
power was absolutely essential. The
following are illustrative examples of
the Center’s reasoning:

  • 2 August 1990:
    “The Center believes that
    the West has now been put on
    notice: Returning to the
    status quo ante is not enough;
    the vital Persian Gulf region and
    indeed the larger international
    peace will not be safe as long as
    Saddam Hussein remains in power.
    Accordingly, U.S. policy — and
    that of all civilized nations —
    should be aimed at securing the
    downfall of the present Iraqi
    regime using the full array of
    diplomatic, economic and, if
    necessary, military measures at
    the West’s disposal.” (Signal
    Allied Willingness to Release Oil
    Stocks Now!: Buy Time to Forge
    Punitive Response Against Iraq    ,
    No.
    90-P 72    )

  • 1 December 1990:
    “The Center for Security
    Policy believes that a negotiated
    settlement that left Saddam
    Hussein in power, in absolute
    control of his country and with
    an immense arsenal — including
    weapons of mass destruction — at
    his disposal would be a disaster
    for U.S. vital interests in the
    region     and for friends
    and allies there.

    • “While the possibility
    cannot be precluded that such a
    settlement might even result in a
    temporary Iraqi retreat from
    Kuwait, not even a restoration of
    the status quo ante will ‘solve’
    the present problem. Instead, it
    will simply postpone the day when
    American forces will have to be
    committed to resist Saddam
    Hussein’s aggression — and, as a
    result, increase the costs of
    doing so.” (‘Fatal
    Attraction’: U.S. Interests in
    Gulf, Beyond Jeopardized by Bush
    Personal Diplomacy Obsession,
    No.
    90-P 113    )

  • 27 February 1991:
    “The reality is that brute
    force has kept Saddam Hussein and
    his ruling clique in power for
    over almost two decades. Even if
    humiliated, even if clearly
    disgraced, what will likely
    determine Saddam’s future ability
    to threaten Western allies and
    interests in the region will be
    his ability to continue to
    exercise brute force.

    • “The Center believes that —
    as positive as the wholesale
    destruction of Iraq’s offensive
    military potential is — if
    Saddam’s police state apparatus
    is not similarly destroyed, the
    Iraqi people will be denied an
    opportunity for self-governance
    too long denied them    .
    For Iraq, this would be a
    tragically lost opportunity; for
    the other nations of the region,
    it would probably represent a
    precursor to a future
    conflict.” (On To
    Baghdad!: Liberate Iraq    , href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=91-P16″>No.
    91-P 16)

  • 25 March 1991:
    “The Center believes that
    perpetuating the present
    situation runs a far
    greater danger for long-term U.S.
    interests    , however: If
    the United States continues by
    its actions to appear largely
    indifferent to Saddam Hussein’s
    persistent reign of terror — yet
    partly responsible for stymieing
    Iraq’s physical rehabilitation,
    the political and strategic
    benefits that should accrue from
    the American role in liberating
    Kuwait could be seriously
    jeopardized.

    • “Accordingly, the Center
    urges the Bush Administration to
    issue an ultimatum to Saddam
    Hussein and his ruling clique: Surrender
    power within forty-eight hours or
    face the prospect of being
    removed by coalition forces.
    Either way, an interim
    government, ideally representing
    all Iraqi factions, must be
    swiftly installed. Its principal
    tasks should be to organize and
    conduct within six months under
    UN auspices free and fair
    elections to determine a
    successor regime and to begin the
    process of rehabilitating that
    devastated nation. (On To
    Baghdad!: Liberate Iraq (Take
    Two)    , href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=91-P23″>No.
    91-P 23)

  • 12 June 1991:
    “It is past time that the
    West recognized the facts of
    life: Only by removing Saddam
    Hussein and his ruling clique
    from power can there be any hope
    for lasting peace either within
    Iraq itself or between Iraq and
    its neighbors….Wishful
    thinking must give way to concrete
    steps     to accomplish this;
    indirect measures like sanctions
    must be augmented by direct
    action    .

    • “…Under present
    circumstances, the imperative of
    halting the depredations of a
    murderous outlaw like Saddam
    Hussein argues for taking a page
    from the history of American
    frontier justice: A
    bounty should be placed on Saddam
    Hussein     — a sizeable
    cash reward for anyone who can
    end the reign of terror he and
    his ruling clique are evidently
    determined to perpetuate
    indefinitely. In addition, all
    appropriate resources of the
    United States government should
    be devoted to removing him from
    power.” (Wanted: Saddam
    Hussein, Dead or Alive    , href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=91-P49″>No.
    91-P 49)

Time Is Not on Bush’s Side

Whatever the state of the Bush
Administration’s internal deliberations,
its public stance remains
defensive about the decision not to
prosecute the war to the point where
Saddam was toppled. Its spokesmen
continue to describe narrowly the purpose
of the conflict — and the U.N. mandate
and congressional resolutions authorizing
it.

Events on the ground, however, are
bearing out the Center’s warnings. They
are making increasingly untenable the
posture President Bush has maintained
since the cease-fire was announced — one
of wishing Saddam would go away but
declining to enunciate a policy designed
to bring that about, let alone
implementing such a policy. Consider just
a few of these developments:

  • The war with Iraq did
    not, as President Bush once said,
    “put Saddam out of the
    nuclear-bomb-building business
    for a long time to come.”
    To the contrary, numerous IAEA
    inspections have revealed a far
    more comprehensive, ambitious and
    far-advanced program than the
    United States believed was in
    place in Iraq at the time of
    hostilities. As a result, some
    facilities sheltering scientists
    and equipment involved in
    developing Iraq’s nuclear,
    chemical and biological weapons
    capabilities and ballistic
    missile-related activities were
    unscathed by coalition attacks.
    To the extent that the U.N. has
    not yet uncovered all aspects of
    this hydra-headed undertaking,
    there may even be some that are still
    in business    .

  • International sanctions
    are not preventing Saddam from
    pursuing his weapons of mass
    destruction programs.
    The London Sunday Times
    of 5 January 1992 reported that
    Western intelligence now believes
    that the Iraqis and the Algerians
    may have formed a nuclear axis to
    build a nuclear weapon — the
    “Islamic bomb.” Algeria
    is thought to have enough
    plutonium to build a weapon by
    1995; its Chinese-supplied
    reactor is scheduled to begin
    production next year.

    • According to Whitehall sources
    quoted by the Times,
    Hussein has sent a team of
    scientists to Algeria that could
    enable the two countries to
    “produce two Nagasaki size
    bombs a year every three
    years.” In addition, Iraqi
    communications describing how ten
    tons of natural uranium were sent
    by truck through Jordan and then
    by ship to Algeria were
    reportedly intercepted by Western
    intelligence.

  • If sanctions are relaxed
    or removed, Saddam will shortly
    reacquire weapons of mass
    destruction capabilities.
    Director of Central Intelligence
    Robert Gates recently testified
    that, because Iraq had hidden
    critical equipment for making biological
    weapons    , it could begin new
    production “in a matter of
    weeks” once sanctions were
    lifted. Iraq could produce
    “modest quantities of chemical
    agents    ” almost
    immediately and “could
    recover its pre-war capability in
    a year or more.”

    • Gates summarized by saying:
    “In our opinion Iraq will
    remain a primary proliferation
    threat at least as long as Saddam
    Hussein remains in power.”
    He added that “the cadre of
    scientists and engineers trained
    for these programs will be able
    to reconstitute any dormant
    program rapidly….”

  • The prospects are not
    good for retaining international
    sanctions much longer.
    Thanks to Saddam’s continuing
    absolute and tyrannical control,
    the devastating effect of the
    present international sanctions
    has fallen disproportionately on
    innocent Iraqi citizens.
    Documentary evidence is mounting
    daily that he has diverted such
    resources and commodities as are
    available for the purpose of
    cushioning the impact on his base
    of support — the army, the
    ruling Takriti clique and the
    Ba’ath party. Even so, elements
    within these groups are said to
    be experiencing some hardship and
    may be becoming restive. But the
    effect they feel is nothing like
    that being felt by the Kurdish
    and Shiite populations (most
    especially their women, children
    and elderly) and other vulnerable
    groups. It seems unlikely that
    Western nations will be able to
    stomach for much longer a
    sanctions regime with these
    results.

Conclusion and
Recommendation

Under these and foreseeable
circumstances, it is incumbent upon
President Bush to enunciate a clear and
resolute policy toward ending Saddam
Hussein’s reign of terror. It is
commendable if, as has been reported,
notwithstanding the Administration’s
public stance, he is pressing forward
with a covert operation to accomplish
this goal.

Were Mr. Bush to persist in denying
publicly that bringing about Saddam’s
downfall has become his express
purpose, however, he would abdicate
the leadership role that is required if
such a policy is to enjoy the support of
the American people and their elected
representatives. What is more, further
duplicity — if that is what it is — on
this point will not provide
“plausible deniability” in the
event a U.S.-backed initiative against
Saddam Hussein fails. To the contrary, in
such an event, it is likely that the
costs of failure for Mr. Bush and his
Administration would simply be that
much higher should it be established
that he was telling the public one thing
while doing the opposite.

For these reasons, the Center for
Security Policy strongly encourages
President Bush to use the “bully
pulpit” of his State of the Union
address to explain his true
intentions with respect to Saddam Hussein
and to build the base of popular support
that can, and must, be energized on
behalf of doing the right thing.

Speeches by Douglas J. Feith and Frank J. Gaffney

16 October 1991

Excerpts from Speeches by

DOUGLAS J. FEITH

Member of the Center for Security Policy’s

Board of Advisors

and

FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR.

Director of the Center for Security Policy

before

the National Leadership Conference

of the State of Israel Bonds Organization

Washington, D.C.

14 October 1991

Feith — The Historical Perspective on "Land for Peace":

I do not subscribe to the Administration’s diagnosis or its proposal for treatment [of the Arab-Israeli conflict]. I don’t believe the Administration will succeed in ameliorating, let alone resolving, [this] conflict because it does not appear to grasp the reasons why the parties are fighting.

* * *

It was thought that the vast territories newly made available for the fulfillment of Arab ambitions for independence would make it easier to win acceptance within the region of a Jewish State in Palestine. As Lord Balfour put it in a speech in 1920 [quote]:

 

"I hope that … [the Arabs] will not grudge that small notch, for it is not more geographically, whatever it may be historically — that small notch in what are now Arab territories being given to the [Jewish] people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated from it."

 

But the Arabs did grudge "that small notch."

* * *

The Arab opponents of Zionism agreed that history is the basis of a people’s rights to a land. But they said that history gave the Jewish people no right whatever to create a homeland or state in Palestine. The Arabs asserted that Palestine is Arab land. And it is interesting to note that they rejected emphatically the idea that the Arabs of Palestine are a separate nation, insisting instead on the unity of the Arab nation and the necessity to abolish the "unnatural divisions" between Palestine and the neighboring Arab lands. For example, the General Syrian Congress passed a resolution in July 1919 stating [quote]:

 

"We reject the claims of the Zionists for the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in that part of southern Syria which is known as Palestine, and we are opposed to Jewish immigration into any part of the country. We do not acknowledge that they have a title …

 

 

"We desire that there should be no dismemberment of Syria, and no separation of Palestine … from the mother country; and we ask that the unity of the country be maintained under any circumstances."

* * *

There has, unfortunately, been no substantial change in the essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1921. The Jews believe they have a right to a state in a part of their ancient homeland and their Arab opponents believe the Jews have no such right. The conflict has never evolved beyond the issue of legitimacy — the legitimacy of Zionist claims to a Jewish National Home in the Land of Israel. Even today, though the rhetoric of some of Israel’s enemies has grown subtler, Arab opposition to Israel remains rooted in the conviction that Palestine is Arab land and a Jewish State has no right to exist there.

* * *

It is uncomfortable for Western politicians — makers of deals, practitioners of compromise, artists of the possible — to acknowledge that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a war of principles. They much prefer to believe that, when Arab leaders refuse to deal with Israel, they are merely posturing to get a better bargain — a concession, an extra slice of land. If Western statesmen openly recognized the problem as a clash of principles, they would not be able to market hope through the launching of peace initiatives. They would not be able to promise their publics that a little pressure here and a little cajoling there can make the problem go away. This helps account for why many statesmen prefer to focus on the secondary aspects of the conflict — matters like the settlements or specific parcels of land.

There is a long history of Western leaders focussing on secondary issues and willfully shutting their minds to the fundamental conflict over Palestine.

* * *

We are living in an age of gigantic, historic errors. Within the last few months we have seen the dictator of Iraq err his way into the devastation of the military machine that successive Iraqi regimes over decades spent scores of billions of dollars to construct. We have seen the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union bring about the unintended destruction of Soviet control over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Communist Party and the integrity of the Soviet Union itself. We have seen the President of the United States terminate the Gulf War with excessive haste on the erroneous assumption that Saddam could not survive to do much additional harm. And now we are watching the Bush Administration prescribe "land for peace" as the tonic that will cure what ails the Middle East. This latter error is, in my opinion, dangerous for the United States, but more so for Israel. Israel’s existence, after all, is within America’s margin for error.

Gaffney — The Security Perspective on "Land for Peace":

I need not tell this audience that the Middle East is not a region friendly to traditional Western values (such as free speech, freedom of religion or democratic pluralism). This fact makes Israel a pariah state in her part of the world quite apart from the antipathy felt to the religion at its core, Judaism.

* * *

Since 1967, Israel has relied upon a combination of qualitatively superior armed forces and strategic depth. Those familiar with Israel’s military history have long appreciated the importance of technological superiority. The value of such an approach in saving the lives of ones own forces and minimizing the unintended and undesirable — or "collateral" — damage to enemy civilian populations in the contemporary Middle Eastern battlefield was most recently and powerfully underscored by the U.S. performance in the Gulf war.

Unfortunately, U.S. and allied arms sales in recent years have begun to affect deleteriously the certainty with which Israel can maintain technological superiority over its far more populous potential Arab foes. This development would suggest that the other pillar of Israeli security — strategic depth — would be of greater importance than ever before.

Remarkably enough, it has been argued by senior U.S. government officials, among others, that the Gulf war actually demonstrated once and for all the irrelevance of strategic depth in the age of ballistic missiles. Such officials contend that Israel, of all nations, should understand this reality in light of its having suffered the terror of no fewer than forty Scud missile attacks.

* * *

…It is not self-evident that strategic depth is passe as a concept — either elsewhere in the world or in Israel. For example, the difference between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the recent war with Iraq was not that one was invulnerable to ballistic missile attack and the other was not. While it is true that Saudi Arabia did lose some 100 casualties to Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles, the fact is that the Saudis lost no territory. Neither did they experience Iraqi pillaging or raping on their soil. To the contrary, on balance, Saudi Arabia prospered from the war in absolute terms and certainly relative to their brothers in Kuwait. I would submit that the difference was one of strategic depth.

As a practical matter, Saddam Hussein had to move his massed armored forces through Kuwait to get at Saudi Arabia in any meaningful way. Without the warning — and the time to mobilize and obtain U.S. help — that strategic depth afforded (a fact compounded by Saddam’s miscalculation and/or his inept generalship), the recent history of Saudi Arabia would likely have been quite different.

* * *

…Given Israel’s unique situation — notably, its susceptibility to being split in two by a concerted, violent attack at its narrow center — strategic depth actually means more to it than it might to other nations.

* * *

Under present and foreseeable circumstances, it seems implausible that Israel can expect to have peace in the absence of secure borders. Given the aforementioned fundamental and unremitting hostility of the Arab nations to the Western traditions, values and institutions with which Israel is closely associated — hostility only exacerbated by their hatred of Judaism and Zionism — a lack of strategic depth seems certain to prove an irresistible temptation to aggression against Israel.

* * *

The Arab nations have plenty of land — including the 78% of the former Palestinian Mandate they acquired decades ago. Consequently, if they genuinely seek peace, they will not be opposed to Israel having secure borders. Alternatively, if the Arab nations remain opposed to Israel enjoying such borders, it is the surest sign of all that they remain uninterested in a genuine and lasting peace with the Jewish state.

Who’s Minding the Store?: Iraq War’s Top Performing Defense System an Endangered Species

Introduction

Of all the dazzling high technology
systems deployed with U.S. forces in the
war with Iraq, arguably none has
performed with greater effectiveness than
the Airborne Warning and Control System
(AWACS) aircraft.

The significance of such a statement
is all the more dramatic when one
considers a little appreciated fact: Many
of the higher profile systems — for
example, the Patriot anti-ballistic
missile interceptor (deservedly praised
by President Bush this afternoon in
Massachusetts), owe their success to a
considerable degree to the
behind-the-scenes role played by
America’s premier early warning/command
and control system, the E-3A AWACS. The
following are illustrative examples of
systems or operations benefitting immeasurably
from the AWACS’ continuous, real-time
monitoring of the theater’s air-space and
management of virtually all allied
traffic in it:

  • It is difficult to name an aspect
    of the enormously complex
    coalition air offensive
    in which the AWACS has not played
    a central role. Identification
    and tracking of both friendly and
    hostile aircraft and
    “deconfliction” — the
    crucial function of ensuring that
    an attack is efficiently and
    safely orchestrated — are key
    tasks of this system’s airborne
    controllers. In addition, the
    timing, sequencing and location
    of aerial refuelings, upon which
    almost every other air operation
    depends, are routinely managed by
    AWACS.

  • It is worth noting that the use
    of two of the “stars”
    of this offensive — the F-117A
    Stealth fighter     and the Tomahawk
    cruise missiles    , with
    their capabilities for delivering
    ordinance with pinpoint accuracy
    against even the most
    concentrated air defenses — have
    been successfully employed in
    part thanks to AWACS’
    contribution to airspace
    management and deconfliction.

  • The extremely difficult, but
    nonetheless politically
    important, task of neutralizing
    Saddam Hussein’s ballistic
    missile force — the so-called
    “Scud-buster” campaign
    — illustrates the AWACS’
    flexibility as a combat platform.
    E-3A crews have proven adept at
    detecting Scud launches and
    vectoring attack aircraft swiftly
    to destroy the
    transporter-erector-launchers. By
    so doing, they have made possible
    a number of the confirmed kills
    against such mobile assets and
    have appreciably limited the
    damage that might otherwise have
    been inflicted.

  • As noted above, AWACS have also
    assisted the Patriot air defense
    system’s largely successful
    effort to intercept such missiles
    before they arrive in Tel Aviv
    and Riyadh by providing early
    warning and ballistic trajectory
    information needed to effect
    successful intercepts.

  • Air superiority
    operations     throughout
    the war have been immeasurably
    enhanced by AWACS’ continuous,
    virtually complete and
    all-weather coverage of enemy
    aircraft movements. Every U.S.
    and allied air-to-air kill (e.g.,
    Saudi Arabia’s two-MiG “Top
    Gun”) received vital
    tactical information from
    airborne controllers aboard E-3s
    from take-off to landing.

  • AWACS aircraft have also been
    instrumental in monitoring and,
    where possible, achieving
    interception of Iraqi
    planes fleeing to Iran    .
    U.S. information about the
    number, type and capabilities of
    these newly relocated elements of
    the best of Iraqi’s air force has
    to a considerable degree been
    derived from AWACS data.

  • Search and rescue
    operations    , notably the
    widely reported rescue of a
    downed Navy pilot — which took
    eight hours, multiple aircraft
    and no fewer than four in-flight
    refuelings to effect, have been
    greatly facilitated by AWACS.

In short, the E-3A — based upon an
updated military version of the Boeing
commercial 707 airframe — has been fully
put to the test in the present conflict,
and passed with highest honors. In the
absence of such assets, or in the event
their numbers were reduced through
accidental attrition or enemy action, the
course of the war could be significantly
affected.

JSTARS

Interestingly, another weapon system
based upon the 707 airframe has also
begun to prove its worth in the Gulf war.
The Air Force-Army Joint Surveillance
Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS),
technically still in operational
development, has been deployed to the
theater to assist with the anti-Scud
campaign.

Equipped with sophisticated sensor
suites, the JSTARS has already impressed
battlefield commanders — including
General Schwartzkopf — with its capacity
to provide real-time, data-linked
targeting information to various weapon
systems. This feature has immeasurably
improved the effort to suppress, locate
and destroy mobile targets like the Iraqi
ballistic missile force. It should also
prove of considerable value when and if a
ground campaign gets underway.

Microcosm of Larger Problem
with U.S. Defense Industrial Base

Given the extraordinary performance of
these 707-based systems, it may seem
incredible that the United States
will — in the absence of
urgent, concerted action by the executive
branch, Congress and/or allied nations
— imminently lose the capacity
to manufacture either AWACS or JSTARS
aircraft. Published reports,
including Aviation Week of 28
January 1991, indicate that the Boeing
Company can no longer preserve the 707
production line past 31 March
1991 in the absence of firm
orders for some combination of at least
14 additional AWACS, KE-3 aerial
refueling tankers and/or JSTARS systems
which all employ the 707 airframe.

For Boeing, this is a straight-forward
business decision. The company has, to
its credit, maintained the militarized
707 production line for several years
beyond the point justified strictly by
market considerations. According to Aviation
Week, Boeing invested $10 million in
1990 alone to preserve an E-3A production
capability. No profit-oriented enterprise
can reasonably be expected to expend
private resources indefinitely to
maintain a national asset not properly
valued by the United States and foreign
governments.

Tragically, the U.S.
government is, at the moment, seriously
undervaluing the importance of its
defense industrial base pretty much
across the board. That it
should be doing so at this juncture is
all the more ironic insofar as the
federal government is simultaneously,
desperately seeking to obtain surge
production from manufacturers of
various types of ordinance and military
systems to meet the expected requirements
of the war with Iraq. Even so, its FY1992
budget continues the trend established in
recent years eliminating vital production
capabilities. For example, every
tactical aircraft production line except
the F/A-18 will be terminated by 1995
— long before new lines are established
for follow-on systems.

Put simply, there is a serious
disconnect between the requirements for
military capabilities being validated by
the war with Iraq and the capacity to
meet those requirements supported by the
defense budget (and/or by sales
of U.S.-manufactured military equipment
to American allies). The incipient
loss of the E-3 AWACS production line is
but a particularly worrisome
manifestation of this larger, dangerous
trend.

Having said that, the implications for
U.S. security of losing the capacity to
produce 707-derived aircraft are grave
and symptomatic of those associated with
such a trend: The nation’s capacity to
sustain — to say nothing of replace —
the already over-taxed inventory of AWACS
and 707-based tankers will degrade
sharply. Naturally, there will be no
surge capacity to add to that inventory,
neither will there be a readily available
option for development of a new, longer
range early warning capability within the
next decade.

Moreover, if this production line goes
down, the opportunity to purchase the
new, highly capable JSTARS system could
go by the boards. Finally, glaring
shortfalls in key allied capabilities
will go uncorrected, increasing further
the burden placed on existing American
airborne early warning assets. In this
connection, some American AWACS
have been stripped away from missions
around the world — from the U.S. drug
interdiction program to patrols out of
Okinawa — to meet the enormous
requirements of the Gulf conflict.

Ironically, a termination of the U.S.
capacity to produce AWACS and KE-3
tankers would come as world demand for
such aircraft is likely to grow
substantially. In addition to the United
States, the United Kingdom, France, Saudi
Arabia and NATO all have AWACS in their
inventories which will need at some point
to be enhanced or replaced. In addition,
several other nations would like to
procure E-3As in the near future.

Will the Allies Step into
the Breach?

Until recently, it seemed reasonable
to expect that meeting such allied
airborne warning and command and control
needs would permit preservation of so
vital a national asset as the 707
production line. Specifically, Saudi
Arabia and Japan have formally requested
permission to purchase sufficient
quantities of AWACS and KE-3
tanker/utility aircraft to keep the line
open.

For its part, the Government of Saudi
Arabia has asked that no fewer than eleven
707 airframes (four AWACS and seven
tankers) be included as part of Phase II
of the Saudi arms package. In January
1991, however, the Bush Administration
elected to defer submission of this phase
of the Saudi arms sale pending resolution
of the conflict with Iraq.

While it is very likely — all other
things being equal — that the Saudis
will chose to proceed with this purchase
in order to eliminate serious shortfalls
in the kingdom’s air self-defense
capabilities, they will only be able
to do so if the production line remains
open. It would be a bitter irony,
indeed, if an order that might otherwise
go a long way toward sustaining the AWACS
production line were to come just a few
months after the option for such
a sale is foreclosed.

The only other hope for the survival
of this national asset — in the absence
of a justifiable, but unanticipated, U.S.
purchase of substantial numbers of JSTARS
or AWACS — would arise if the Government
of Japan at the eleventh hour agrees to
fulfill its decade-old commitment to
defend its airspace and sea-lanes out to
1000 nautical miles. Defense experts on
both sides of the Pacific believe that
the minimum quantities of aircraft
required to provide the comprehensive
surveillance and tracking coverage
required by such a commitment would be between
nine and twelve AWACS and in excess of
twenty tankers.

Regrettably, the Japanese have
committed to purchase only four AWACS and
no aerial refueling tankers in the next
five-year Medium-Term Defense Plan. In an
11 February 1991 article in the New
York Times entitled “Japan
Pressed to Buy More U.S. AWACS
Jets,” a spokesman for Japan’s
embassy in Washington was quoted as
saying: “We can’t increase our
defense capabilities at once to
cover everything. I don’t think we have
enough money to buy more [AWACS and
tankers].” (Emphasis added.)

This extraordinary statement perfectly
captures Tokyo’s attitude toward this
major burden-sharing issue. After ten
years of Japanese foot-dragging and
obfuscation, it is cheeky
— to say the least — that an official
of the Government of Japan would
characterize American expectations as an
unreasonable demand that Japan live up to
its word “all at once.” As for
the notion that Tokyo is unable to afford
the multi-billion dollar procurement of
off-the-shelf U.S. aircraft, it is being
greeted with open ridicule on Capitol
Hill.

In fact, members of Congress have
become justifiably indignant over Japan’s
palpable breach of faith on its regional
defense commitment. This sentiment has
been exacerbated by the urgent demands
placed on U.S. defense capabilities and
expenditures by the war with Iraq.
Japanese tenacity in refusing to pay more
than lip-service to their responsibility
for the 1000-mile mission has galvanized
the convictions of many legislators that
the United States is unnecessarily
shouldering others’ defense burdens.

These growing sentiments, combined
with alarm over the imminent demise of
the 707 production line, prompted a group
of senior figures in the House of
Representatives — led by Representative
Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) — to introduce
legislation on 6 February 1991 (H.Res.
67) calling on the Bush Administration to
initiate immediate negotiations with
Tokyo. Such negotiations would be
intended to lead to the purchase of
additional AWACS and tankers by Japan and
the prompt fulfillment of its 1000-mile
mission commitment.

Such legislation has been deemed
necessary because the executive
branch has, to date, apparently failed
to convey to the Japanese the importance
the United States attaches to Tokyo’s
performance on these points. To the
contrary, on countless occasions
senior U.S. officials in the White House
and State and Defense Departments have
simply chosen not to press their
interlocutors from Japan to change course
— the adverse consequences for America’s
security interests, industrial base and
balance of trade, notwithstanding.

It is worth dwelling for a moment on
the positive effect the sale of a
properly sized Japanese AWACS and KE-3
procurement would have on the
U.S.-Japanese trade account. What is at
stake is nothing less than a $5-7 billion
sale of off-the-shelf American products,
equivalent to roughly ten percent of the
present bilateral trade deficit.

In light of what is at stake, the
American government’s apparent, rather
cavalier attitude toward the permanent
termination of the AWACS production line
is truly extraordinary. Even so, the
simple truth of the matter is that members
of the Bush Administration have yet to
take forceful actions that would induce
Tokyo, either for reasons of national
self-interest or as a contribution to
collective security, to reconsider its
wholly inadequate performance on the
1000-mile mission.

Time for Corrective Action

The Center for Security Policy
believes that far too much is riding on
an accelerated purchase of E-3 AWACS and
tankers by Japan for the United States to
just accept Tokyo’s excuses and sustained
inaction. Accordingly, it joins with Rep.
Schumer and a growing number of Members
of Congress in calling on the Bush
Administration to initiate an urgent
effort with Tokyo over the next six weeks
(prior to Boeing’s 31 March go/no go
decision on the production line) to
fulfill Japan’s security obligations with
announcement of a commitment to procure
at least fourteen 707 airframes.

Should the executive branch choose not
to mount such an effort immediately,
Congress would be well advised to
initiate formal hearings into the
strategic and trade implications of this
development. Such hearings would provide
an opportunity for the legislature to
establish with whom responsibility lies
for the attendant damage to U.S. national
and economic security interests. If
conducted promptly, these hearings might
also serve as a catalyst for remedial
steps — such as interim foreign customer
funding — that would prevent the
national capability represented by the
707 production line from being sacrificed
unnecessarily.

The Mounting Price Of US Inaction In The Gulf: Grave Risks Attend Pandering To Israel’s Foes

The Bush Administration’s decision to initiate a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel is but the latest illustration of the serious dangers posed to U.S. interests by a protracted stalemate in the Persian Gulf.

Clearly, the consideration uppermost in the minds of Administration decision-makers following the latest explosive violence in the West Bank was not the security of a vital American ally. Evidently neither was the possibility that the United States, by leading a diplomatic attack on Israel, would simply encourage the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saddam Hussein and other radical elements to incite further strife.

Rather, the overarching impetus for the U.S. approach on this issue has been Washington’s felt need to maintain a united front with its Arab partners in the anti-Iraq coalition and Persian Gulf expeditionary force.

"The longer the present stalemate in the Gulf persists, the more certain it is that the Bush Administration’s ‘wait for the embargo to work’ strategy will be a lose-lose proposition for U.S. interests," Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, said today. "On the one hand, Saddam Hussein remains as firmly entrenched in Kuwait as ever. Between the wholesale pillaging of his conquest, the repopulation of Kuwait with pro-Iraqi elements and the massive increase in Iraq’s military presence there, it is hard to maintain that the American policy of amassing international forces — but not using them — has measurably improved the chances for undoing Saddam’s aggression."

Gaffney added, "On the other hand, the more open-ended the American stay in the Gulf becomes, the higher will be the price demanded of the United States to maintain an Arab coloration to the multilateral force. The nature of that price is equally predictable: U.S. complicity in the international campaign to isolate Israel and to compel her to make dangerous territorial concessions to implacable foes."

In part, demands of this kind are the natural consequence of the standing agendas of Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It is inconceivable that the governments of these nations could long resist — even if they were inclined to do so — the temptation to translate new-found leverage on the United States into pressure on Israel.

In larger part, however, these demands are the product of a divide-and-conquer strategy originating in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein clearly has every incentive to inflame Arab-Israeli tensions and to drive wedges between the United States and its new-found partners in the anti-Iraq alliance. What the Bush Administration may not appreciate, however, is the ironic danger that — in its effort to maintain a united front against Iraq — the United States may be acquiescing in a policy shift entirely to Iraq’s liking, and utterly inconsistent with the long-term interests in the region of either the United States or Israel.

The Center renews its call for the Bush Administration to move forthwith to topple the government of Saddam Hussein and to neutralize the weapons of mass destruction and other, threatening military capabilities at Baghdad’s disposal. Such an approach is the only one that has any potential to undo the effects of past Iraqi aggression and prevent that nation from unleashing even greater violence in the future.

Only by moving resolutely and with dispatch against Iraq, moreover, can the United States minimize the prospect that its policy interests in the Middle East will be held hostage indefinitely to the ambitions of Arab nationalism — ambitions sure to be increasingly appealed to and exploited by Saddam Hussein.

Caveat Emptor: A Consumer’s Guide To The Post-Iraq ‘World Order’

Introduction

In recent days, senior Bush Administration spokesmen — notably National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft — and some non-governmental foreign policy experts have served notice on the American people: A new "world order" is emerging to fill a vacuum created by the reputed demise of the Cold War. They suggest that, if the United States will join the Soviet Union in playing a constructive part in the ensuing arrangement, international affairs will henceforth be conducted in a more stable and secure fashion.

As Gen. Scowcroft put it in an interview with CNN aired on 25 August 1990:

 

…One of the things which we’re really seeing now is perhaps the emergence of a new world order. Now that’s a strong term, but what we’re seeing is the United Nations beginning to operate as it was foreseen to operate when it was established in 1945-46. Prevented by the superpower conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, now we’re seeing a Security Council beginning to operate as it was designed to operate, to mobilize the civilized world community against aggression and against aggressors.

 

As evidence of the arrival of the new "world order," its proponents point to the recent series of U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein’s aggression and establishing an embargo on imports to and exports from Iraq. They attach particular importance to the Soviet Union’s willingness to vote on 25 August 1990 for an American-sponsored Security Council resolution authorizing the use of "such measures commensurate to the specific circumstances as may be necessary" to implement the embargo.

‘World Order’: Bush’s Deus ex Machina on Iraq?

Gen. Scowcroft signalled the extent of the Bush Administration’s attachment to the construct of the new "world order" in the course of an appearance on "This Week with David Brinkley" on 26 August. He observed that:

 

…If we can go back to the status quo ante in terms of Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and the leadership back in Kuwait, and hostages released, there will still be a fundamentally different situation in that area, in that collective action will have been shown to work against a case of aggression. And therefore, the situation will not be the same afterwards.

 

In other words, the United States is now apparently prepared to see Saddam Hussein remain in power and in control of large quantities of chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons, and therefore retain the ability to engage in new aggression in the future virtually at will — provided he gives up his most-recent, ill-gotten gains. Implicitly, if not explicitly, the Bush Administration is saying that the new world order can be relied upon to deter future Iraqi attacks.

Unfortunately, this line of reasoning rests on several grave misconceptions:

Soviet Cooperation is Not "Superb"

On 22 August 1990, in the midst of negotiations over the Security Council’s resolution concerning the use of force in support of the U.N. embargo, President Bush said:

 

…At this point, I can say we are getting superb cooperation from the Soviets. There may be some differences. In fact, I think its fair to say we’ve been discussing some of them regarding the timing of certain further UN action. But I have no argument with the way in which they have cooperated.

 

The following day, presidential press spokesman Marlin Fitzwater enthused, "We believe that the Soviet Union is operating in a manner that is supportive of our interests." (Emphasis added.)

Such statements give insufficient weight to various Soviet activities that are clearly incompatible with U.S. interests and inconsistent with the various U.N. resolutions on Iraq for which Moscow has recently voted. At least two serious questions arise: Is there an effort being made to keep the full facts about Soviet behavior from the senior leadership of the Bush Administration? Or is that leadership simply unable to assess the Soviet role in the Iraq crisis objectively, perhaps due to a felt need to vindicate the enormous investment it has made in Mikhail Gorbachev?

Whatever the explanation, the Bush Administration has failed to address adequately the following, troubling aspects of Soviet behavior in the present crisis:

 

  1. Soviet Foreknowledge of the Iraqi Attack on Kuwait: There is considerable reason to believe that Moscow had forewarning of the incipient Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. This could have been supplied through the several thousand Soviet military advisors attached to Iraq’s armed forces or as a result of the close interaction between the KGB and its client service, the Iraqi security apparatus.

     

    2.  

    Alternatively, this information could have been obtained by Soviet Colonel-General Albert Makashov, commander of the huge Siberian military district and a unabashed advocate of the assertive use of Soviet military power, who held secret meetings with the Iraqi Foreign Minister in Baghdad shortly before the invasion of Kuwait.

     

     

    There is no indication that the Soviet Union informed the U.S. government that its client, Iraq, was going to attack Kuwait, a nation with long ties to the United States.

     

     

  2. Soviet Advisors in Iraq — Business as Usual: The Soviet government has acknowledged that many Soviet advisors in Iraq evidently are continuing to perform vital functions for the Iraqi military — notwithstanding the U.N. embargo on supplying goods and services to Baghdad. These include:

     

    • servicing and maintaining Soviet-supplied fighter aircraft (e.g., MiG-29s) and other sophisticated weapons systems;

      •  

    • assisting in the construction and operation of a comprehensive air defense network (in particular, surface-to-air missile deployments protecting Iraqi chemical and other strategic facilities);

      •  

    • providing software and guidance systems for surface-to-surface missiles (including the enhanced range "Scud-B" system judged capable of attacking targets as far away as Israel with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons); and

      •  

    • strategic planning for military operations (possibly including the invasion of Kuwait).

    3.  

    In other words, Soviet advisors are today helping to service and maintain weapons that could be used shortly against U.S. troops, with the certain effect of increasing American casualties in the event of combat.

     

     

  3. No Soviet Hostages: Interestingly, no Soviet personnel or dependents are presently being held as unwilling "guests" of Saddam Hussein. This situation contrasts sharply with that of Western nationals who are now being held hostage as human shields for Iraqi strategic facilities.

     

    4.  

  4. Soviet Intelligence-Sharing with Iraq: Press reports indicate that the close working relationship between the Soviet and Iraqi intelligence services is enabling the latter to obtain information about the status and deployment of U.S. forces. Such data could be of enormous importance to Iraq, for example, in planning preemptive chemical or biological strikes against American or allied positions. It could also help the Iraqis compensate for one of the most decisive areas of U.S. superiority, namely American advantages in strategic and tactical intelligence.

     

    5.  

  5. Soviet Arms Still Reaching Iraq: There have also been reports that Moscow has continued to supply Iraq with arms and spare parts for the vast array of advanced Soviet military equipment provided Baghdad in recent years — notwithstanding the U.N. embargo and the Kremlin’s announced, self-imposed moratorium on weapons shipments to the Saddam Hussein regime. According to the Washington Times of 23 August 1990, U.S. "officials at the White House, State Department and the Pentagon admitted privately this week that Soviet arms shipments bound for Iraq were spotted in the Jordanian port of Aqaba…."

     

    6.  

    Moscow’s continuing arms shipments are in addition to the prodigious stockpile of advanced Soviet weapons already in Iraqi hands. These include some 5,500 tanks (notably, 500 of the front-line Soviet T-72s), aircraft (including the highly capable Su-24 Fencer fighter-bomber whose long range and precision-delivery capabilities caused such a stir when the Kremlin supplied them to Libya last year) and ballistic missiles (including the Scud-B, modified to carry chemical, biological or nuclear weapons up to 300 nautical miles).

     

     

    The Soviet Union’s willingness to endow its clients with massive quantities of such powerful systems has added immensely to the size, complexity and cost of the U.S. response to the Iraq crisis. This development also gainsays the naive notion that, as a result of some positive Soviet foreign policy steps in Europe, the United States need no longer worry about fielding equipment and military capabilities superior to those available to the USSR and its clients.

     

The Old ‘Rogue Officers’ Gambit

Some Bush Administration and foreign intelligence sources have been quoted in the press as trying to explain away such Soviet behavior. These sources have suggested that these sinister deeds — which are fundamentally at variance with the spirit (if not the letter) of the U.N. resolutions, the sanctions they imposed and Gorbachev’s public statements — are the work of "rogue" military officers who are unresponsive to civilian control. This argument is reminiscent of the explanation often given for Soviet violations of arms control agreements.

These explanations are extremely troubling. If true, contentions that the Soviet military can and does act without regard for — even in direct contravention of — the wishes or commitments of the Kremlin’s civilian authorities call into question the prudence of U.S. policies which stake American security to a considerable extent on the good faith and reliability of that Soviet leadership.(1)

On the other hand, if these explanations are untrue, then Gorbachev and the other civilian leaders of the USSR are party to a cynical double-game, one in which they seek simultaneously to nurture improved relations with the United States and its allies — particularly improved access to Western capital, know-how and technology — while retaining great latitude to advance their own agenda at the West’s expense.

Neither explanation is compatible with regarding the Soviet Union as a reliable partner in a new security system.

Mixed Bag at the U.N.

Similarly, Soviet performance at the United Nations has been far less consistently supportive than the Bush Administration has made it out to be. To the contrary, the Soviets have been the main impediment to the resolute and timely enforcement of sanctions.

Indeed, recent Soviet behavior at the United Nations — ironically cited as proof positive of Moscow’s new, constructive approach, the very keystone for the emerging "world order" — appears to support the double-game thesis. The Soviets stalled Security Council approval of the "use of force" resolution for days. They insisted that proof that the sanctions were being violated be provided and discussed prior to such use; they also demanded that any such military response be made under the rubric of the United Nations.

While the Soviet Union may have receded for the moment from these demands by settling for a more ambiguous formulation of the resolution and an affirmation that political and diplomatic measures would receive maximum use, the principal Soviet objective seems to have been served: to delay U.S. action and to increase the pressure against unilateral American military steps.

The Bottom Line: The New ‘World Order’ Would Checkmate U.S. Policy

The conclusion seems inescapable that the Soviet Union is still pursuing its own national interests in the Iraq crisis at the expense of the United States. Moscow’s diplomacy appears designed not so much to gain speedy resolution of the crisis as to strengthen its own potential hand as crisis mediator — in effect standing between the United States and Iraq, while resisting effective U.S. action. The so-called emerging "world order" appears to be a useful vehicle for the USSR in thwarting Washington’s initiatives.

In short, the Bush Administration’s determination to pursue partnership with Moscow (inside and outside of the United Nations) — seemingly at virtually any price — may serve dangerously to encumber American initiative. As a practical matter, it may even preclude the United States from acting in defense of vital U.S. interests.

At the very least, the brakes on effective U.S. action would surely be more severe under a fully developed, new "world order" than they are today. Just imagine the situation in the Persian Gulf today if the decision to dispatch U.S. and other nations’ forces to the region had been subject to the U.N. Security Council’s approval. Such a "world order" would almost certainly have dictated that diplomatic consultations precede so escalatory a step. This probably would have given Saddam Hussein sufficient time to present the world with yet another fait accompli — this time by seizing Saudi Arabia’s oil fields and making any military response infinitely more difficult and expensive than is the case at present.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The Center for Security Policy believes that, while Moscow’s condemnation of Iraqi aggression and its votes in the Security Council have been positive steps, the totality of Soviet behavior in the Iraq crisis significantly undercuts the constructive role with which Moscow is being widely credited. That behavior also belies the claim that a new "world order" is emerging to which U.S. security interests can safely be entrusted. Indeed, the USSR’s double-policy — or perhaps double-game — is likely to embolden Iraq while constraining the United States, a formula for enormously increasing the stature of Saddam Hussein and the Soviet Union in Arab eyes and dangerously diminishing U.S. prestige throughout the region.

The Center also views with great concern suggestions that the United States is now prepared to seek a diplomatic solution to this crisis on terms that could enable Saddam Hussein to remain in power and preserve those military capabilities with which he can continue to threaten Western interests. Letting slip the present opportunity to eliminate the threat to friendly governments throughout the Middle East posed by the "Butcher of Baghdad" would be a tragedy of historic proportions.

The Center urges the Bush Administration not to accept seductive arguments for hewing to the "safe" course of policy paralysis and military inertia being urged upon it. This course, for which the term new "world order" is merely a euphemism, will not spare lives or reduce the cost of thwarting aggression; it will simply postpone and increase the sacrifice entailed in doing so subsequently. If Saddam Hussein is not dealt with decisively now, not only will Saudi Arabia remain permanently at risk, but Western forces — and possibly even Western capitals and other cities — will be susceptible to his chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Consequently, President Bush should now give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum requiring within 48 hours: (1) the immediate withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from and relinquishing of Baghdad’s control over Kuwait; (2) agreement to destroy within thirty days and under international inspection all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons-related facilities and stockpiles and ballistic missile sites; and (3) the immediate release of all Western nationals now being held hostage. If Saddam Hussein refuses to comply, the United States (and such allied forces as are willing to participate) should move swiftly and with deadly effect against the Saddam Hussein regime.

Through a combination of conventional strikes against known, fixed targets (e.g., Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons-related facilities, ballistic missile sites, command and control assets and power-projection related infrastructure) and unconventional warfare against the regime itself, the United States can expect to attenuate greatly the menace currently posed by Iraq — to say nothing of what it might otherwise become in the future. The allied powers should also facilitate the creation of an Iraqi government in exile to assume leadership of the nation following Hussein’s removal from power.

Once this discriminant application of force has been utilized, there will be ample time — and a far more tractable climate — for diplomatic negotiations. For want of a better term, such an environment might be called Pax Americana, a world order that has in the past proven much more secure and conducive to Western interests than that now being contemplated by Gen. Scowcroft and others.

1. The Washington Times of 27 August 1990 provides a striking indication of just how fundamental such perceptions are to the Bush Administration. In an article entitled "Gulf Crisis Tests Baker, ‘Shev’ Ties," the Times reported that, "According to U.S. officials who know them well, Mr. Baker and Mr. Shevardnadze trust one another without question…." (Emphasis added.)

Center Endorses Bush Commitment Of US Forces As First Stage Of Response To Iraqi Aggression

The Center for Security Policy today commended President Bush for his decision to dispatch U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf. The Center regards the President’s announcement this morning that elements of the 82nd Airborne and Air Force will shortly be in place in Saudi Arabia, joining substantial American and other nations’ naval forces in littoral waters, as a welcome — if belated — step toward containing Iraq’s recent aggression.

"Deploying U.S. military elements in Saudi Arabia is an absolutely necessarystep if Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is to be prevented from indulging still further his megalomaniacal and hegemonic ambitions," Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director, said. "Of course, it very much remains to be seen if this step will be sufficient to deter new Iraqi attacks against Saudi Arabia or others in the region."

Gaffney added, "In any event, we should be under no illusion on one point: Such deployments — even when combined with the laudable international economic sanctions and arms embargoes now being put into place with American leadership — are unlikely to result in the liberation of Kuwait, to say nothing of bringing down Saddam Hussein. The latter is the only outcome compatible with long-term U.S. and Western security interests. According to press reports, President Bush agrees with this view; if so, he must go beyond the ‘defensive’ measures announced today in order to seize the unique, and possibly ephemeral, opportunity to pull it off."

The Center also noted approvingly President Bush’s stated willingness to consider a coordinated allied release of oil reserves in response to this crisis — an initiative urged upon him on the day of the invasion (see Signal Allied Willingness to Release Oil Stocks Now!: Buy Time to Forge Punitive Response Against Iraq, No. 90-P 72, 2 August 1990) and in congressional testimony delivered yesterday by Center Board member and former chief economist at the National Security Council Roger W. Robinson, Jr.

The Center continues to believe, however, that the release of at least a portion of U.S. and allied oil stocks should not await the actual disruption of oil supplies. Had the Administration at the outset of the crisis sent such an appropriate signal concerning early use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in coordination with similar allied actions, it would almost surely have helped prevent the sort of price-gouging and profiteering currently affecting world energy prices and, especially, U.S. gasoline prices.

The Center also believes that an on-going, rigorous analysis is in order concerning substance — that is, the actual performance and concrete actions — of the Soviet Union in support of stated Western objectives leading to a resolution of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis. There is a real risk that, in the absence of such an analysis, tunnel vision may set in — obscuring the important differences between words and deeds.

Such a review should consider, at the very least, the following:

  • Why have no Soviet citizens been detained (read, held hostage) in Iraq?

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  • What is the status of some 8,900 Soviet advisors — the bulk of whom are military personnel — currently in Iraq and Kuwait? Did they play any role in advising their Iraqi clients on the use of vast quantities of Soviet-supplied weapons in the invasion of Kuwait? What about such weapons possibly imminent use against U.S. forces?

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  • Is the Soviet Union requiring, as part of its arms embargo of Iraq, the withdrawal of such military advisors?

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  • Would Moscow faithfully observe the international arms embargo should the United States and other nations engage in hostilities with Iraq? Would the U.S. be able to determine if the Soviets are not doing so — and would that critical fact be made public?

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  • What are the operational and intelligence security implications of a multilateral blockade of Iraq in which Soviet naval forces participate?

 

Copies of Signal Allied Willingness, Robinson’s testimony and a recent analysis of the programmatic and force posture implications of the Iraqi crisis entitled ‘Do the Right Thing’: Congressional Defense Choices for the Post-Kuwait World, may be obtained by contacting the Center.