February 21, 2003
A Last Chance to Stop Iraq
By KENNETH M. POLLACK
WASHINGTON � With the Bush administration set to put a
resolution on Iraq before the United Nations Security
Council next week, those opposed to war will rally
around the notion that Saddam Hussein can be deterred
from aggression. They will continue to say that the
mere presence of United Nations inspectors will
prevent him from building nuclear weapons, and that
even if he were to acquire them he could still be
contained.
Unfortunately, these claims fly in the face of 12
years � and in truth more like 30 years � of history.
Observers have a very poor track record in predicting
the progress of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. In
the late 1980's, the nuclear experts of the American
intelligence services were convinced that the Iraqis
were at least 5 and probably 10 years away from having
a nuclear weapon. For its part, the International
Atomic Energy Agency did not even believe that Iraq
had a nuclear weapons program. After the 1991 Persian
Gulf war, United Nations inspectors found that not
only did Iraq have a program far more extensive than
anyone had realized, but it was also less than two
years away from producing a weapon.
Four years later, the international agency was so
certain that it had eradicated the Iraqi nuclear
program that it wanted to end aggressive inspections
in favor of passive "monitoring." Then a slew of
defectors came out of Iraq � including Hussein Kamel
al-Majid, the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein who led the
Iraqi program to build weapons of mass destruction;
Wafiq al-Samarrai, one of Saddam Hussein's
intelligence chiefs; and Khidhir Hamza, a leading
scientist with the nuclear weapons program. These
defectors reported that outside pressure had not only
failed to eradicate the nuclear program, it was bigger
and more cleverly spread out and concealed than anyone
had imagined it to be.
In the late 1990's, American and international nuclear
experts again concluded that the Iraqi nuclear program
was dormant: yes, the scientists were still working in
teams; yes, they still had all of the plans; and yes,
they probably were hiding some machinery � but they
were not making any progress. Then another batch of
important defectors escaped to Europe and told Western
intelligence services that after the inspectors left
Iraq in 1998, Saddam Hussein had started a crash
program to build a nuclear weapon and that the Iraqis
had devised methods to hide the effort.
The reports of these defectors prompted the German
intelligence service in 2001 to conclude that Iraq was
only three to six years away from having one or more
nuclear weapons. Today, the American, British and
Israeli intelligence services believe that unless he
is stopped, Saddam Hussein is likely to acquire a
nuclear weapon in the second half of this decade.
Even this estimate may be overly optimistic. While
it's true that the presence of weapons inspectors does
hamper the Iraqis, there are some critical caveats. We
simply do not know how close Iraq is to acquiring a
nuclear weapon, nor do we know to what extent the
inspectors' presence is slowing the Iraqi program.
What we do know is that for more than a decade we have
consistently overestimated the ability of inspectors
to impede the Iraqi efforts and we have consistently
underestimated how far along Iraq has been toward
acquiring a nuclear weapon.
For all of these reasons the assurances from Mohamed
ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, that he has Iraq's nuclear program well in
hand should be less than comforting.
Nor is there reason to be confident about how Saddam
Hussein will behave once he has acquired a nuclear
weapon.
He has been anything but circumspect about his
aspirations: He has stated that he wants to turn Iraq
into a "superpower" that will dominate the Middle
East, to liberate Jerusalem and to drive the United
States out of the region. He has said he believes the
only way he can achieve his goals is through the use
of force. Indeed, his half-brother and former chief of
intelligence, Barzan al-Tikriti, was reported to say
that Iraq needs nuclear weapons because it wants "a
strong hand in order to redraw the map of the Middle
East."
It is probably true that fear of retaliation kept Iraq
from using chemical weapons against coalition forces
during the gulf war. However, this should give us
little comfort that he will be similarly deterred in
the future. Before the 1991 war, Secretary of State
James Baker warned his Iraqi counterpart, Tariq Aziz,
that Iraq faced "terrible consequences" if it used
weapons of mass destruction, mounted terrorist attacks
or destroyed Kuwaiti oil fields.
Yet despite this warning, Saddam Hussein tried to send
terrorist teams to America and did blow up the Kuwaiti
oil fields � he simply gambled on which two of the
three things Mr. Baker mentioned were unlikely to
result in America ending the regime. (Many officials
from that Bush administration have suggested, in fact,
that Saddam Hussein didn't even make the right
calculation.)
Proponents of deterrence also argue that since nobody
has ever actually tried to deter Saddam Hussein from
attacking another country, how can we claim that doing
so will be difficult in the future? The example most
often cited is the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, where the
common wisdom holds that because of the botched
messages he received from the American ambassador,
April Glaspie, Iraq had no reason to believe we would
fight.
In fact, all the evidence indicates the opposite:
Saddam Hussein believed it was highly likely that the
United States would try to liberate Kuwait, but
convinced himself that we would send only lightly
armed, rapidly deployable forces that would be quickly
destroyed by his 120,000-man Republican Guard. After
this, he assumed, Washington would acquiesce to his
conquest.
Much of the evidence for this remains classified, but
at least two points can be made using public material:
Tariq Aziz has told reporters that this was what
Saddam Hussein thought at the time; and we know that
when the Republican Guards invaded Kuwait they moved
quickly � even before they had consolidated control
over the country � to set up defenses along Kuwait's
borders and against amphibious and airborne landings.
In other words, Saddam Hussein thinks we tried to
deter him, and that we failed. He was ready and
willing to fight the United States for Kuwait.
Even that crushing defeat, however, didn't dim his
adventurism. Just two years later he attempted to
assassinate the emir of Kuwait and former President
Bush. This was not a rational act but a meaningless
bid for revenge. And he is lucky that the attempts
failed. If they had succeeded, there is no question
that the United States would have obliterated his
regime.
Then, in October 2000, he dispatched five divisions to
western Iraq. All of the evidence available to the
American government indicated that, with the
acquiescence of Damascus, he intended to move them
through Syria and into the Golan Heights. In response,
Washington began preparing a military strike far
greater than Desert Fox of 1999 (which itself prompted
revolts throughout Iraq for six months), and the
Israeli military planned its own crushing response.
Only American and Saudi diplomatic intervention with
Syria, combined with the Iraqi military's logistical
problems, quashed the adventure.
Most ominous today, we have heard from many
intelligence sources � including some of the
highest-level defectors now in America and abroad �
that Saddam Hussein believes that once he has acquired
nuclear weapons it is the United States that will be
deterred. He apparently believes that America will be
so terrified of getting into a nuclear confrontation
that it would not dare to stop him should he decide to
invade, threaten or blackmail his neighbors.
America has never encountered a country that saw
nuclear weapons as a tool for aggression. During the
cold war we feared that the Russians thought this way,
but we eventually learned that they were far more
conservative. Our experts may be split on how to
handle North Korea, but they agree that the Pyongyang
regime wants nuclear weapons for defensive purposes �
to stave off the perceived threat of an American
attack. The worst that anyone can suggest is that
North Korea might blackmail us for economic aid or
sell such weapons to someone else (with Iraq being
near the top of that list). Only Saddam Hussein sees
these weapons as offensive � as enabling aggression.
Finally, we cannot forget that all evidence has shown
Saddam Hussein to be an incorrigible optimist who
willfully ignores signs of danger. Consider that on at
least five occasions over the last three decades, he
has embarked on foreign policy adventures that nearly
destroyed him: his attack on Iraq's Kurds in 1974
(which might have ended in an Iranian assault on
Baghdad if the shah of Iran had not unexpectedly
decided to double-cross the Kurds instead); his
invasion of Iran in 1980; his invasion of Kuwait in
1990; his assassination attempt against former
President Bush in 1993; and his threatened attack on
Kuwait in 1994. In each case, he took a course of
action that we know even his closest advisers
considered extremely dangerous.
This is the problem with Saddam Hussein. The assertion
that he is not intentionally suicidal may be true, but
it is irrelevant. In the end, he has frequently proven
inadvertently suicidal.
And he seems to be doing it again. With more than
150,000 American soldiers taking positions on his
borders he continues to run the international
inspectors in circles, foolishly confident that his
minor concessions will stave off an invasion. Is there
any other person on earth who wouldn't turn his
country inside out to prove that he did not have more
weapons of mass destruction? Once again, he seems to
be betting his life that the game is not as dangerous
as everyone else thinks it is.
Given Saddam Hussein's current behavior, his track
record, his aspirations and his terrifying beliefs
about the utility of nuclear weapons, it would be
reckless for us to assume that he can be deterred.
Yes, we must weigh the costs of a war with Iraq today,
but on the other side of the balance we must place the
cost of a war with a nuclear-armed Iraq tomorrow.
Kenneth M. Pollack, a former analyst of the Iraqi
military at the C.I.A., is a fellow at the Saban
Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings
Institution and author of "The Threatening Storm: The
Case for Invading Iraq."
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John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq:
Your enemy is not surrounding your country � your enemy is ruling your
country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be
the day of your liberation." -George W. Bush 1/29/03
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