 President Bush called Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein "worse than Hitler." But in one of the worst blunders of his presidency, he allowed Saddam to remain in power. |
GEORGE BUSH and Colin Powell were squeamish about killing Iraqi soldiers as they fled north out of Kuwait in February 1991, so they called a halt to the Gulf War. They rejected the advice of General Norman Schwarzkopf — "We could have continued to wreak great destruction upon them; we could have . . . made it in fact a battle of annihilation." Instead, they declared victory.
President Bush had called Saddam Hussein "worse than Hitler." He had urged the Iraqi people to overthrow him. But when Iraqis erupted in revolt the day the war ended, Bush declined to help. The "defeated" Saddam commenced using helicopter gunships and napalm to murder Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites — right under the eyes of 400,000 US troops. Still Bush refused to intervene. When Sen. George Mitchell suggested that US pilots shoot down Saddam's helicopters and stop the massacre, Bush flippantly replied, "Always glad to have his opinion. Glad to hear from him." To underscore his lack of interest, he went fishing in Florida.
As the current crisis in Iraq has unfolded, commentators have noted President Clinton's history of drawing lines in the sand, then allowing Saddam to cross them. On the few occasions when Clinton has punished Iraq, his actions have been meaningless. In 1996, for example, Saddam assaulted the Kurdish city of Irbil, located in the northern no-fly zone. Clinton's retaliation was to lob cruise missiles at military sites hundreds of miles to the south. The result, CIA director John Deutch later testified, was to leave Saddam politically strengthened.
But for all of Clinton's blundering, it is worth remembering: The mother of all blunders was Bush's. Eager for the PR coup of a "hundred-hour war," he left Saddam in power. He tossed away the chance to liberate the Iraqi people by demolishing Saddam's tyranny. Saddam was left free to butcher his foes by the tens of thousands. And he was left hungry for revenge — and bent on acquiring chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.
Bush is gone now, as are most of the other heads of state of the Desert Storm coalition. But Saddam remains, more dangerous than ever.
Inspectors from the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) have been barred since early August from hunting down Iraq's weapons of mass death. Even if they return this week, Saddam has had 3½ months to find new hiding places, tamper with monitoring equipment, and build more of his hellish weapons. Meanwhile, he is believed to already have mobile missiles loaded with biological poisons, such as anthrax and botulinum. Thousands of tons of chemical weapons agents are still unaccounted for. And tests have shows that before the Gulf War, Iraq packed VX, a lethal nerve gas, into missile warheads.
According to UNSCOM, Iraq has 34 plants that can be converted to the production of chemical weapons, and sufficient personnel with the expertise to run them. Scott Ritter, the weapons expert who resigned last summer to protest the administration's repeated cave-ins, says that Iraq has built three nuclear devices. As of August, the Iraqis lacked only the fissionable material needed for the weapons' core. By now they may have acquired them on the black market.
Saddam and his spokesmen harp on the misery caused by the economic sanctions against Iraq, but sanctions are nothing to him. (Ordinary Iraqis suffer, but Saddam and his inner circle live in lavish comfort.) The only thing he cares about is amassing an arsenal with which to dominate the Middle East and be avenged on his enemies. Each time he has had to choose between ending sanctions or protecting his secret weapons, he has chosen the weapons. His about-face over the weekend changes nothing. Saddam turns these crises on and off at will, repeatedly shutting down inspections whenever he needs to buy time for his weapons-makers.
He has used chemical weapons before. During Iraq's war with Iran, he launched missiles loaded with Sarin at Iranian cities. To quell dissent in the Kurdish city of Halabja, he mustard-gassed 5,000 men, women, and children to death in 1988. He would do it again. He will do it again.
The weapons inspectors are honorable and courageous, but the time for inspecting is past. Now it is time to finish the job George Bush left undone.
Clinton must announce to the world that it is the intention of the United States to liberate Iraq from Saddam's bloody grip. He should encourage the formation of an Iraqi government-in-exile, and begin aiding Saddam's opponents — economically, militarily, diplomatically.
The northern and southern no-fly zones should be proclaimed Free Iraq, and declared off-limits to Saddam's forces — and under the military protection of the United States.
Clinton said Sunday that "Iraq has backed down," but the danger has not passed. Saddam may at this moment be preparing to fire his weapons of mass destruction. Clinton must deter him by saying explicitly that any use of such weapons will bring massive retaliation. At the same time, he should order more aircraft, armor, and troops to the Persian Gulf.
Seven years of American vacillation have allowed Saddam to reestablish himself as the most powerful despot in his part of the world. Nothing is more urgent at this moment than making it crystal clear that the United States intends to crush him and his regime for good. If we fail again, we will never be forgiven.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
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