George W. Bush recently said that Saddam Hussein remains "a big threat'' and threatened to use military force "if he crosses the line." [Rick Wilking/Reuters]

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the Gulf War. Ten years on, it is clear that the war was not the unambiguous American victory it seemed at the time. Saddam Hussein is coming back. Above all, there have been no weapons inspections for over two years, and there is no reasonable prospect of reestablishing a vigorous inspection and monitoring regime in Iraq.¹ More generally, the coalition is fraying badly. There is no longer a consensus at the Security Council to maintain sanctions, while even the British, under French pressure, are reconsidering their participation in the no-fly zones.²

The new administration faces a fundamental choice. It can basically continue the Clinton administration's policy, in which case, Saddam's position will almost certainly continue to improve. That would include the likelihood that the new administration would face a nuclear-armed Iraq at some point.³ Or it can take a far more aggressive approach to Iraq. One of the misunderstandings that has crept in over the past ten years is that the Clinton administration's policy on Iraq was basically a continuation of the Bush administration. But memory is short and that is simply not true. There was--and is--an alternative to the course Clinton pursued.

This article recounts Bush administration policy and then explains how Clinton changed that policy. It also addresses the intellectual and political climate over the past eight years of peace and prosperity that contributed to the evolution of a fundamentally flawed, and even dangerous, policy towards Iraq.

BUSH POLICY

The Bush administration's basic goal after the Gulf War was to overthrow Saddam. Post-war constraints, like sanctions and the no-fly zones, were not meant to last forever (although UNSCOM was). Rather, they aimed at keeping the regime weak to promote Saddam's overthrow. Indeed, John Bolton, then Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, commented on his principal engagement in that effort, through U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations. Bolton explained, "Everything the U.S. did on Iraq in New York aimed at squeezing Saddam."⁴

Yet, Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy during the Gulf War, explained that the Bush administration was "slow to recognize the importance of removing Saddam from power."⁵ Many factors contributed to that. Before the conflict began, there was considerable opposition to going to war. Many people wanted to rely on sanctions to force Saddam from Kuwait, including two of the most prominent generals in the war--Colin Powell, Chief of Staff, and Norman Schwarzkopf, the head of Centcom.⁶ And that opposition was reflected in the Democratic-controlled Congress. Congress authorized the war only by the narrowest margin. As Wolfowitz explained, that inhibited the Bush administration from considering the more expansive aim of ousting Saddam.

There was also a view that only Saddam, or a brutal ruler like him, could hold Iraq together and maintain the "balance" of power in the Gulf. That was an argument made by National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.⁷ Moreover, when the war ended, Bush believed Saddam would be overthrown by the Iraqi military, as he acknowledged in an interview with David Frost on the war's fifth anniversary.

Indeed, in the last days of the war, a congressional staffer sought to arrange a meeting at the State Department with some senior Kurdish figures. But an NSC aide tried to block it, asserting, "Our policy is to get rid of Saddam Hussein, not his regime" (The meeting was held, but outside the State Department).⁸ Immediately after the cease-fire, a widespread revolt broke out in Iraq and mbiguity developed as to whether the U.S. might shoot down Iraqi helicopters being used to suppress the uprising. This ambiguity alone inhibited Saddam from doing his worst. Yet, on March 26, the White House announced that it would not shoot down the helicopters. It was essentially a green light to Saddam. As a senior official explained,

Bush believes "Saddam will quash the rebellions and after the dust settles, the Ba'ath military establishment and other elites will blame him for not only the death and destruction from the war, but the death and destruction from putting down the rebellion. They will emerge then and install a new leadership and will make the case it is time for new leaders and a new beginning." . . . But this official expressed his own doubts. "There might not be a coup . . . and all these thousands and thousands will be dead while we looked on."⁹

Tragically, that is exactly what happened.

But as Wolfowitz also explained, "The leaders of most of our Arab coalition partners" wanted Saddam gone. "The Saudi leadership in particular expressed this conviction."¹⁰ And it soon became clear that Iraq had no intention of complying with the formal cease-fire to the war--U.N. Security Council resolution 687. That resolution demanded that Iraq declare and turn over for destruction its unconventional weapons programs. But from the start, Iraq made every effort to retain what it could. So in May 1991, the Bush administration adopted the policy goal of ousting Saddam.¹¹

The idea was to maintain sanctions on Iraq to keep the regime weak, while the U.S. worked on overthrowing Saddam. The initial effort focused on promoting a coup (a continuation of efforts during the war). But as it became apparent that a coup would be very difficult to carry out, the Bush administration initiated a second, parallel approach--support for a popular insurgency, represented by the Iraqi National Congress. It was in this context that the no-fly zone was imposed on southern Iraq in the summer of 1992.

Once the Bush administration adopted the position that it supported the INC's efforts to promote an insurgency, it also meant that it had largely given up its concern about the "break-up" of Iraq, absent a strong man. The question always was what were the risks in leaving Saddam in power versus the risks in ousting him. And if Saddam could not be overthrown in a coup, the Bush administration was prepared to overthrow him by other means. That decision reflected the judgment that to leave Saddam in power was the riskiest course of all.

CLINTON POLICY

But that was decidedly not the judgment of the Clinton administration. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton was tougher on Saddam than Bush, criticizing Bush for leaving Saddam in power. This author was, in fact, the advisor on Iraq to the Clinton campaign. But as President-elect, shortly before assuming office, Clinton told the New York Times' Thomas Friedman that there were circumstances under which he was prepared to come to terms with Saddam--if he complied with the U.N. resolutions.¹² The Bush administration had rejected that option, having concluded that any Iraqi compliance would be reversed once sanctions were lifted. Thus, Clinton told Friedman he was not "obsessed" with Saddam. As a Baptist, he believed in "death-bed conversions." Clinton explained that if Saddam were sitting next to him, he would advise him to observe the U.N. resolutions and change his behavior.

Martin Indyk, then slated to become NSC advisor on the Middle East, called me the night of that interview to explain what Clinton had said and that it would be in the New York Times the next morning. Indyk sounded shocked, as both of us opposed that view. I strongly advised that Clinton had to deny Friedman's report. Otherwise the new administration would set off shock waves through out the Middle East that would take a long time to repair, if it could be done at all.

The next day Clinton denied that he had told Friedman he was prepared to come to terms with Saddam (over Friedman's strong protest that his story was accurate).¹³ But in late March, when the new administration formally decided on its policy toward Iraq, it no longer included a call for Saddam's removal, producing apprehension among America's Arab allies.¹⁴ In May, Indyk clarified the policy, making clear that no reconciliation with Saddam was envisaged. Indyk also introduced the innovation of linking U.S. Iraq policy to U.S. policy toward Iran. The new policy was dubbed "dual containment." As Indyk explained,

We seek Iraq's full compliance with all UN resolutions. The regime of Saddam Hussein must never again pose a threat to Iraq's neighborhood. And we are also committed to ensuring Iraq's compliance with UN Resolution 688, which calls upon the regime to end its repression of the Iraqi people . . . We are also providing stronger backing for the Iraqi National Congress as a democratic alternative to the Saddam Hussein regime.¹⁵

But none of that ever materialized. From the start, the Clinton administration's stated policy towards Iraq differed significantly from what it did. The administration invited senior INC officials to Washington and promised them support. But it also halved the budget for covert operations in Iraq. Established in the Kurdish-controlled north, the INC sought to expand the area of Iraq under opposition control further south, into Arab-inhabited regions. But the Clinton administration never provided the INC any arms. When, nonetheless, the INC launched a limited military operation in March 1995, precipitating a significant number of defections from Iraqi troops based in the north, the White House panicked. It feared the INC would "drag" it into a conflict with Saddam. Subsequently, the administration turned against the organization and let Iraqi forces overrun its headquarters, despite promises to the contrary.

Indeed, the Clinton administration's policy toward Iraq basically consisted of maintaining sanctions. It did not really make an effort to overthrow Saddam, because that, in its view, entailed risks it was not prepared to take. Yet, just maintaining sanctions became ever more difficult in the first half of 1995. Russia and France increasingly pressed to lift them, as it seemed that UNSCOM had pretty much taken care of Iraq's prohibited arms.

Hussein Kamel

But, in August 1995, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, who had been in charge of Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, defected and made a host of stunning revelations. Until then, it had been assumed that Iraq was little threat. It was thought that most of Iraq's unconventional weapons had been destroyed during the war and that UNSCOM had slowly been mopping up what remained. But with Kamil's defection, it was learned that much of Iraq's proscribed weapons capabilities--chemical, biological, and nuclear, as well as missiles--had survived the conflict. Iraq had succeeded in concealing that from UNSCOM, while systematically turning over the least important elements of those proscribed programs.¹⁶ Instead of being little threat, Iraq was now recognized to be a considerable threat.

Yet the Clinton administration regarded this information as a "godsend."¹⁷ That may seem strange, but its goal was to maintain sanctions--not to neutralize the Iraqi threat. And the new information suddenly made it very easy to maintain sanctions. At that point, Iraq fell off the nation's agenda. There was a brief flurry of reporting about the newly revealed weapons in August. But by Labor Day, Iraq ceased to be an issue. For two years--until the crises over UNSCOM began--that information received scant attention. Occasional stories about aspects of Iraq's weapons programs appeared, but the notion that Saddam retained a large and dangerous unconventional capability did not register. It was, for example, not generally known to the editors of the nation's major newspapers.¹⁸

The crises over UNSCOM that began in the fall of 1997--and ended with the termination of UNSCOM's presence in Iraq a year later--finally brought Iraq's weapons programs to national attention. Senior officials, from the president on down, repeatedly affirmed UNSCOM's importance and threatened military action.

But each crisis weakened support for UNSCOM. The repeated crises also contributed to an appearance of U.S. impotence. And when the Clinton administration finally decided to strike Iraq--on the eve of the House impeachment vote--Ramadan was about to begin, limiting the bombing campaign to just four nights. Nonetheless, as Operation Desert Fox began in December 1998, Clinton affirmed,

Without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to regain and again to rebuild its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs . . . Mark my words [Saddam] will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them and he will use them.¹⁹

But the administration did virtually nothing to reestablish a viable weapons inspection regime subsequently. It took a year to get a new U.N. resolution reestablishing a much-weakened organization and when Iraq rejected the resolution, the U.S. did not respond. After all, its primary goal was to maintain sanctions.

THE FEEL-GOOD ERA

It does take some adjustment to appreciate the cynicism with which the Clinton administration dealt with such an important national security issue like Iraq. Charles Fairbanks, Director of the Central Asia Caucuses Institute, at Johns Hopkins' School for Advanced International Studies, suggests that people behave differently in times of peace and prosperity than they do in periods of conflict, including the Cold War. That applies both to political leaders and the population that elects them. They are prone to frivolity and self-indulgence. And they do things that they would not do, when a recognized danger exists.

Martin Sieff, a senior editor at United Press International, is writing a book, The Seven Political Eras of U.S. History, that deals with this theme. According to Sieff, there is a cyclical quality to American history. An era begins when bold and innovative individuals lay down some founding concepts, in response to a seminal event. Those concepts continue to shape peoples' thoughts and actions. But with the passage of time, the leadership becomes less bold, more risk-averse, and the concepts it is following grow evermore out-moded. The result is some new crisis, which shakes everything up. The last years of each period are characterized by stagnation and broad, suffocating consensus. According to Sieff, we are approaching the end of such a cycle.

In addition, peace and prosperity reinforce these phenomena. They lead to complacency and self-absorption. There is little interest in foreign affairs. No matter how much the president may commit mistakes on that score, few seem to care, according to Sieff. Indeed, despite Clinton's gross mishandling of Iraq policy, Iraq was not an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign. According to political experts, it did not "poll well."

In fact, four years earlier Wolfowitz cautioned about the consequences of a lack of public interest in foreign affairs. Wolfowitz recalled the second debate in the 1996 presidential campaign, in which questions to the candidates came from the audience:

Well into the debate, only one rather peripheral question had been asked about foreign policy, which led the frustrated moderator, Jim Lehrer, to plead for more on the subject. The questioner he then called on dutifully asked about U.S.-Japan trade policy differences. That was the end of any discussion on foreign policy in that debate, or, for that matter, in the campaign itself.²⁰

Wolfowitz likened the present era to the end of the last century, which also saw extensive, accelerated economic growth, and remarkable technological progress: the automobile, airplane, radio, and telephone. It too bred a popular view that little danger existed to America and war had become obsolete, captured most famously in Norman Angell's book, The Great Illusion, published in 1910. Angell argued that given the momentous changes that had occurred in the past forty years, including the emergence of a considerable financial interdependence among world capitals, nations could no longer profit from war. Many of his followers-- including the President of Stanford University, in 1913--concluded that there would be no major war. Needless to say there was. Even more, the twentieth century proved to be the bloodiest century mankind has ever witnessed.

That America (and the other liberal democracies) are not particularly interested in foreign affairs in times of peace and prosperity helps explain how Clinton and his top advisers were able to get away with doing virtually nothing over eight years to address the threat posed by Saddam. But others contributed.

In particular, the Iraq experts were very much involved in conveying the impression that Saddam was not a serious danger. In the spring of 1996, a State Department official (who was more than a Middle East expert) was traveling to the Middle East with a White House official who worked on Iraq. The State Department official took the opportunity of the long flight to raise the issue of Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, as they had become known after Kamil's defection. At one point, the White House official remarked, "Would you like to tell the president in an election year that we may have more of a problem with Iraq than we thought?" And so the conversation ended. The State Department official soon resigned.

Nor were the Iraq experts outside government much different.²¹ In their majority, they let the administration's position constitute the framework in which they described the threat posed by Saddam and otherwise analyzed events. According to the rules they played by, one might disagree somewhat with aspects of the administration's policy, but one should not present a strong critique. And because so many people played by these rules, it created the appearance of an expert consensus, backing up the Clinton administration.

That was so, despite the administration's extreme irresponsibility. At one point this author pressed one of Washington's Iraq experts about this game. We were talking about a third person, in government, but he had been playing the game as well, and the matter applied to him too. The question was: where would responsibility lie if something quite terrible happened because Saddam had been left in power--if he developed nuclear weapons and used them or carried out a biological terror attack?

The man replied, "The times are very cynical and everyone must do what he must do for his career."

That may sound shocking. But it was common enough. For example, one might look at Iraq Strategy Review: Options for U.S. Policy, a monograph purporting to be an analysis of U.S. options for dealing with Iraq.²² Significantly, it appeared in the summer of 1998, in the lull that followed the first two crises over UNSCOM, and before the third crisis began with Iraq's August 1998 announcement that it was "suspending" weapons inspections. At that point, the U.S. Congress was increasingly pressing the administration to finance and arm the INC to enable it to conduct an insurgency against Saddam. But the administration did not want to do so, even though it had no other real policy for dealing with Iraq.

Iraq Strategy Review considered five options, presented within an unusual and artificial framework. The introductory chapter explained, "This study is not the place to analyze how great is the Saddam threat."²³ But how can one judge how to deal with a danger, if consideration of the nature of the danger is precluded? In any case, the authors were tasked with making the best case for the policy they were asked to discuss, writing about the various advantages and disadvantages of their assigned policy option.

The five options were "containment" (broad and narrow); overthrowing Saddam; deterring Iraq (i.e. treating Iraq like other outlaw states); and going to war against Iraq. All the options turned out to have their good points and bad points--save for the option of overthrowing Saddam, the policy being pushed by the U.S. Congress. That was simply unthinkable.

Upon reading a draft of the monograph, one senior national security figure suggested that the whole project should be abandoned. A second senior national security figure suggested finding a new author, sympathetic to the option of overthrowing Saddam, to write that chapter, so that it would have the same quality as the others. That was done. But after the chapter was submitted, the editor reworked it, so that it reached the exact opposite conclusion.²⁴

Two of those who wrote chapters advising that the U.S. should do little about Iraq told this author that they did not believe what they had written and that the Iraqi threat was much greater than they had suggested.²⁵ And one author, in particular, did tangibly advance his career, at least in the short run.

Ken Pollack and Daniel Byman were the authors of the original chapter in Iraq Policy Review that analyzed the option of supporting the Iraqi opposition in such dismal terms. The chapter was slightly reworked, a third author was added, and it appeared in Foreign Affairs.²⁶ Immediately thereafter, Pollack was hired to cover Iraq at the White House. Over a year later, Pollack was among those criticized by name in The New Republic for Clinton's failed Iraq policy. Pollack actually responded with a letter, complaining that his views were misrepresented and he, in fact, advocated the notion that the U.S. should support the Iraqi opposition.²⁷

The basic policy of the Clinton administration was to maintain sanctions on Iraq. The policy was thoroughly inadequate to the nature of the threat that Saddam posed, particularly as it became known after Hussein Kamil's defection. However, the peace and prosperity America enjoyed during the 1990's dulled popular sensibilities about the existence of danger from Iraq. This general complacency was reinforced by a strong tendency among the Iraq experts in policy-making circles to tailor their work to accommodate the Clinton administration's position.

The new Bush administration will inherit not so much a policy on Iraq, as eight years of neglect. If the new administration continues on the path Clinton has laid, it will find that the threat posed by Saddam will increase significantly during its term in office.

The alternative is to resolve, at the outset, on adopting a vigorous policy toward Iraq. That would entail reestablishing the goal of the administration that fought the Gulf War: ousting Saddam. If the new administration were to make a serious and credible commitment to that goal, it would have support from a significant number of states in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt.

However, absent such a commitment, and decisive action, the second Bush administration, like the first, may find itself one day surprised by another major act of Iraqi aggression. But the next war will be Saddam's last stand. And it will probably be significantly different from the previous Gulf War. Above all, it will probably not be limited to conventional weapons. Indeed, it may prove to be the awful, shocking, but seminal event, that ends the complacency, self-absorption, and suffocating consensus that led to the re-emergence of the Saddam threat in the first place.

Notes

  ¹ As recently as January 14, Iraq's Oil Minister reiterated Baghdad's refusal to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq�unless sanctions are lifted. Reuters, "Iraq Will Not Let U.N. Weapons Inspectors Return," January 14, 2001.
  ² Daily Telegraph, January 10, 2001
  ³ Iraq's nuclear program is quite advanced. All it lacks for a bomb is the fissile material. Most recently, an Israeli expert, Dany Shoham, estimated that Iraq would have nuclear weapons within one to four years, "Expert: Iraq to Have Nuclear Arms in 4 Years," Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2001.
  ⁴ John Bolton, to author.
  ⁵ Paul Wolfowitz, "The United States and Iraq," in John Calabrese (ed), The Future of Iraq, (Washington DC: Middle East Institute, 1997), p. 108.
  ⁶ Schwarzkopf also had to be pressured into developing a plausible strategy to fight the war. And when it was time to begin the ground war, he again hesitated. See General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, It Doesn't Take a Hero, (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), Chapters 19 and 22.
  ⁷ "While we hope that a popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the United States nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Breaking up the Iraqi state would pose its own destablizing problems." George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 489.
  ⁸ Laurie Mylroie, The Future of Iraq, (Washington: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1991), p.46.
  ⁹ The Washington Post, March 29, 1991. Indeed, that was a common position among America's Arabists. As the Washington Post, March 24, 1991, explained, "Experts on the region such a Phebe Marr of the National Defense University contend that the domestic chaos in Iraq will reduce the likelhood that the military can get rid of Saddam soon. The rebellion is strengthening Saddam, not weakening him. . . . No military is going to overthrow him while they are fighting a rebellion." Marr was one of several Iraq experts, brought by Richard Haas, NSC adviser on the Middle East, to brief Bush on Iraq. Another was Christine Moss Helms. She was quoted in The New York Times, March 21, 1991, "It is important to stabilize the situation in Iraq . . . Until the situation is stabilized nobody is going to be able to focus on getting rid of Saddam Hussein."
  ¹⁰ Wolfowitz, ibid. p. 108.
  ¹¹ Jim Hoagland, "Sanctions to Topple Saddam," Washington Post, May 20, 1991.
  ¹² "Clinton Backs Raid but Muses About a New Start," New York Times, January 14, 1993.
  ¹³ "Clinton Affirms US Policy on Iraq," New York Times, January 15, 1993.
  ¹⁴ "U.S. Drops Demand for Saddam's Ouster," Washington Post, March 30, 1993; "Clinton's Effort o Depersonalize Policy Toward Iraq Makes Arab Allies Nervous," Wall Street Journal, April 5, 1993.
  ¹⁵ Martin Indyk, Address to The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, May 18, 1993.
  ¹⁶ See Laurie Mylroie, "Iraq in the Absence of Weapons Inspectors," Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, July 2000 for an extensive discussion of Iraq's weapons programs as they became known after Kamil's defection.
  ¹⁷ This was the word used by a senior State Department official who dealt with Iraq, in a discussion with a reporter for a major U.S. newspaper. The reporter then told this author.
  ¹⁸ For example, after UNSCOM issued its December 1995 report, which showed that Iraq was not turning over its newly revealed unconventional capabilities, I tried to take the information from that report, as well as the October 1995 report and publish it as an op-ed, in the Wall Street Journal, for which I had regularly written. The editor hesitated. He asked why he didn't see similar things elsewhere. It was not a question I could answer. Subsequently, I met with a senior Saudi official. He was surprised I couldn't get the article published and he made a call to a senior person at the paper. The article then appeared as "The Forgotten War," Wall Street Journal, April 4, 1996.
Over a year later, a colleague who had worked in the State Department, was prompted by the warnings Ekeus gave about Iraq's weapons programs, as he prepared to leave his position as UNSCOM chairman. The former State Department official wrote an op-ed about Iraq's retained unconventional capabilities. He submitted it to the Washington Post in July 1997. The editor was stunned. He asked the author if the information was true. The author assured him it was. The editor then asked where the information had come from, thinking perhaps it was classified information. The author explained that it came from the UNSCOM reports. The editor was surprised to hear that it was public information and nixed the article, asking, "How does this advance the story?"
  ¹⁹ December 16, 1998.
  ²⁰ Paul Wolfowitz, "Bridging Centuries: Fin de Siecle All Over Again," The National Interest, Spring 1997, p. 3.
  ²¹ This phenomenon was not limited to America's Iraq experts. It also included Israelis who established themselves in Washington, or sought to do so during the Clinton years. As Fairbanks remarked, Israel is affected by the same trends that have influenced the U.S., even though Israel would seem to have clear enemies.
  ²² Patrick L. Clawson (editor), Iraq Strategy Review: Options for U.S. Policy (Washington DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998)
  ²³ Ibid. p. 11
  ²⁴ Patrick L. Clawson, "An Alternative Framework: Support Iraqi Liberation" in ibid.
  ²⁵ The work was so bald-faced that it was the subject of much discussion, reported by various people to this author.
  ²⁶ Kenneth Pollack, David Byman, and Gideon Rose, "The Rollback Fantasy," Foreign Affairs, January/February 1999.
  ²⁷ Lawrence F. Kaplan, "America's Iraq Policy Collapses," The New Republic, October 24, 2000; Letters, The New Republic, December 11, 2000,