Is the Current UN and US Policy toward Iraq Effective?
WILLIAM F. DONAHER and ROSS B. DeBLOIS
Parameters
US Army War College Quarterly, Winter 2001-2002, Vol. XXXI, No. 4
...
Policy Recommendations
• Lift all economic and political sanctions in return for Iraqi compliance with the terms of the UN cease-fire, requiring full Iraqi compliance in providing reparations and the recognition by Iraq of its new borders with a sovereign Kuwait.
• Keep in place sanctions that prevent the import of any items to enhance or grow the Iraqi military machine and WMD program. Restrict flow of technology that can be applied to WMD. Develop an export control process that limits Iraq's importation of specific goods..
• Allow unlimited production of oil while diverting a sufficient amount of money to pay applicable war reparations (Kuwait, etc.).
• Permit foreign countries to enter into Iraq to fulfill contracts for business within the country, especially the United States. Believe in the positive influence of private investment, that companies help advance their social, political, and economic institutions.
• Insist on the insertion of UNMOVIC to monitor the WMD program within Iraq. In addition, if UNMOVIC is allowed to enter country, no-fly and no-drive zones will be lifted.
• Grant amnesty for everyone in the Iraqi government (except Saddam) when a new regime comes to power.
• Support Iraqi territorial integrity and unity (to dispel the belief we want to break it up).
• Establish UN human rights monitors.
• Flood Iraq with humanitarian goods. Provide a specified amount of money to the ICRC, or any other objective nongovernmental organization, for humanitarian goods and distribution, to include infrastructure (hospital, water and sanitation, etc.).
• Increase, reenergize diplomacy (preventive, forward-thinking).
• Rescind the Iraq Liberation Act. Get out of internal politics in Iraq.
• Promote America's central themes--democracy, freedom, human rights.
• Win the "public relations" battle against Hussein. Increase diplomacy with allies.
• Require full accountability of all Kuwaiti prisoners of war from the Gulf War.
• Require Iraq to renounce any territorial claim to Kuwait.
• Allow Iraqi citizens to study abroad.
...
Simply maintaining economic sanctions in Iraq is counterproductive to the long-term goal of retaining US influence in the region. Sanctions and the Oil-for-Food program have had two main effects: (1) they have allowed Saddam Hussein to use them as a propaganda tool against the United States, thus developing within Iraq a generation of hatred toward the West which we will have to deal with for years to come; and (2) although sanctions may have limited proliferation of WMD in the past, without the inspection process in place, there is no assurance for the future or even the present.
...
The current condition of the Iraqi military, coupled with the forward presence of US military forces, will prevent it from conducting any sort of power projection quests for several years. As mentioned earlier in this article, the movement of Iraqi military forces is closely monitored to ensure they are contained. To enhance regional stability, firms from foreign countries should be allowed to enter Iraq to fulfill contracts for business within the country--especially firms from the United States. The positive influence of private businesses would help advance Iraqi social, political, and economic institutions.
...
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia also need to fully come to grips with their demands for repayment of debt and reparations. The West needs to abandon unrealistic demands for war-crime trials and the rapid development of democracy and human rights. There are disturbing parallels between the kind of peace the UN has enforced on Iraq in terms of sanctions, potential war-crime trials, reparations, and loan repayments, and the kind of peace the allies forced on Germany after World War I. Once again, the West and the southern Gulf need to remember that it is more important to make history than to remember it. Not every tragedy needs to have a second act.
...
carlisle-www.army.mil |
