Senate Testimony - Charles Duelfer:
foreign.senate.gov
Testimony before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
United States Senate
31 July 2002
Charles Duelfer
Resident Visiting Scholar
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Former Deputy Executive Chairman
United Nations Special Commission on Iraq
(UNSCOM)
Thank you for the opportunity to testify at such a critical moment with respect to relations and actions toward Iraq. My remarks will reflect my years investigating Iraq’s weapons programs as the Deputy Executive Chairman of UNSCOM. This gave me the opportunity to know Iraqi institutions and individual Iraqis high and low. I dealt with diplomats, technocrats, military, intelligence and regime officials as well as many Iraqis who have departed Iraq. While I was a UN official, my Iraqi interlocutors were always aware that I was an American familiar with Washington and its policies on Iraq.
As other witnesses have made clear, a key feature of the present regime is its dedication to all types of weapons of mass destruction. I can only underline the view that, all other things being equal, the current leadership in Baghdad will eventually achieve a nuclear weapon in addition to their current inventories of other weapons of mass destruction. For more than a decade the regime allocated billions of dollars and the efforts of thousands of individuals toward this end. That they were near success in 1991 is a tribute to the vast talent of the Iraqi people, the great resources of the country, and their misdirection by reckless, oppressive leadership. To me this highlights the enormous difference between what Iraq could be under different leadership and what it will be if the present regime continues.
Looking forward, the risk posed by the present regime will entail leverage of growing oil production (perhaps to 4-5 million barrels a day in a few years), the diminished effectiveness of sanctions as a restraining force, and the ultimate risk of a belligerent state in the region with nuclear weapons. The leadership in Baghdad knows that it was a serious blunder to invade Kuwait before they had a nuclear weapon. Regional states know this as well and recognize they will have to accommodate Saddam once a nuclear weapon is achieved. Even now they are very cautious not to antagonize the regime. So far, Saddam has proven to be a survivor and quite willing to exercise whatever leverage available to him.
In opposition to the accumulating dangers of the present regime, it is worth considering the opportunity cost to the world, and especially to the Iraqi people of the persistence of this regime.
In my experience, most Iraqis would like nothing more than to be reconnected to the rest of the world and indeed, the United States. Through the accident of birth, individuals with talent in the sciences, engineering and even military serve in a country under a miserable leadership. Exercising the option of not serving at the direction of the regime is to put themselves and families at great risk.
During my years at UNSCOM, working toward the elimination of Iraqi WMD capabilities, I often commented to colleagues in Washington that if I had 100 green cards to pass out, we could have the Iraqi program dissected and eliminated. This was meant to illustrate that the programs depend critically on a relatively limited number of people-people, who, given a choice, would rather be someplace else. Of course no one provided them such a choice. Nevertheless many Iraqis leave if they can. The constant drain of Iraqis illustrates the hopelessness in Iraq. A country with all the ingredients to be a growing regional economic power is, instead, a waste of great talent and squandered resources.
The long-term threat posed by this regime cannot, in my opinion, be addressed with weapons inspections. The experience of UNSCOM from 1991 to 1998 bears this out. While UNSCOM accomplished significant disarmament, it was not complete and it certainly wasn’t permanent. At best the inspections provided a temporary improvement to regional stability. However, the goal in UN resolutions is not temporary WMD disarmament but permanent coercive disarmament. This means the inspectors were ultimately supposed to monitor extensively and intrusively forever. Iraq was supposed to comply fully and verifiably. If they did so, sanctions were to be lifted.
Iraq offered tactical cooperation and worked to divide the Security Council and erode sanctions. The international community could not sustain its commitment to its own resolutions-especially when confronted with the impact on Iraqi civilians that were ultimately held hostage by the leadership in Baghdad. From the regime’s perspective, inspections were a temporary setback. They were correct. It is highly probable that if Baghdad becomes convinced that significant action to depose the regime is likely, they will offer the concession of accepting inspectors once again with the aim of buying time and dividing the international community.
A critical point we learned in the mid-nineties was just how important weapons of mass destruction were held by the regime. Senior Iraqi officials stated convincingly that the use of chemical weapons saved them in the war against Iran. It was their counter to Iranian human wave attacks. The use of long range missiles was also seen as vital to attack cities deep in Iran behind the forward battle lines.
Moreover, the regime believes that the possession of chemical and biological weapons contributed strongly to deterring the United States from going to Baghdad in 1991. They first described their pre-war actions to disperse weapons and pre-delegate authority to use them if the United States went to Baghdad in a long meeting with Iraqi in September 1995. This discussion took place only after a surprising event during the history of UNSCOM’s work in Iraq.
Saddam’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, defected to Jordan in August 1995. He had been the lead member in the ruling family directing much of the WMD effort. Following his defection, UNSCOM learned the WMD program was more extensive than had been declared and efforts were still underway--even as UNSCOM was operating its monitoring system. Moreover, we learned that a system for the concealment of these activities was run out of the Presidency. UNSCOM came close to having an inspection and monitoring system in Iraq where we would report Iraqi cooperation, but they would not be complying.
Prior to the defection, many members of the Security Council had been pressing UNSCOM to report favorably on its disarmament and monitoring work. They had tired of the long dispute that consumed long debates in the Security Council. Moreover, Iraq had been threatening to end its work with the UN unless UNSCOM reported favorably and the Security Council acted to end sanctions. Saddam Hussein himself declared such a threat in his National Day speech of July 17, 1995. The Iraqi Foreign Minister, in Cairo a few days later, set a deadline of August 31, 1995.
Finding Iraq intractable, many began, implicitly, to question UNSCOM. Maybe UNSCOM was simply too fastidious or worse, too much under the influence of the United States. Maybe Iraq would never be able to satisfy the technocrats in UNSCOM and then the Security Council would be stuck. These arguments and this predicament are not new.
The last time the international community attempted this sort of political solution to a military threat was following World War I when Germany was subject to strict disarmament limits set in the Versailles Treaty. An international body analogous to UNSCOM was created (called the Inter-Allied Control Commission) with virtually identical tasks as given UNSCOM and similar limitations. The dynamic was the same. An international body was directed by a victorious coalition to verify the coercive disarmament of a country that had not been occupied.
These earlier inspectors encountered all the same problems and deceptions as UNSCOM. I have looked up their reports in the British archives. Change some of the nouns and you would think you were reading UNSCOM reports. They were harassed, given wrong and misleading declarations, blocked from sites, accused of being spies, and pressured to give false positive reports, etc. Germany (particularly the Reichswehr under the direct guidance of General Hans Von Seeckt) worked to sustain capabilities and development work with the same strategies and techniques that UNSCOM found in Iraq. Development work was concealed in a variety of ways, including in civilian areas (e.g. hidden Krupp arms development, secret naval design efforts, like the pocket battleship, and civil aviation masking military training). Programs were located overseas (e.g. expertise in submarine work was offered overseas, tank and aircraft training took place in Russia as well as the sale of a chemical weapons production plant). Only when France reoccupied the Ruhr did Germany become, albeit temporarily, forthcoming with proper weapons declarations.
At the same time, Germany under Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann worked diplomatically to escape the constraints. The Allied coalition of 1918 eventually melted down in its purpose. Ultimately after six years of inspections, the Inter-Allied Control Commission was removed from Germany-it’s work incomplete, but political momentum swept over its reports. The international community in 1926-27 halted the inspections with the artifice that Germany would join the League of Nations and be subject to the global disarmament actions under that body.
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was well aware of this disconnect between the inspectors categorical goals and the murky commitment of force behind them. He said on more than one occasion that we were not General MacArthur. We did not occupy Iraq. Therefore there were limits to what we could do.
Tariq Aziz was absolutely correct, although we did our best to escape this reality. UNSCOM tried very intrusive and imaginative methods to penetrate the security of Iraqi weapons programs (including techniques not usually associated with an international body accustomed to the virtues of transparency and diversity of membership). However, against the full resources of a nation-state, with thousands of people and many intelligence and security organs, it was a hopeless endeavor. To illustrate, consider that while UNSCOM had hundreds of so-called “no-notice” inspections (where no information was intentionally provided to Iraq in advance), there were very few occasions when Iraqis were actually surprised when inspectors arrived at the intended site.
However, even if one could imagine the most extensive and intrusive system of inspections, accompanied by significant military forces, could the international community sustain this forever? It has been suggested that in the face of imminent invasion, the Saddam may finally five up WMD. But how long can the United States and the international community sustain the threat of imminent invasion? Will the sanctions also be sustained and at what price to the Iraqi people? Is the problem really the weapons or the leadership? Not being clear on this matter has left the weapons inspectors in the miserable position of being tasked with a goal that cannot be achieved while greater powers avoid facing the tough issues embodied by the Baghdad leadership. The Security Council’s inability to force permanent compliance by Iraq with the very intrusive and stringent disarmament and monitoring measures leads to the case for regime removal.
A rationale can be made that the unique risks presented by this regime constitute a rare occasion when the international community is justified in intervening in internal matters of another state. This is a circumstance where sovereignty does not reign supreme. The regime is a growing threat and has taken its own population hostage. Simply to say the Iraqi people should change their own leadership is disingenuous. Many have tried and died. The regime’s track record of using WMD, its ongoing defiance of cease-fire resolutions and WMD development provide grounds for a case justifying outside intervention. Such intervention would aim to create conditions whereby the Iraqi people can change their own government.
However, any proposed strategy to change the leadership in Baghdad must recognize two basic points. First, such an action is fundamentally a political action, not a military action. The second point follows from the first. The most important people in this endeavor are Iraqis in Iraq. They are the people who will make vital decisions about whether to assist in defending the regime or not. They, and the institutions they are part of, will make the decisions about how quickly the Saddam regime ends and at what cost. They are the people who will constitute the government that follows. In most ways the people of Iraq are the greatest threat to Saddam.
With this in mind, it is essential to present a clear coherent message about what the United States and the international community expect to see in any new government in Baghdad. It must be clear that new management in Baghdad will significantly improve the lot of the Iraqi people. The case must be made that forcing Saddam from power is not anti-Arab, but actually one of the most positive steps imaginable for the Arab world.
Decisions about such matters as sanctions, security relationships, and debt relief should be linked to on how the new government progresses toward agreed objectives such as pluralism, democratic elections, getting rid of WMD, cleaning up the financial system, etc. Indeed, for most institutions in Iraq, new management should be an enormous advantage.
Given a choice, Iraqis would not opt to live under the government of the Saddam regime. They will never achieve their vast potential under the current regime and implicitly senior Iraqis recognize this. They will only begin to reach their potential if they rejoin the world as part of a country with leadership that follows internationally accepted norms.
These messages of what is expected of a new government in Baghdad must be accompanied by a firm commitment by the United States and the international community to stay the course. Hence, agreement on objectives must be reached with due consideration of the views of Iraqis in and out of Iraq, regional states, colleagues in the Security Council, and our European partners. These are achievable political goals if the United States provides strong consistent leadership. For the United States to exercise such leadership, it should be founded on support within the United States itself.
Finally, the United States can and must be willing to act alone if it judges its vital interests are directly affected. However, it would be far better, and ultimately less costly, if international consensus can be achieved. It is easy to view the United States going to the United Nations Security Council akin to Gulliver going to Lilliput. Yet ultimately the Lilliputians may be willing and helpful participants. Indeed, consensus is not out of the question.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan addressed circumstances when sovereignty does not reign supreme in a speech to the UN General Assembly on September 20, 1999. He was reflecting recent experiences in Rwanda and Kosovo, but took recognition of the fact that the world had changed and continued to change. His speech touched upon a very sensitive issue for an assembly of sovereign states. If nothing else, he highlighted the possibility that under certain circumstances external intervention may be justified.
Such a case could be made with respect to Iraq under the current regime. It is a growing risk to all concerned, not least of which are the Iraqi people themselves.
One certainty is that the situation is not static. Iraq is going to evolve one way or the other. Limited actions by the international community will have limited effects. The threat will continue to grow and in the meantime the opportunity for a positive Iraq continue to slide into the future. This is clearly an issue where the United States must lead one way or another. Mr. Chairman, you and your committee are raising an important subject that needs to be examined from many aspects. I hope my comments have helped illuminate some facets of this difficult issue.
I attach copies of two recent and relevant op-ed articles for the record. |
