First Strike
by Spencer Ackerman
Only at TNR Online | Post date 08.02.02
Wednesday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Iraq were supposed to spark vigorous public debate about the necessity, desirability, feasibility, and implications of an American war against Saddam Hussein. But one of its most illuminating moments occurred when an Iraqi defector ducked a question from Senator Russ Feingold.
The Wisconsin Democrat wanted an assessment: Just how imminent a threat did Saddam's weapons of mass destruction pose to the United States? Khidir Hamza, who was once at the head of Iraq's nuclear-weapons development, cut to the heart of the matter. "Surely," he said, "what we are talking about here really is a preemptive strike for a possible future danger which is much larger than we have right now." Feingold objected that Hamza didn't answer his question, which was true--Feingold was asking about the threat Saddam currently poses. But by changing the subject and talking about the threat Saddam will pose in the future, Hamza moved the discussion to right where it ought to be.
As expressed in Wednesday and Thursday's marathon hearings--slated to continue after the August recess--and before, there are four basic arguments for going to war with Iraq.
Weapons of mass destruction: The CIA believes Hussein to possess 2,650 gallons of anthrax; Hamza testified that credible German intelligence indicates he already has enough uranium for three nuclear weapons by 2005. Thus, the argument: We must go to war to destroy the lunatic's existing arsenal.
Inspections: A related rationale holds that Saddam's decision to remove UNSCOM inspectors ("We will fool them and we will bribe them," he had reportedly said previously) in 1998 proves an unacceptable willingness to flout international will--specifically, Security Council Resolution 687, which made the end of containment hinge on the destruction of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
The ceasefire: Yet another related contention stipulates that we're already at war with Iraq, since Hussein violated the terms of the ceasefire that ended the Gulf War.
Al Qaeda: The final case frames the war against Saddam within the context of the war on terror, citing the dangers of Hussein cooperating with Al Qaeda fanatics or other terrorists who seek our destruction. Just as the United States destroyed one regime that gave succor to terrorists, so it must with another.
Three of these rationales have serious flaws. If the collapse of the inspections regime justifies war, after all, why didn't the United States fight as soon as Saddam sent UNSCOM packing in 1998--or when President Bush took office in 2001? The Bush administration certainly did not speak of war with Iraq before September 11. In fact, while on the campaign trail, Condoleeezza Rice considered mobilizing "support from [Saddam's] opposition" to be the maximum U.S. commitment to removing the dictator.
The broken ceasefire argument is just an extension of this argument, only more legalistic--which means, all logic aside, it's unlikely to marshal domestic support for military action and almost guaranteed to reap international scorn. The case that Saddam has been providing resources to Al Qaeda remains very tenuous at this point--far too tenuous, given what we know, to justify a war.
That leaves just the argument about weapons of mass destruction. Nobody questions--at least, nobody should question--the importance of destroying that arsenal before Saddam uses it to harm us. But some might argue we should stop at just that: eliminating the existing weapons, and leaving the regime in place. The problem with this argument, as Hamza made clear in his testimony, is that leaving Saddam in power means allowing him to build more weapons in the future--with even greater destructive capacity, and with even more opportunities to shield them from our reach.
We've had a hard enough time containing Saddam's arsenal construction in the current environment. Why does seem more realistic to think we could do so in the future, given his obvious determination to acquire these weapons? And if the destruction of Saddam, not just his weapons, is the inevitable endpoint for U.S. policy, why not do it now? War, Hamza testified, "is much easier now at much less cost and less danger to the U.S. ... than after the window closes." As Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, observed at Thursday's hearing, "We have to be prepared for the fact that if we do this, it will in many ways be our first preemptive war. We will not have a clear smoking gun."
This is the case the Bush administration must make when it sends people to testify before the committee when Congress resumes its business. Regime change means an open-ended commitment to building a new Iraq, and such an arduous enterprise will succeed or fail based on public appetite for engagement. The foreign relations committee's hearings are not an obstacle to the task at hand, but a prerequisite. The public deserves an administration candor to match Hamza's. As Senator Joseph Biden, who called the hearings, has said, "A national dialogue on a very important question" is crucial. The American people, in Feingold's phrase, "are right to insist on a sober and honest effort" to present the facts about the job ahead.
Spencer Ackerman is a reporter-researcher at TNR. |
