Wes Vernon
Saturday, Feb. 3, 2001

"Getting rid of him will not be easy, and it will take a lot of work," a knowledgeable source told NewsMax.com.

"And the path of least resistance, of course, in any administration is to not do a whole lot."

"You can kick the can down the line a little longer," said a seasoned foreign affairs official, who added it "would be a big step," but the White House is considering all options.

Said another person close to the effort to oust Saddam from power, "I think President Bush is keenly aware of all these problems, having watched his dad conduct the Desert Storm operation" 10 years ago this winter.

One veteran diplomat acknowledged the first Bush administration took a lot of criticism for "not finishing the job" and capturing or eliminating Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War. But, he said, "We had good reason to believe that members of the Iraqi Republican Guard," resentful of being dispatched into a war against impossible odds, backed by nothing but propaganda bravado out of Baghdad, "would take care of Saddam themselves."

That it did not turn out that way does not mitigate the available intelligence at the time, he added.

At a Capitol Hill briefing Friday on "Prospects for a Post-Saddam Iraq," activists for ousting the "butcher of Baghdad" rejected arguments that it was all right to let sanctions on Iraq slip because of their perceived negative effects on the Iraqi people.

"In point of fact," argued Dr. Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, "over the past few years, the sanctions have been restructured to focus more on military and dual-use goods."

Although the administration of ex-President Bill Clinton was not mentioned by name, the thrust of much of the discussion in the briefing was to the effect that George W. Bush had the task of trying to pick up the pieces after an eight-year era of neglect that had left the senior President George Bush’s policy of strength and resolve in a shambles.

Dr. Rend Rahim Francke, executive director of the Iraq Foundation, said that taking a stand in favor of helping the dissidents in Iraq would aid the U.S. not just in its own security against the nuclear and biological weapons and other parts of the Iraqi war machine that Saddam has steadily built, but also would enable the United States to "regain the moral high ground." Though not mentioning it directly, she did not contradict those who suggested the Clinton administration’s decision to acquiesce in Saddam’s ejecting U.N. inspectors out of Iraq was a key factor in this country’s losing "the high ground."

The emphasis among the dissidents attending the briefing was not to spur the United States into unilateral military action. First the new president must act quickly to repair the condition of the U.S. military, which has deteriorated in the last eight years. Then there is the belief in some quarters that the worldwide anti-Saddam coalition stitched together by the elder Bush and his advisers would be difficult to replicate today.

Rather, there was a common thread running through the discussion about "supporting the dissidents." Not an easy job either, because there are so many factions. But Saddam has united them in their hatred of a man widely regarded as "crazy."

Dr. Jamal Fuad, minister of humanitarian assistance and cooperation, Kurdistan Regional Government, Sulaimania, was calling for "highly visible support of the United States and its allies in safeguarding the Kurdish enclave that has kept Saddam at bay for the time being." His analysis stresses the need to "safeguard the current 13 percent allocation from the sale of oil to attend to reconstruction needs of the Kurdish areas" that have been devastated by four decades of the Iraqi destruction in Iraqi Kurdistan. This was a reference to the "food for oil" program.

Dr. Shafiq Qazzaz emphasized that Kurdistan "requires the continued promotion and provision and continuing access to the resources offered by Iraq’s natural oil wealth."

Noting that "Saddam has been and will continue to be a real danger for the Iraqi people," Dr. Hamid T. Al-Bayati, U.K. representative, Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, said that a democratic republic in Iraq could best be assured through "a coalition of all anti-Saddam forces broadly representative of the different popular movements."

The pressure to lift sanctions continues, not just from Saddam’s threats, but from segments of the international community. For example, Iraq owes Russia a lot of money. Russia would like to deprive Iraq of the excuse that it can’t pay because of the sanctions.

The bottom line was summed up concisely by Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, member of the Leadership Council, the Iraqi National Congress:

"The Iraqi National Congress has a comprehensive plan for the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power and establishment of a new democratic Iraqi government – addressing the military, humanitarian, diplomatic and political tasks ahead. The plan has received wide support from the United States Congress” through legislation. It also has the support of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other administration officials.

One American foreign affairs expert said it was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that Iran, for all the troubles the U.S. has had with that nation, may be encouraged to play a significant role in crushing Saddam, who has used biological warfare against Iranians.

"There has been this feeling that in the final showdown, Iran and Iraq may come together," he said. "But that’s been tried and it hasn’t worked. Saddam is his own worst enemy."

Meanwhile, the mass executions, village destruction, "ethnic cleansing," torture and cruel punishments have prompted calls for an ad hoc international tribunal to deal with Saddam Hussein if he is captured alive.

And then there is the continuing threat that an emboldened Iraqi regime presents to the U.S., which may or may not be able to create a missile defense system before Saddam or some other crazed American-hating tyrant decides to rain down destruction on American cities.

National security experts in this country are appalled at the weakness shown by the previous administration (a policy "resting firmly on indecision," as one critic put it). With the son of the last president who boldly confronted Saddam now in the White House, along with Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, who became household names during Desert Storm, the hope is that the time has arrived to deal with the Iraqi butcher before he deals with us.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Saddam Hussein / Iraq
Clinton Scandals

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