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Of Sanctions and Missions

© Carey Goodman

Is the flow of oil and hard currency more powerful than high tech weapons?

As a major oil producing state, Iraq owes many US Gulf War allies multi-billion dollar debts, but American policy clings to the hard line view that it will maintain sanctions until Saddam Hussein is ousted. There is one problem: Sanctions work very slowly and do not harm the trouble makers. While the rest of Baghdad starves, Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council members have more than adequate supplies. During interviews when he defected in September 1995, Mr. Hussein's son-in-law rarely mentioned sanctions. States who seek debt payments cannot collect them while sanctions exist. Sanctions have failed everywhere else, and they will not affect the fate of the Hussein administration.

When the US ended the Gulf War, that decision helped the Iraqi dictator. The UN mandate stipulated that the objective was to free Kuwait, but states rarely obey the intent of UN mandates. With all its precision weapons, smart bombs, missiles, and surveilance capabilities, the US could have easily "accidently" dropped bombs on Mr. Hussein's "actual" command and control center. Sanctions will not suffice. Eliminating the aggressor is the only way to solve the problems in Iraq.

The haphazard by-the-seat-of-the-trousers US policy emerged in September 1996 when a missile attack was launched against the Iraqi intelligence center in Baghdad. The attack (which occurred in time for the US evening news) killed the civilian janitorial staff at the facility but produced no new information. The launch of that missile was a purely unilateral and political American decision. Similar ideological conditions guided its actions in November 1997.

Frequent conflicts occurred between the Iraqi government and UN weapons inspectors. In September 1991 UN inspectors were detained five days to await delivery of documents related to dual purpose equipment. The US told the UN Iraq was hiding information and materials from the inspectors. The US repeated those claims in October 1997. In response to these complaints, in November Iraq ordered all American inspection commissioners to leave the country. The UN then evacuated all inspectors. The Americans traveled by car to Aman; the other inspectors traveled by plane to Baharaign. The diplomat who led the inspection team declared from New York that although the inspectors were evacuated according to nationality, the UN would not tolerate nationality discrimination. If given the option to fly to Baharaign or drive to Aman, anyone remotely familiar with the regional geography would immediately request plane tickets. That American inspectors were sent without authorized protection on the grueling ten hour drive on roads still damaged from the war demonstrates American and UN weakness from the outset of the situation.