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| OUSTING HUSSEIN | |
 November 25, 1998 
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What should the U.S. do? |
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MARGARET WARNER: Is this something the United States should be doing? Should we be trying to oust Saddam Hussein?
MARGARET WARNER: Khalil Jhashan, why do you think it's not appropriate?
MARGARET WARNER: Let me interrupt you briefly. Would your view change if we were talking not about assassination but about helping indigenous groups? In other words, do you see a difference or a distinction in the sort of morality of it between those two? KHALIL JAHSHAN: Of course. There is a lot of distinction. Certainly one could agree or disagree with the U.S policy that seeks to change a particular government by helping politically and peacefully certain elements within that society. This is something we do all the time in many countries around the world. But to seek to subvert a form of government, especially as the leading democratic power in the world today and the only superpower in existence, we feel is a negation of the nature of our own system and the nature of the philosophy on which our system is based.
ADEED DAWISHA, George Mason University: I think I agree that the - the notion of assassination probably resides outside the moral parameters of this country. However, I do take a different view in terms of undermining the rule of Saddam Hussein. There is a kind of provision in almost all moral traditions that makes it possible to remove an unjust ruler, whether this is Islamic or Christian, or any other tradition. Saddam Hussein is not your normal tin pot dictator. Saddam Hussein, one can argue, is as evil as the worst dictators that we've had. He's doing untold damage in his own country. And he is certainly a threat to the rest of the world. But my concern is with the Iraqi people and the Iraqi people cannot on their own get rid of Saddam Hussein. There is no indication and there has never been an indication that they are capable of doing that; they need to have some help. If we are prepared to help, I think we're doing - we're working within this kind of broad moral parameter, and that is to say there is a man who is doing untold harm to his people. And they can't do it on their own; there is almost a moral imperative that we should go and help. MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that, there's really a moral imperative in this case? FRANK ANDERSON, Former CIA Official: I absolutely agree that there is a moral imperative that we not accept Saddam in power in Iraq without seeking to do what we can to change that. My big concern with this is that discussions of small programs or even large programs involving support to opposition elements and particularly people who are outside the country is inevitably ineffective. Dean Acheson's wisdom on this subject I think is right in this. It was the comment that if you wish to change the form of government in another country, you must conquer it. Frankly, I have no ethical problems with the idea of conquering Iraq if its aim is removing an unjust leader. I believe that when you examine the cost of doing that in American lives, in Iraqi lives, you do turn into it a program that not at its base but in its effect is unethical. The cost would be too high. And my biggest problem with this is that it diverts attention, and it slows us from facing the difficult choices that we're going to have to make in that region over a long period of time. MARGARET WARNER: You mean, even talking about this? FRANK ANDERSON: Even talking about it diverts attention away from what I think is the reality, and that is, if we're going to look for models on how we deal with this and what kind of a threat this is -- this is a threat like North Korea, and it's one that we will have to deal with over decades, not over a short period of time. |
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| Helping get rid of Saddam. | ||||||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: How would you - because your group has really called for this - how would you do it, short of conquering a military operation, which I think we'd all agree just politically isn't feasible? Plus the cost that Mr. Anderson just laid out.
MARGARET WARNER: And who would you nominate for that? ZALMAY KHALILZAD: Oh, I think clearly we would need Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, and possibly Jordan for this effort. And, thirdly, that we - assuming that we are serious about getting rid of Saddam - would be willing to provide economic, political, and military support in a sustained way to the Iraqis until they achieve that objective. MARGARET WARNER: Are the dissident groups that exist inside the country and particularly outside the country -- I mean, are they up to the job? We've been talking about this now for seven years. KHALIL JAHSHAN: This is a very serious, I think, consideration, and this element has not been totally understood, I think, by the American public and even by decision-makers in this country. There is a simplistic, if you will, assessment of the Iraqi opposition, particularly in a sense that this opposition is mostly a Diaspora opposition. It's outside Iraq and has --
KHALIL JAHSHAN: No. It is not fully understood. I mean, we have to understand it in a way - the hard way - during the events of '95 and '96, when that opposition was defeated and we did not feel even the moral necessity of having to rush to the rescue of it after we have put them in this predicament But the Iraqi opposition is a very diverse group. It's a weak group. We're talking here about at least 30 plus, if not even closer to 50 different groups that we have to deal with. Some of them are secular. Some of them are sectarian. Some of them are ethnic, and they do not agree with one another. There is no least common denominator, if you will, that brings a significant number of them together to agree. But what we also need to understand -- that American support for these groups is tantamount to the hug of death. The fact that we are supporting them publicly and there is a big difference between serious support as Zalmay was talking about and between public support for political purposes, which I think the administration is engaging in at this time - this is the ultimate hug of death in terms of robbing the opposition from any credibility in the eyes of the Iraqi people. MARGARET WARNER: How do you see it in terms of the feasibility of working with Iraqi dissident groups? ADEED DAWISHA: Well, I agree that the opposition outside Iraq is weak and is divided. I think it's up to the United States to make two things - to be sure of two things: first of all, to make both zones -- northern and southern - unavailable to Saddam politically and militarily; rather than work with the opposition groups, at least have their help, that's fine, but work within the dissent groups in those two zones. MARGARET WARNER: And you're talking about the Shiites in the South and the Kurds in the North? ADEED DAWISHA: In the South and the Kurds in the North. That shouldn't be that difficult. What you want to do, therefore, is to create some kind of force both in the South and in the North that will almost eat away at the credibility of Saddam's - Saddam through his armed forces. I am convinced myself that the support within the army is not as solid as people think it is -- even within the Republican Guard, which people always bring out as an example of the support for the regime. And what you want to do is to show the Republican Guard that there is a force, that there is dissension. And if you begin to see some kind of defection, some dissension within the Republican Guard, my feeling is that Saddam's rule will not last very long, if that happens. That is to my mind a much better way of going about it than working with - I agree - a Diaspora group that really has very little legitimacy inside Iraq. |
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| Political needs. | ||||||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: Do either of these scenarios sound workable to you?
MARGARET WARNER: Go ahead. FRANK ANDERSON: But Zalmay's comment that what we need is Saudi Arabia, we need Jordan, we need Turkey, we need Kuwait, we need the neighbors on our side on this. This is an issue that requires a long-term consistent and integrated policy in the United States in the area which frankly has been lacking. We have failed to recognize the needs and the costs that have been borne particularly by Turkey and by Jordan. And we have failed to recognize until very recently a lot of the political needs of countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in lining up with this when we're insufficiently attentive to their policy needs in the region. Now that has shifted, and I believe that over time we certainly are not too foolish or too weak to conduct a policy like this, but we do need to get to work on it, rather than talk about little things that won't work. MARGARET WARNER: But haven't some of the neighboring countries actually been the ones that are the most worried about the breakup of Iraq -- and that overthrowing Saddam would lead to that? ZALMAY KHALILZAD: Right. I think that neighboring countries have had two kinds of concern: One, that they have not been sympathetic to efforts that would merely stir the pot, create problems inside Iraq, without solving the problem of Saddam, so that if we had a commitment, a serious commitment to getting rid of him and supporting the opposition, I think the calculations of the neighboring states could change, that is that they would be more supportive. Second, on your disintegration question with regard to Iraq, I think it's important to keep in mind that there is some risk of that; that there are different groups - you know - different ethnic and sectarian groups. And I think as we help them, we ought to do everything we can to encourage habits of cooperation and to lessen the likelihood of turmoil and instability of the kind that we saw in Afghanistan after our very successful effort to help the Afghans resist the Soviet Union. |
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| Is Saddam Hussein vulnerable? | ||||||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: Very briefly because we're almost out of time, but Mr. Anderson, what level of U.S. military involvement would this ultimately call for? Are we talking just air power? Are we talking ground troops ultimately?
MARGARET WARNER: Briefly on that. ZALMAY KHALILZAD: I think that the amount of effort that will be required by us militarily would not be very great. I think, however, the amount of effort required to help the Iraqi opposition in terms of weapons, economic resources, would have to be much higher than what is so far accepted by the administration and put forward by the Congress MARGARET WARNER: All right. Gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you very much. |
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MARGARET
WARNER: Now, four perspectives on whether and how to replace Saddam
Hussein. Zalmay Khalilzhad was a state and Defense Department official
in the Reagan and Bush administrations. He's part of a group - the Committee
for Peace and Security in the Gulf -- that's called for Saddam's overthrow.
Khalil Jahshan is the executive director of the National Association
of Arab-Americans, which opposes U.S. efforts to overthrow Saddam. Frank
Anderson is a retired CIA official who directed the agency's covert
activities in the Mideast from 1991 to '94. And Adeed Dawisha, who was
born in Iraq, is professor of government and politics at George Mason
University.
ZALMAY
KHALILZHAD, Former State Department Official: Of course, in general,
it's up to the people of a country to change their own government if
they want to. But in the case of Iraq, I think, and in the case of Saddam,
this is an exception. Saddam poses a threat to international peace and
stability. He threatens an area of the world that is vital to the United
States, the Persian Gulf. He has not learned his lesson, given the conflict
that he caused with Iran for several years, then invading Iraq. He continues
not to cooperate with the U.N., although in order to end the war, Desert
Storm, he agreed to a number of resolutions. He continues to threaten
his own people. Given all this, I think in this case it was inappropriate
for us not to have help his overthrow immediately after the Gulf War,
and I think it's appropriate for us now, given the experience that we've
had with him since the end of the Gulf War, that we embrace this objective
of getting rid of him and helping the Iraqi people have a different
government that will be at peace with the Iraqis at home and at peace
with the neighborhood in which he lives. 
KHALIL
JAHSHAN, National Association of Arab Americans: Well, for all practical
purposes, we feel that overthrowing or assassinating Saddam Hussein
is Mission Impossible. At best, it's a costly, risky, and failure-prone
enterprise. First of all on moral grounds, we certainly feel that assassinations
and coup de tats that might involve assassinations are illegal in this
country. We've had two presidents: President Ford and President Carter
issuing presidential decrees or instructions in this regard, which have
become part and parcel of U.S. laws in this country. No. 2, we feel that
changing the leadership of Iraq, just as President Bush said in your
introductory piece, is a function of the will of the Iraqi people. That's
will Iraqi sovereignty lies. It's not a function of the will of the
U.S. Congress, more a function of the will of the U.S. administration. This
is something that the Iraqi people should decide for themselves. 
MARGARET
WARNER: Mr. Dawisha, how do you see that in terms of whether we should
be trying to change a government of another power? 
MARGARET
WARNER: You're saying that's a misconception, or that is true? 
FRANK
ANDERSON: Neither. In terms of working with opposition groups, for example,
the Iraq Liberation Act would support an armed force of about 5,000
fighters in an area that is already occupied by at least 50,000 Kurdish
fighters, who were unable to resist a small commitment of Saddam's available
forces -- a similar situation in the South. Neither of these things
will significantly change the balance of power in Iraq. Now -- 
FRANK
ANDERSON: First, we're operating in a situation where Saddam Hussein
is vulnerable. There is no question he is not a popular leader. He -
unfortunately - I think is not vulnerable to us. Now I believe that
the imposition of a no-fly zone or a no-go zone would be effective.
The amount of military commitment, frankly, I think is the sort of thing
that would require the equivalent of a declaration of war, and is not
something that I believe you could get sustained support for in the
United States.