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 James Woolsey |
POWER POLITICS?
James Woolsey and Noam Chomsky debate how far the U.S. can go in its foreign policy. March 12, 1998 |
 Chomsky |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
Does the U.S. have a moral obligation to intervene in international affairs? Is America's willingness to use force against Iraq just a continuation of previous policies? Do you think the U.S. government, including Congress, is overstepping its limits? Do you believe that the U.S. public has an adequate opportunity to form rational opinions about U.S. policy given the quality of media coverage? What does the recent crisis tell us about the direction U.S. foreign policy is headed in the post-Cold War world? 
Devi Mohanty of Chicago, IL, asks: What do you think about the hearings being held in the U.S. Congress on assassinating Saddam? Do you think the U.S. government, including Congress, is overstepping its limits?
Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at M.I.T., responds:
Assassination of Saddam is, in my opinion, a minor issue. Even attempts to assassinate Castro, criminal no doubt, are marginal in the context of the terror attacks against Cuba from 1959.
There is, however, no doubt that "the U.S. government, including Congress, is overstepping its limits" in the matter of Iraq. Those limits are clear and explicit. They are embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, a "solemn treaty" recognized as the foundation of international law and world order, and also "the supreme law of the land" under the Constitution. The Charter declares unambiguously that the U.N. Security Council alone "shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken...." The one exception is the right of self-defense against "armed attack" until the Security Council acts (Article 51). The fundamental principle is that member states "shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force." These are the "limits" that bind law-abiding states.
"Outlaw states reject these conditions: Suharto's Indonesia and Saddam's Iraq, for example. Washington too rejects them."
Outlaw states reject these conditions: Suharto's Indonesia and Saddam's Iraq, for example. Washington too rejects them. Its position was forthrightly articulated by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan undertook his February 1998 diplomatic mission: "We wish him well," she stated, "and when he comes back we will see what he has brought and how it fits with our national interest," which will determine how we respond. When the Security Council endorsed Annan's agreement, President Clinton announced that if Iraq fails the test of conformity (as determined by Washington), "everyone would understand that then the United States and hopefully all of our allies would have the unilateral right to respond at a time, place and manner of our own choosing." U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson added that the U.S. retains the right of "unilateral use of force." Other officials too stated clearly and unambiguously that the U.S. will resort to the threat or use of force as it chooses, whatever the U.N. Security Council decides; and in this case, in the face of opposition in the region so extreme that only Kuwait was willing to give even tepid support for the planned military strikes, while other client states condemned U.S. threats as "bad and loathsome" and reacted by moves to improve relations with Iran (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia).
The reaction here to Washington's stand was instructive. At one extreme, doves praised the Administration for its violation of international and domestic law; at the other, hawks denounced it for weak gestures towards our explicit legal obligations. Congressional leaders warned that the U.S. was "subcontracting" its foreign policy to the U.N. Security Council and "subordinating its power to the United Nations," obligations for all law-abiding states. No less remarkable was the fact that the fundamental issues of adherence to "the supreme law of the land" were off the agenda for the media and commentators. In the U.S., that is; elsewhere they were discussed. Accordingly, though many words flowed, we can hardly say that in this country there was a meaningful "debate" over the current Iraq crisis.
"The sanctions are a major factor in the rapid increase in disease, malnutrition, and early death, including 567,000 children by 1995."
Returning to the matter of assassination, we should not forget that far more serious crimes are being committed daily against the Iraqi people. The harsh sanctions policy pursued under U.S. pressure "enhances the leadership" and "diminishes the people," a U.N. administrator observed, reflecting the common view of diplomats and aid officials in Iraq, and many analysts elsewhere. The sanctions are a major factor in the rapid increase in disease, malnutrition, and early death, including 567,000 children by 1995. UNICEF reports 4500 children dying a month in 1996. In a bitter condemnation of the sanctions in January 1998, 54 Catholic Bishops quoted the Archbishop of the southern region of Iraq, who reports that "epidemics rage, taking away infants and the sick by the thousands" while "those children who survive disease succumb to malnutrition." The U.N. Food and Agriculture Administration warns further that the epidemics may lead to "biological disaster" in the region, noting the spread of screw worm infection, raging in Iraq and now detected in Kuwait. Senior U.N. and other international relief officials in Iraq warned that the planned bombing could have a "catastrophic" effect on people already suffering miserably. The head of CARE (Australia) warned that a military strike "will produce a massive humanitarian disaster." There is no evidence, to my knowledge, that such factors were a factor in U.S. planning.
By comparison, assassination of Saddam would be at worst a very minor crime.
Mr. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, responds:
Several congressional hearings have been held recently on what to do about Iraq in general. The only way the issue of assassination has come up, to the best of my knowledge, is in occasional questions -- this wasn't the main theme of any of the hearings. I testified in one of those hearings recently, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and suggested the course of action regarding Iraq set out in answer to question number 2 above. At one point I noted that the only person I know of who has actually advocated that the United States should assassinate Saddam Hussein is George Stephanopolous, in a column in Newsweek early last December.
"In my view, in ascending order of importance, Mr. Stephanopolous's proposal that the United States should adopt political murder as a tool of statecraft is impractical, ineffective, illegal, and immoral."
I wrote a response to Mr. Stephanopolous which was published in the Washington Times on December 23. Essentially my column made the points that I made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In my view, in ascending order of importance, Mr. Stephanopolous's proposal that the United States should adopt political murder as a tool of statecraft is impractical, ineffective, illegal, and immoral. It would be impractical because finding Saddam inside the thoroughly totalitarian Iraq would be essentially impossible -- he moves daily, has doubles, etc. It would be ineffective because he would likely be succeeded by another Ba'athist Nationalist of his own stripe, possibly his quite terrible son, and the Iraqi people and Iraq's neighbors would be no better off. It would be illegal because President Ford issued an Executive Order barring such assassinations over two decades ago, and each subsequent President has affirmed it. It would be immoral because the United States stands for some values in the world; if today we made assassination a tool of national policy it would not only tend to undermine others' confidence that we really cleave to those values but also encourage other countries to adopt the same tool.
One post-script. In World War II we essentially assassinated Admiral Yamamoto, the Admiral who had been in command of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. We did it with fighter planes, having broken the Japanese codes and knowing his whereabouts. If we had had an opportunity we probably would have helped the brave German officers and their colleagues who attempted to assassinate Hitler (one of these men survived the War and is a friend of mine). But that War was a world-wide struggle between democracy and totalitarianism -- a fight to the death for the survival of everything we cherish. In a case like that, it seems justifiable to me for us to fight with everything we have. We aren't to that point yet with Saddam, by a long shot.
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