http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/rumsfeld-openletter.htm
Open Letter to the President
19 February 1998
Dear Mr. President,
Many of us were involved in organizing the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf in 1990 to support President Bush's policy of expelling Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Seven years later, Saddam Hussein is still in power in Baghdad. And despite his defeat in the Gulf War, continuing sanctions, and the determined effort of UN inspectors to fetter out and destroy his weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein has been able to develop biological and chemical munitions. To underscore the threat posed by these deadly devices, the Secretaries of State and Defense have said that these weapons could be used against our own people. And you have said that this issue is about "the challenges of the 21st Century."
Iraq's position is unacceptable. While Iraq is not unique in possessing these weapons, it is the only country which has used them -- not just against its enemies, but its own people as well. We must assume that Saddam is prepared to use them again. This poses a danger to our friends, our allies, and to our nation.
It is clear that this danger cannot be eliminated as long as our objective is simply "containment," and the means of achieving it are limited to sanctions and exhortations. As the crisis of recent weeks has demonstrated, these static policies are bound to erode, opening the way to Saddam's eventual return to a position of power and influence in the region. Only a determined program to change the regime in Baghdad will bring the Iraqi crisis to a satisfactory conclusion.
For years, the United States has tried to remove Saddam by encouraging coups and internal conspiracies. These attempts have all failed. Saddam is more wily, brutal and conspiratorial than any likely conspiracy the United States might mobilize against him. Saddam must be overpowered; he will not be brought down by a coup d'etat. But Saddam has an Achilles' heel: lacking popular support, he rules by terror. The same brutality which makes it unlikely that any coups or conspiracies can succeed, makes him hated by his own people and the rank and file of his military. Iraq today is ripe for a broad-based insurrection. We must exploit this opportunity.
Saddam's long record of treaty violations, deception, and violence shows that diplomacy and arms control will not constrain him. In the absence of a broader strategy, even extensive air strikes would be ineffective in dealing with Saddam and eliminating the threat his regime poses. We believe that the problem is not only the specifics of Saddam's actions, but the continued existence of the regime itself.
What is needed now is a comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime. It will not be easy -- and the course of action we favor is not without its problems and perils. But we believe the vital national interests of our country require the United States to:
Recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq.
Restore and enhance the safe haven in northern Iraq to allow the provisional government to extend its authority there and establish a zone in southern Iraq from which Saddam's ground forces would also be excluded.
Lift sanctions in liberated areas. Sanctions are instruments of war against Saddam's regime, but they should be quickly lifted on those who have freed themselves from it. Also, the oil resources and products of the liberated areas should help fund the provisional government's insurrection and humanitarian relief for the people of liberated Iraq.
Release frozen Iraqi assets -- which amount to $1.6 billion in the United States and Britain alone -- to the control of the provisional government to fund its insurrection. This could be done gradually and so long as the provisional government continues to promote a democratic Iraq.
Facilitate broadcasts from U.S. transmitters immediately and establish a Radio Free Iraq.
Help expand liberated areas of Iraq by assisting the provisional government's offensive against Saddam Hussein's regime logistically and through other means.
Remove any vestiges of Saddam's claim to "legitimacy" by, among other things, bringing a war crimes indictment against the dictator and his lieutenants and challenging Saddam's credentials to fill the Iraqi seat at the United Nations.
Launch a systematic air campaign against the pillars of his power -- the Republican Guard divisions which prop him up and the military infrastructure that sustains him.
Position U.S. ground force equipment in the region so that, as a last resort, we have the capacity to protect and assist the anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of Iraq.
Once you make it unambiguously clear that we are serious about eliminating the threat posed by Saddam, and are not just engaged in tactical bombing attacks unrelated to a larger strategy designed to topple the regime, we believe that such countries as Kuwait, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, whose cooperation would be important for the implementation of this strategy, will give us the political and logistical support to succeed.
In the present climate in Washington, some may misunderstand and misinterpret strong American action against Iraq as having ulterior political motives. We believe, on the contrary, that strong American action against Saddam is overwhelmingly in the national interest, that it must be supported, and that it must succeed. Saddam must not become the beneficiary of an American domestic political controversy.
We are confident that were you to launch an initiative along these line, the Congress and the country would see it as a timely and justifiable response to Iraq's continued intransigence. We urge you to provide the leadership necessary to save ourselves and the world from the scourge of Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction that he refuses to relinquish.
Sincerely,
Hon. Stephen Solarz
Former Member, Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. House of Representatives
Hon. Richard Perle
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense
Hon. Elliot Abrams
President, Ethics & Public Policy Center; Former Assistant Secretary of State
Richard V. Allen
Former National Security Advisor
Hon. Richard Armitage
President, Armitage Associates, L.C.; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense
Jeffrey T. Bergner
President, Bergner, Bockorny, Clough & Brain; Former Staff Director, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Hon. John Bolton
Senior Vice President, American Enterprise Institute; Former Assistant Secretary of State
Stephen Bryen
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Hon. Richard Burt
Chairman, IEP Advisors, Inc.; Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany; Former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
Hon. Frank Carlucci
Former Secretary of Defense
Hon. Judge William Clark
Former National Security Advisor
Paula J. Dobriansky
Vice President, Director of Washington Office, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Member, National Security Council
Doug Feith
Managing Attorney, Feith & Zell P.C.; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy
Frank Gaffney
Director, Center for Security Policy; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces
Jeffrey Gedmin
Executive Director, New Atlantic Initiative; Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Hon. Fred C. Ikle
Former Undersecretary of Defense
Robert Kagan
Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Zalmay M. Khalilzad
Director, Strategy and Doctrine, RAND Corporation
Sven F. Kraemer
Former Director of Arms Control, National Security Council
William Kristol
Editor, The Weekly Standard
Michael Ledeen
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Former Special Advisor to the Secretary of State
Bernard Lewis
Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and Ottoman Studies, Princeton University
R. Admiral Frederick L. Lewis
U.S. Navy, Retired
Maj. Gen. Jarvis Lynch
U.S. Marine Corps, Retired
Hon. Robert C. McFarlane
Former National Security Advisor
Joshua Muravchik
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Robert A. Pastor
Former Special Assistant to President Carter for Inter-American Affairs
Martin Peretz
Editor-in-Chief, The New Republic
Roger Robinson
Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs, National Security Council
Peter Rodman
Director of National Security Programs, Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom; Former Director, Policy Planning Staff, U.S. Department of State
Hon. Peter Rosenblatt
Former Ambassador to the Trust Territories of the Pacific
Hon. Donald Rumsfeld
Former Secretary of Defense
Gary Schmitt
Executive Director, Project for the New American Century; Former Executive Director, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
Max Singer
President, The Potomac Organization; Former President, The Hudson Institute
Hon. Helmut Sonnenfeldt
Guest Scholar, The Brookings Institution; Former Counsellor, U.S. Department of State
Hon. Caspar Weinberger
Former Secretary of Defense
Leon Wienseltier
Literary Editor, The New Republic
Hon. Paul Wolfowitz
Dean, Johns Hopkins SAIS; Former Undersecretary of Defense
David Wurmser
Director, Middle East Program, AEI; Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Dov S. Zakheim
Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Hearings%20&Prepared%20statements/sfrc3-1-01.htm U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAQ Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Subcommittee March 1, 2001 OPENING STATEMENT OF SAM BROWNBACK, A Senator from Kansas, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS): The hearing will come to order. In keeping with the new mode of doing things on time, we're going to start this hearing on time. I'm delighted to have the panel that we have here today to testify on the issue of U.S. policy towards Iraq. This subcommittee has held a number of hearings on this topic, but this is a new day. It's a new administration, and I think it's a chance for us to discuss some of the policy options that are presented before the United States today -- this being the third president to confront Saddam Hussein. Hopefully we'll get a chance this time to address the root cause of the problem -- that being Saddam Hussein himself. Senator Kerrey, welcome back. Delighted to have you here. Congratulations on your wedding and new job. Glad to have you, though, here with your colleagues. Mr. Perle, delighted to have you here as well. Mr. Halperin, and Mr. Cordesman, delighted to have both of you gentlemen join us as well. As we all know, this hearing will provide an opportunity to discuss the future of U.S. policy towards Iraq. Allow me to pose a question that I hope you will help us answer and that is -- Is Saddam Hussein better off today than he was 10 years ago at the end of the Gulf War? To my mind, the clear answer is yes. Saddam Hussein is better off today than he was at the end of the Gulf War. The evidence is piling up. Saddam is reconstituting his illegal weapons programs. Defectors from the regime have told British press that Saddam actually has a small nuclear weapon. I've not been able to independently verify that charge, but the straws are in the wind. Further, there is ample evidence, both public and otherwise, that Saddam is using the cover of a legally allowed missile program to work on longer range missiles that could eventually deliver weapons of mass destruction. And, of course, officials at UNSCOM were never willing to consider Saddam's assertion that he had destroyed his chemical and biological weapons programs. It certainly is logical to assume that in the absence of inspectors for over two years, he has seized the opportunity to beef up his WMD programs. For our part, according to press reports about Secretary Powell's trip to the Middle East, the administration now supports easing the existing sanctions and instituting so-called "smarter" sanctions. And I look forward to discussing this with the secretary next week. As I listen to all this talk about smarter sanctions, I have to wonder whether we can put the horse back in the barn at all. The sanction regime and the international coalition against Iraq have come completely unraveled. A steady stream of international flights kicked off by the Russians and the French have headed into Baghdad since August without monitoring or inspections. The Chinese are working illegally in Baghdad without fear of repercussions. And press reports indicate that oil is once again flowing through the Iraqi-Syrian pipeline to the tune of 150,000 barrels per day. The profits from those illegal transfers of oil go straight into Saddam's pockets. To top it off, U.S.-British strikes on Iraqi air defense targets two weeks ago, intended to protect allied pilots from increased Iraqi threats, drew fire not only from the usual suspects, but also from the Arab states we are ostensibly protecting, and our partners on the Security Council. I think we need to face that Saddam has won a good portion of the propaganda war. He is and remains a ruthless despot, who refuses to spend all he's allowed for his people's well being. Notwithstanding, the United States seems to be blamed for the suffering of the Iraqi people. Now what do we do? Will we get inspectors back into Iraq? What sacrifices on sanctions will need to be made to get them in, and will any such inspections be worth those sacrifices? I rather doubt it. We're going to have to bite this bullet. After 10 years, sanctions have not achieved their intended goal. Denying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction being the goal that we intended to achieve. If that remains our goal today, and I certainly hope it does, then we need to ask whether any refinement to these sanction systems will achieve that goal. And I'd certainly like to hear our panelists' opinions on that question. I believe that any tradeoff for weakening sanctions must be a more robust U.S. policy towards Iraq. The Republican platform in 2000 called for the full implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act, and support for the Iraq opposition. I, along with many of my colleagues, have long supported that policy and hope the administration will work towards it. The threat that Iraq poses to its own people and to the decent nations of this world will remain for as long as Saddam Hussein is in power. To my mind, there's only one answer to solving this problem, and the answer is Saddam Hussein and getting him out of power. What do we do? I want to make several suggestions here, and I look forward to those from our panelists. One, I think we can use the resources at our fingertips in the form of a draw down of economic support to bolster the opposition and to fully implement the Iraq Liberation Act. The Iraq Liberation Act??? Doh!!! See my next post!
Excerpted...Long: http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/cfsp-00-f-6.htm NIX TO BLIX: MAN WHO CERTIFIED IRAQ AS NON-NUCLEAR IS UNLIKELY TO FIND -- OR EVEN TO SEEK -- SADDAM'S HIDDEN WEAPONS Security Council's Choice is Sure Sign of End of 'Containment' Center for Security Policy SECURITY FORUM No. 00-F 6 27 January 2000 ...The second has been the failure to implement Congress's Iraq Liberation Act - which was supposed to fund the overthrow of the dictator by native opposition groups. President Bill Clinton signed the 1998 act which was supposed to invest $97 million in this project. Apparently only $20,000 has been disbursed to the opposition groups - enough to buy some basic office supplies. The London office of the Iraqi National Congress, the main democratic opposition group, shut down at the end of last year. All this dithering and incompetence has enabled Saddam to replace his bombast after the Gulf War with a credible claim to have rolled back allied achievements then. If anyone still thinks Saddam will be content just with that, they will be deluding themselves hmmmm, where did that money go?
Holy moly, it's up to #2 as of 2:55 AM EST. Good night, all.
Bill Clinton is one of the greatest examples of how the coming anti-Christ will seize power by lying and deception. Many would still vote for this lying devil today if given the opportunity. He should fit right in with the United Nations.
