The Cult of Saddam

Are sanctions an effective club for getting Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons?

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By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 6, 2000

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At the Saddam Hussein Museum for the Arts, visitors get a generally warm and fuzzy view of the man considered one of the world's most dangerous dictators.

Here are the Iraqi president's high school report cards. (An 89 in history, 82 in geography.)

Here are the many odd and lavish gifts he received before Iraq became an international pariah. (Silver spurs from Ronald Reagan, a football signed by the New York Giants.)

And here are dozens of engaging photos of Hussein, chatting with troops at the Kuwaiti front and comforting Baghdad residents at the start of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

But the museum's assistant director is especially proud of one display: a giant electronic map that, when you push a button, shows Iraqi missiles raining down on Israel in the war's early days.

"Haifa, Tel Aviv -- 39 of our Scuds hit Israel," he says, beaming with satisfaction. "This map, it's very nice."

It is Iraq's history of belligerence toward its neighbors in the Middle East that lies at the heart of a bitter debate: Should the United Nations lift economic sanctions imposed on the country after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait?

Critics of the sanctions, now almost a decade old, argue that they have failed to dislodge Hussein but have caused untold misery to millions of ordinary Iraqis.

Earlier this year, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Iraq resigned, saying he could no longer bear to see an entire population "deprived of everything . . . the right to proper life, the right to work, the right to shelter, good services and most of all, the right to education."

But supporters of the sanctions say they are the most effective way of keeping Hussein in check as he defies U.N. resolutions and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"Iraq remains a threat," James B. Cunningham, a U.S. representative to the U.N., said in March.

"Unanswered questions remain in the areas of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. . . . Sanctions are the leverage the international community has to get the government of Iraq to comply. That is the goal."

In the past 10 years, international attitudes toward Iraq have done an abrupt about-face.

Most of the world was aghast when Hussein invaded a sovereign nation, on the pretext that Kuwait had been waging "economic war" against Iraq by keeping oil prices artificially low. More than three dozen countries joined the U.S.-led allied coalition, including most of the Persian Gulf states and even nations like Syria that had never been friendly toward the West.

But with the war over and the sanctions dragging on far longer than anyone expected, there is increasing sympathy for Iraq and growing hostility toward the United States and Britain, the sanctions' most ardent enforcers.

Most Arab nations have called for an end to the embargo and some have have resumed diplomatic relations with Baghdad.

Many other countries -- among them Russia, China, France and Canada -- want the sanctions substantially relaxed, if not dumped altogether. And in February, more than 70 members of Congress sent President Clinton a letter urging an end to the embargo.

Ironically, the only congressman who has visited Iraq since the Gulf War thinks the sanctions, while flawed, should continue. Tony Hall, an Ohio Democrat, decided to look for himself in April despite reservations from the Clinton administration.

"They said, "It's not safe. You have to be careful you don't get sucked into their propaganda,' " Hall recalls. "They basically said, "We don't like Saddam Hussein and we don't like his government.' I said I agreed with all those things but the fact is you have a lot of innocent people who could care less about Saddam and are dying."

A five-day tour of decrepit schools, hospitals and utilities convinced Hall that "we could be doing a much better job" of helping the Iraqi people. But while he found the misery real and widespread, he wasn't convinced the embargo was solely to blame.

"If Iraq's government would show it is serious about easing its people's suffering -- instead of using their problems to support its bid to end sanctions -- it would be easier for me to see sanctions as the primary culprit," Hall says.

Not all of the opposition to the embargo stems from humanitarian concerns. Foreign companies are chafing to do business with Iraq, which has the world's second-largest oil reserves and an enormous pent-up demand for cars, televisions and other consumer goods.

But skepticism remains that much of Iraq's oil wealth would ever trickle down to average Iraqis as long as Hussein stays in power.

"This is a regime which has a high tolerance for the hardships it inflicts on its own subjects," says Peter Van Walsum, the Dutch ambassador to the United Nations.

Phebe Marr, an Iraqi expert, says Hussein did little to improve conditions in the lull between the end of Iraq's war with Iran in 1988 and when he invaded Kuwait in 1990.

"If the sanctions come off tomorrow -- and they definitely are not going to -- the expectation of the people is that everything is going to get better. It's only going to get a little bit better," predicts Marr, a former senior fellow at the U.S. National Defense University. "I watched this happen after the Iraq-Iran war. There's going to be a bonanza. We've got all of this oil. But what happened? Not much."

Marr notes that the sanctions already have been eased to the point Iraq can sell unlimited amounts of oil to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian essentials. She thinks it also should be allowed to rebuild its oil industry -- the core of the economy -- and have greater access to the outside world.

"One of the things that is so bad for this country is its isolation," she says. "We ought to look into the possibility of opening up some commercial air travel. Let some people out, some books in. They can't get out, they can't travel, they can't see anybody."

But it would be a mistake, she says, to end the sanctions altogether.

"Lifting the sanctions means putting all of the money from oil exports into Saddam's hands," Marr says. "People who want to do this have not yet figured out a suitable way to make sure he is not using (the money) to import weapons of mass destruction. They're only solving one part of the problem."

How great is Iraq's military threat?

Experts agree that Hussein's might was substantially weakened in the Gulf War. Still, "Iraq could test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States in the next 15 years," the CIA ominously predicted last fall.

Contrary to a general belief, the United Nations has never tried to eliminate all of Iraq's weapons. To help maintain a balance of power in the Middle East, where Iraq is surrounded by much larger countries like Iran and Turkey, the 1991 cease-fire agreement allowed Hussein to produce missiles with a range of 93 miles or less.

That means "Iraq can retain a significant missile development effort," says Anthony Cordesman, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

According to a new report by Cordesman, U.S. satellite photos show that Iraq has rebuilt one missile research facility. It also has two large new buildings designed to produce much longer-range missiles.

The big question -- and great worry -- is what Iraq would put in its warheads. At the time of the Gulf conflict, it was the only major country to have recently employed weapons of mass destruction -- in this case, mustard and nerve gases used against Iranian troops and rebellious Kurds in the 1980s.

Iraq was also known to be developing nuclear and biological weapons capable of reaching Israel, several hundred miles away.

After his Gulf War defeat, Hussein agreed to eliminate his weapons of mass destruction under strict monitoring by the United Nations Special Commission. However, UNSCOM charged, Iraq consistently stonewalled inspectors, withheld thousands of documents and offered no evidence for claims it had destroyed its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

In one case, the Iraqis repeatedly insisted that a huge facility south of Baghdad made only pesticides and animal feed. In fact, as inspectors later discovered, it stored tons of "growth material" used to produce the germs needed for biological warfare.

As for Iraq's nuclear capability, "UNSCOM believes Iraq's nuclear program has been largely disabled and remains incapacitated," Cordesman writes. However, "Iraq retains substantial technology and established a clandestine purchasing system in 1990 that it has used to import forbidden components since the Gulf War."

The inspections standoff came to a head in December 1998, when U.S. and British jets bombed Iraq in an attempt to jolt Hussein into cooperating. Instead, he kicked out the inspectors and disabled the automated video monitoring systems they had installed in suspected weapons plants.

The bottom line?

While there is no "direct evidence" Iraq has rebuilt its weapons program since 1998, "this type of activity must be regarded as likely given its past behavior," the CIA said in February.

Intelligence sources suspect that at least some of Hussein's weapons development takes place in enormous, heavily guarded compounds whose opulence stands in marked contrast to Iraq's overall shabbiness.

Photos of these mysterious mini-cities are strictly forbidden. The government guides who accompany all foreign journalists are notably tight-lipped when asked about them, such as the one in Baghdad that covers several blocks and has a monumental entrance topped by what appear to be anti-aircraft guns.

"What's that?" a guide was asked.

"A gate," he answered.

'What's behind the gate?'

Meanwhile, a palatial structure overlooking the ruins of ancient Babylon is described as a government "guest house." Why foreign dignitaries would be consigned to such a remote area miles from the capital is not explained. Nor is it clear why photos of the guest house are banned

It was on his visit to Babylon that Hall, the member of Congress, found himself musing on what Iraq is today, and what it could be.

"I thought, isn't it sad that here's a country with tremendous oil wealth and some of the greatest historical and Biblical sites in the world? If they ever got a good leader and some stability, think of what could happen."

Today, though, Saddam Hussein seems as firmly in charge as he has at any time since grabbing power in 1979.

At 63, the Iraqi president is rarely seen in person but appears everywhere in portrait. Iraqi artists have found that one sure way of getting canvas and other supplies during times of shortage is by painting their leader large and often.

Hotels, restaurants and government buildings all display portraits of Hussein in an endless variety of get-ups. Sporting straw hat and safari shirt, he looks like Panama Jack; with fur cap and heavy jacket, he resembles Dr. Zhivago. There are larger-than-life paintings of Hussein hugging babies, clutching prayer books, smelling flowers.

But these benign images belie a reality of life in Iraq today: It is a totalitarian state where few dare utter a word against the regime. Those who do risk imprisonment, torture and death.

"Suspected political opponents . . . continue to be arrested and tens of thousands of others arrested in previous years remain held," Amnesty International said in its 1999 report on human rights abuses in Iraq.

"Torture and ill-treatment of prisoners and detainees were widely reported. According to reports, at least six people had their hands amputated as punishment. There was no further news on the fate of thousands of people who "disappeared' in previous years."

The greatest threat to Hussein's regime came immediately after the Gulf War, when Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south rose up against him. But the rebellions failed when the U.S. government, which had encouraged both groups, refused to provide military help.

Among the reasons for the reluctance to intercede in southern Iraq were fears that the Shiites were actually backed by Iran. Its fundamentalist government, which held 52 Americans hostage from 1979 to 1981, was considered as big a threat to regional peace as Iraq's bellicose dictatorship.

In the north, U.S. officials worried that support for the Kurds would anger Turkey, a long-time U.S. ally that was waging its own war against Kurdish guerrillas.

Since the Gulf War, Congress has appropriated millions of dollars for opposition groups based outside Iraq in hopes they could engineer a coup or popular uprising.

However, the opposition, primarily based in London 2,500 miles away, remains fragmented, and attempts to overthrow Hussein have failed.

Cordesman, the military analyst, says the United States has two viable options in dealing with Hussein and trying to prevent another dangerous weapons buildup: Either support a professional, covert operation to oust the Iraqi leader or else "wait for history to take its course."

"Trying to publicly unite the weak and divided Iraqi opposition outside Iraq into a useful tool, and to do so with minimal or no Arab support, is like trying to forge Jell-O into a sword," Cordesman said in a March report.

Moreover, he says, it is unrealistic to think that Iraq will ever stop trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, given its place in a region where at least three other countries -- India, Pakistan and Israel -- have nuclear capability.

"We may want a world of of arms control, but Iran and Iraq live in a world of proliferation," he writes. "Power, status and security appear to come with proliferation and even far more moderate regimes would find it difficult to put their trust in arms control and restraint."

Susan Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com

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