How to Handle Hostage Problem : Keep perspective, calibrate the national interest

The Iraqi regime coyly refers to them as “guests,” and promises that the thousands of Americans, Britons and other foreigners who were caught in Kuwait and Iraq when war broke out will be free to leave “in due course.” The State Department, properly emphasizing the involuntary nature of the foreigners’ plight, calls them “detainees.”

For different reasons, all governments involved have shied away from uttering the chilling h-word. But the realistic, if dread, prospect nonetheless must be faced: Dictator Saddam Hussein may have in his ruthless hands hostages from many countries that support the U.N. call for sanctions against Iraq.

Anxiety about the fate of 2,500 Americans and 3,000 Britons trapped in Kuwait has grown following Iraq’s order for all of them to assemble in several downtown hotels in Kuwait City. The fear is that the movement to these collecting points could be a prelude to transferring them to Iraq proper. There are already about 600 Americans and 2,000 Britons in Iraq, along with thousands of Soviet citizens, Turks, Poles, Japanese, Koreans and others. Few of the Westerners among them have been able to get out.

It’s always possible, of course, that Hussein will experience a sudden conversion to humanitarianism and let the foreigners depart in peace. Decency, though, has never been one of the notable qualities of his statecraft. He is far more likely to regard the foreigners as a way to deter potential U.S. military action against Iraq or, if his mood is truly ambitious, even as a way to compel the withdrawal of American forces from Saudi Arabia. Either way, the detainees would be--perhaps even now are--hostages.

It would be comforting to be able to look at past experiences and draw from them some painless way to deny Hussein his chance to traffic in lives. Unhappily, the lessons of the past offer no easy solution. The compelling human priority in these situations, as always, is to try to avoid increasing the risks facing the captives. The compelling policy priority is, and always must be, not to let the blackmail that is the point of hostage-holding deter whatever actions are required to protect the national interest.

Conflicts have many components. The need to protect the lives of civilians to the greatest extent possible is one of them. As the Iraqi crisis plays out, and assuming that Americans and other foreign civilians continue to be held by Iraq, President Bush can expect to come under increasing pressure from the families and friends of the detainees to make concessions that will be seen as safeguarding their lives or winning their freedom. That is a wholly understandable response.

It is not, though, and can’t be allowed to become, a decisive consideration. The United States has been drawn into this confrontation for two key reasons: Along with other states, it seeks to protect vital world interests by preventing any more oil resources from being grabbed by Iraq. And it is committed to trying to roll back aggression. Those are sound goals. They must remain paramount, whatever the threat posed to the “detainees.”