The Tyrant Who Refuses to Die : Bush haunted by day he let Hussein get away

Those familiar with the Allies’ troubles in getting the Germans to do what they were told in the years after the World War I might well have anticipated what would happen if Saddam Hussein survived. Begin ning with his unauthorized use of gunships to suppress the rebellions after the Gulf War, the Iraqi dictator has progressively probed the limits of the U.N.’s willingness to enforce its resolutions to contain him--and he is prepared to do so again and again.

In the crisis just ended, Hussein finally gave way to U.N. inspection of documents, reportedly housed in the Ministry of Agriculture, related to his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, but only after he had delayed the inspectors for at least 24 days. The delay enabled him to remove any potentially incriminating materials from the building. Indeed, the U.N. inspectors found nothing.

Hussein also gained the right to exclude any citizen of a Gulf War coalition member from future search teams. The experience shows that he need no longer fear the U.N.’s insistence on surprise inspections, which, as experience has demonstrated, is indispensable if the present arms-control inspection regime is to have any meaning.

Why the Administration let Baghdad extend the freedom of movement of its gunships into southern Iraq last April is a total mystery. This ill-advised concession will allow the Iraqi regime to carry out its plans to drive the Shiite marsh people out of their homes, thereby consolidating Baghdad’s control in the south. Even more destructive actions will follow unless there is a firm agreement not to make any further concessions to the intransigent Iraqi regime.

During the course of the Gulf War, George Bush called Hussein a “Hitler.” No doubt that was largely wartime hyperbole, but the comparison erred principally in degree, not in kind. The Iraqi dictator has committed genocide. He attacked Iran, annexed Kuwait, drove the Kurds into exile and harassed the Shiites. He also initiated a program for building weapons of mass destruction that grew ever more alarming as its full dimensions were progressively exposed.

If Hussein is a second Hitler, the President, in pursuing the war, might well have followed the lesson learned by the Allies in 1945. Not only should have Iraqi forces been expelled from Kuwait, but their fighting power should have been destroyed and Iraq occupied. Their criminal government should have been deposed, its adherents purged from major positions in public and private life and its leaders tried as war criminals.

But Bush faced troubling obstacles, some of which were of his own making. The Gulf War coalition might succumb to internal dissension and fall apart before the full task was completed. The American public might grow weary of additional fighting as sophisticated weapons failed to do the job, casualties increased and the domestic economy sank deeper into recession.

But if America rejected an occupation, what could it do? Covert action was urged by its usual proponents, but an open democracy, like America’s, cannot handle that sort of business very effectively. With its army and government destroyed, moreover, Iraq would likely become a cauldron of ethnic conflict and even splinter into three separate countries--a Kurdistan in the north, a Sunni Arab state encircling Baghdad and a Shiite nation in the south. Creating a Kurdish state would invite occupation by Turkey, Iran and Syria, all of which have large, disaffected Kurdish populations, while Shiite Iran would be tempted to take over a new nation of Shiite people over whom it now enjoys strong influence. For these reasons, the United States has supported the U.N. resolution calling for maintenance of Iraq’s unity.

In view of the difficulty of maintaining the present economic sanctions and the unity of the coalition that Bush assembled with so much difficulty, one can clearly predict that increasing force will be required to keep Hussein on his present short leash. The Iraqi dictator blames all his nation’s troubles on the United States and the United Nations, which, by their trade embargo, are, he asserts, trying to starve the people into submission. Hitler, too, nurtured the German sense of grievance regarding the “diktat” of Versailles.

Moreover--and this may be of controlling parochial importance in an election year--the fact that such actions have proved necessary will certainly be construed as a confession that, in 1990, the Administration made a mistake in not overthrowing the Ba’athist regime, when the coalition forces were already mobilized and on the spot.

The U.N. resolutions concerning Iraq provide a foundation either to impair Hussein’s arms plans or to pave the way for a renewed war with Iraq when Hussein finally exceeds everyone’s level of tolerance. The war-crimes-trial provision clearly is applicable to Hussein and his leading associates. They are already violating other provisions that could provide a plausible excuse, should one be needed, to renew hostilities.

Hussein, it is safe to predict, will continue his probing attacks, retreating when he must, building his advantages slowly like a man playing positional chess. It is evident that he is more than generally aware of the shifting American mood as the presidential election in November nears. One should not dismiss the possibility that he may try a major move when he knows Bush is most vulnerable and least able to respond, possibly sometime in October.

What one should most acutely fear is a step-by-step repetition of the moves by which Hitler tore up the Treaty of Versailles. First, he violated rearmament restrictions, then marched into the Rhineland and finally began to gobble up other nations, starting with Austria. Similarly, Hussein still refuses to acknowledge the independence of Kuwait, he constantly violates air restrictions, he defies U.N. inspectors and has extorted the right to pick his own inspection team. He continues to violate the rights of his own people. Thus, if he and his regime are left in power and continue to pursue their present objectives, all the progress made by the United Nations will be negated.

What then is to be done?

The answer is both complicated and difficult, since it involves considerations not only of America’s international obligations but also its internal politics.

One option is to maintain the pressure on Hussein but take no further actions until a new impasse arises. Meanwhile, one might hope that Hussein would die from natural causes or be removed by his countrymen disaffected by the increasing pressure of the economic blockade.

Most Americans would love to see the last of Hussein. But very few people want another war and fewer still a long occupation. Efforts to assassinate him have not only failed but ended in the deaths of Iraqi civilians. Selected bombing of power plants and war-production facilities may only make the Iraqi people miserable without weakening the hand of their tyrant.

There is a renewal of agitation to think in terms of subversion, even covert operations. But the United States is not much good at that kind of operation, and, if history is any guide, we would almost certainly find ourselves with egg on our faces.

Congress and the President thus confront unpalatable options. This is not the kind of decision they should have to make in the politicized atmosphere of an election period. It would be far better to wait until the American people had installed a new government or renewed the mandate of the existing one. A freshly elected government of whichever party will have a normal honeymoon period in which the country can be conditioned to hard decisions, and those decisions can be made without undue concentration on their effect on domestic politics.

It is not a happy situation, but it is essential that the time between now and January be put to productive use in planning the measures needed to thwart Hussein’s schemes and prepare the public for the possible trials ahead.