Lift Sanctions in Return for Concessions on Acquiring Weapons

The United States cannot stop Iraq from acquiring chemical and biological weapons and it should give up trying. Instead, the U.S. should pursue a new strategy aimed at containing Iraq’s ability to menace its neighbors with ground forces and ballistic missiles.

Neither inspections nor air strikes will degrade Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction for long. The laboratories and storage sites are so easily concealed that we never could locate them all. The problem is simple: Iraq is larger than California, while 200 pounds of anthrax--enough to kill more than a million people in a large city--can fit in a steamer trunk.

Worse, the material and technology to produce these weapons are easily available. Any state that can produce chemical fertilizers and penicillin also can produce VX and botulinum toxin. Trying to destroy every stack of petri dishes in Iraq would require carpet bombing on a scale no Western society would contemplate.

Using air power to try to “decapitate” Saddam Hussein also is misguided. It would take a lucky shot to get Saddam himself, and it would be next to impossible to weaken his internal security apparatus enough to topple him. Coup plotters know that the penalty for failure is death, which is why the United States had to guarantee the safety of the shah in Iran in 1953 and the South Vietnamese generals in 1963 before either would act. After all the failed efforts of the past few years, are there any rivals to Saddam who would believe such an American promise?

Even if Saddam were removed, any successor--even one more friendly to the West--would want weapons of mass destruction, to balance the growing nuclear capabilities of Israel and Iran. No policy on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will succeed until the West recognizes that Saddam’s personal ambitions are not the sole source of the problem.

The U.S. needs a new strategy. As we saw in 1991, territorial aggression and strategic attack, not the possession of deadly materials, are the most important dangers posed by Iraq. Moreover, economic sanctions are unraveling, and U.S. policy must be designed to cope with a future in which Iraq once again will have the resources to purchase weapons.

The United States should face these realities and offer to lift international sanctions immediately in exchange for Iraq’s agreement not to acquire certain categories of offensive weapons, such as tanks and bombers, or to acquire or test ballistic missiles without the approval of the U.N. Security Council.

If Iraq acquires unauthorized weapons, the U.S. or any other member of the Security Council would have the authority to destroy the weapons. In return, inspections of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons programs would cease, although Iraq still would be held to the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.

This strategy has four virtues. First, it addresses the threats that most concern our friends in the region: territorial aggression against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and missile strikes against Israel.

Second, it is more humane; punishment of innocent Iraqis would cease.

Third, it would be likely to gain international support.

Fourth, the plan is enforceable. Ballistic missiles are hard to detect, but missile tests are not. If Iran tests ballistic missiles, the U.S. could retaliate by attacking whatever missiles or other heavy weapons that could be located.

This strategy requires that the U.S. maintain a military presence in the region. As long as the world depends on Persian Gulf oil and Iraq poses a threat, no policy would eliminate the need for American forces in the Gulf. But that does not mean that the United States cannot mount a workable policy.