Why Iraq can't be deterred

[Sirotnikov]

Why Iraq Can't Be Deterred
By KENNETH M. POLLACK


WASHINGTON — As the United States moves closer to war with Iraq, some have suggested relying instead on deterrence to deal with the threat Saddam Hussein poses. Those who favor deterrence acknowledge that the containment regime that constrained Iraq during the 1990's has frayed beyond repair, but argue that Mr. Hussein can still be kept in check by American threats to respond to any new Iraqi aggression with force — including nuclear bombardment, if necessary.

Certainly war should be a last resort, and deterrence is a seemingly reasonable alternative; after all, it worked with the Soviet Union for 45 years. Unfortunately, however, those who seek to apply it to Iraq base their views on a dangerous misreading of Mr. Hussein, and so fail to recognize how risky such a course is likely to be.

Proponents of deterrence argue that Mr. Hussein will not engage in new aggression, even after he has acquired nuclear weapons, because he is not deliberately suicidal and so would not risk an American nuclear response.

But what they overlook is that Mr. Hussein is often unintentionally suicidal — that is, he miscalculates his odds of success and frequently ignores the likelihood of catastrophic failure. Mr. Hussein is a risk-taker who plays dangerous games without realizing how dangerous they truly are. He is deeply ignorant of the outside world and surrounded by sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear.

When Yevgeny M. Primakov, a Soviet envoy, went to Baghdad in 1991 to try to warn Mr. Hussein to withdraw, he was amazed to find out how cut off from reality Mr. Hussein was. "I realized that it was possible Saddam did not have complete information," he later wrote. "He gave priority to positive reports . . . and as for bad news, the bearer could pay a high price." These factors make Mr. Hussein difficult to deter, because his calculations are based on ideas that do not necessarily correspond to reality and are often impervious to outside influences.

In 1974, for example, he attacked the Kurds even though Iran had been arming and supporting them (with American and Israeli support). He believed, for reasons unknown, that Iran would do nothing to help its proxies. The shah responded decisively, sending troops into Iraqi Kurdistan, mobilizing his army and provoking clashes along the border. To stave off an Iranian invasion that he feared would end his regime, Mr. Hussein was forced to sign the humiliating Algiers accord, which gave Iran everything it wanted from Iraq, including contested territory.

This pattern has been repeated many times since, and it is fair to say that Mr. Hussein's continued survival is far more attributable to luck than it is to any prudence on his part. Thus in 1980 he attacked Iran under the misguided assumption that the new Islamic Republic was so unpopular that it would collapse after one good shove. In so doing, he embroiled Iraq in a war that nearly destroyed his own regime.

In 1991, rather than withdrawing from Kuwait and heading off a war, he convinced himself that the American-led coalition would not attack and that even if it did, his army would emerge victorious. By confidently pursuing this path he again nearly destroyed himself and his regime.

The best evidence that Mr. Hussein can be deterred comes from the Persian Gulf war, when he refrained from using weapons of mass destruction because of American and Israeli threats of nuclear retaliation. But a closer look at the evidence provides more ominous lessons.

When Secretary of State James Baker met with Tariq Aziz in Geneva on the eve of the war, the letter he presented from President Bush to Mr. Hussein threatened the "severest consequences" if Iraq took any of three actions: use of weapons of mass destruction, destruction of the Kuwaiti oil fields or terrorist action against the United States.

The first point to make is that this did not stop Mr. Hussein from destroying the oil fields or dispatching hit squads to the United States, so the notion that he is easily deterred is dubious. Mr. Hussein did not use chemical munitions against coalition ground forces because he initially believed that he did not need them to prevail. Nevertheless, he did keep stockpiles farther back from the front, suggesting he planned to use them if the battle did not go as he expected. Whether he would have used these weapons is an open question, because the coalition ground advance was so rapid that Iraq's forces never had a chance to deploy them.

A better case can be made that Mr. Hussein was deterred from launching Scud missiles tipped with chemical or biological agents at Israel for fear that the Israelis would retaliate with nuclear weapons, but even here the evidence is hardly perfect. After the war, United Nations weapons inspectors reported that the Iraqi engineers knew that their warheads were awful and probably would have done little damage. For this reason, Mr. Hussein might have considered the conventionally armed Scuds to be the most potent arrows in his quiver.

After the gulf war, moreover, United Nations inspectors and Iraqi defectors revealed a set of secret plans and orders, issued by Mr. Hussein, that are disturbing at best. First, he had set up a special Scud unit with both chemical and biological warheads that was ordered to launch its missiles against Israel in the event of a nuclear attack or a coalition march on Baghdad. Since no one outside Iraq knew at the time about this unit and its orders, it was clearly intended not as a deterrent but simply as a force for revenge.

Second, in August 1990 — after he realized that the United States might challenge the invasion of Kuwait — Mr. Hussein ordered a crash program to build one nuclear weapon, which came close to succeeding. (It failed only because the Iraqis could not enrich enough uranium in time.) His former chief bombmaker has said that Mr. Hussein intended to launch the bomb as a revenge weapon at Tel Aviv if his regime started to collapse. His former chief of intelligence has said that he believes that Mr. Hussein wanted to build a nuclear weapon in order to deter the United States from launching Desert Storm.

Third, Iraqi defectors and other sources report that Mr. Hussein told aides after the war that his greatest mistake was to invade Kuwait before he had a nuclear weapon, because then the United States would never have dared to oppose him.

What all this suggests is that if Saddam Hussein is able to acquire nuclear weapons, he will see them as tools to achieve his goals — to dominate the Arab world, destroy Israel and punish America. He might not launch such weapons immediately in pursuit of these aims, but that is cold comfort. There is every reason to believe that he would brandish them to deter the United States from interfering in his efforts to conquer or blackmail neighboring countries.

With 1990's-style containment fading quickly and unlikely to be revived, both of the remaining Iraq policy options — invasion and deterrence — carry serious costs and risks. But a well-planned invasion, one that mustered overwhelming force and the support of key allies, could keep those risks to a minimum.

On the other hand, staking our hopes on a policy of deterrence would cost little now (except a loss of face), but it would run the much greater risk of postponing the day of reckoning to a time of Iraq's choosing. Given Mr. Hussein's history of catastrophic miscalculations and his faith that nuclear weapons can deter not him but us, there is every reason to believe that the question is not one of war or no war, but rather war now or war later — a war without nuclear weapons or a war with them.


Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst of the Iraqi military, is director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He is author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."

[Ned]

Agreed. War with Saddam is inevitable. The only question is whether it is nuclear or not. If he has nukes, he will use them. Certainly, Israel is the prime target.

Which leads to me to the obvservation: If the US does not take out Saddam, surely Israel will. But that may cause a general war in the ME that we really do not want.

[Inverse Icarus]

I say we give Iraq to Isreal!

troll rating? sorry i'm new at this.

[orange]

Ned - you are a moron

I'm too tired and overworked to say anymore than that...maybe later

[Kepler]

Give Iraq to the Palestinians. Give Kashmir to the Kurds. OK, next.

[The Mad Monk]

Given the article, I see nothing 'moronic' about Ned's comments.

Feeling cranky today, Orange?

[Gatekeeper]

Heh. If I were Saddam Hussein and had access to a nuclear weapon or two (or even "just" quantities of chemical and/or biological agents), you bet your booties I'd blackmail others with it.

Do something that's pissed off the rest of the world and they want your head on a platter? Simply put a WMD in the center of a civilian population center, arm it and sneer, "Think you can get me before I set this baby off? Give it your best shot, you yellow-bellied asswipes. There's only a 100,000 lives on the line. How quick are you?"

Eventually the world would back down, content to send in basic food and medicine so children could grow to old age (provided they're not conscripted into a war or two) under the boot of a dictator. Ah, that's the life.

But, hey, this is all speculation. Worst case scenario, we'll find out the truth anywhere from 6 months to three years from now.

Gatekeeper

[notyoueither]

It is difficult to deter people with mental illness. They do not react to the same stimuli the rest of us do.

[axi]

Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst of the Iraqi military, is director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He is author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."

Not only he's CIA, he's a Jew too. What more is he? Perhaps he is Dubya's boyfriend as well.

Oh come on... You can do better than that Siro...

It is difficult to deter people with mental illness. They do not react to the same stimuli the rest of us do.

See how propaganda works? First we depict our enemies as insane maniacs, then comes the "logical conclusion" that they can't be deterred, only exterminated. You boys have done that in two world wars and a few peripheral conflicts already.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by axi


Not only he's CIA, he's a Jew too. What more is he? Perhaps he is Dubya's boyfriend as well.

Oh come on... You can do better than that Siro...

Here's some quote material. Wow!

See how propaganda works? First we depict our enemies as insane maniacs, then comes the "logical conclusion" that they can't be deterred, only exterminated. You boys have done that in two world wars and a few peripheral conflicts already.

Isn't that what Greece says about Turkey?

[The Mad Monk]

Indeed. They speak from experience.

[Kropotkin]

Hmm, from the CIA the same agency that in 1989 proclaimed that the berlin wall stand for several decades more. (yep, people form that agency will get to hear that as long as there is a CIA...)

Mr. Hussein is a risk-taker who plays dangerous games without realizing how dangerous they truly are. He is deeply ignorant of the outside world and surrounded by sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear.

At the first glance I thought that one was about Bush.

As for the article; The entire text stand and falls with the concept that Saddam Hussein is a sucidal maniac. That's something that's really hard to know from a distance and through the mist of propaganda and lies that surrounds the man. However, the author is afterall bending some of the information his way and ignores some others. There's nothing that would hint that Saddam is careless about his own security, quite the contrary. As some might have heard an expert on indentifcation has found out at a number of doppelgangers. It's quite a speculation to say that mr. Hussein wouldn't understand that the use of weapons of mass destruction on anyone but his own population is the same as signing his own death sentence.

The article also fails to mention the flaws and/or possibilities of inspectors. Considering the situation and the history of the Iraqi question.

[Cidifer]

oh yes he's perfectly sane, that's why he ordered missles to be launched at civilian populations in Isreal and chem weapons at poeple in his OWN country! and invaded Kuwait, then set fire to their oil which took more then a year to put out with workers from dozens of countries. Oh yeah but it's the US that are morons, I sware some of you people really give Europe a bad name, and that's a shame.

[Imran Siddiqui]

oh yes he's perfectly sane, that's why he ordered missles to be launched at civilian populations in Isreal and chem weapons at poeple in his OWN country! and invaded Kuwait, then set fire to their oil which took more then a year to put out with workers from dozens of countries.

Can you please tell me how any of those actions are insane in the slightest?

Each of those actions seem to be perfectly rational. Why not launch missles at Israel? Especially when you figure that he knew he'd lose and at least he'd be remembered as a hero for fighting the Jews. Chemical weapons were used against the Kurds, basically to tell them not to mess with him again or else. And the invasion of Kuwait wasn't a bad gambit. Only problem was he guessed wrong that the US wouldn't back him and that the USSR wouldn't veto the UN resolution. And when he knew the war was lost, he set fire to Kuwait's oil, to prevent them from pumping the same level and to slow down the invasion.

All in all, he is a sane leader. The painting of him as insane is a moronic position to take.

[Ned]

Saddam appeasers, think. Israel has shown every inclination to prevent Saddam from acquiring nuclear weapons. They have indicated that if Saddam strikes them again, it is war. It seems clear that if we, the US and the UN, do not do the dirty work, Israel will act. This would invite a general ME war that absolutely no one wants.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Israel will only try to invade Saddam, if it is feeling suicidal or if Sharon is still in office in a few years, which I doubt he will.

[Kropotkin]

Israel invade Iraq, how? Israel can't do much more than some random bombing of Iraq. They can hardly do much against the production of weapons of mass destruction if they exists or Saddam really wants them. Also, it's not that likely that Saddam will nuke Israel if he's not already in a state of war. Is Israel really interested to get more involved in the middle east beside their own all ready well known problem-areas?

I'm not speaking out for appeasement but for common sense. Saddam is a power hungry dictator but that does not make him into a insane maniac. It's all to common in situations like this to thinkof ones own side as rational and reasonable while the other side is seen as unpredictable and unstable. The real situation is somewhere in between for both sides I would think.

[Tolls]

"Only problem was he guessed wrong that the US wouldn't back him "

Though even then, he was working from the idea that April Glaspie had pointed to the US allowing him a free hand in solving the Kuwait/Iraq oilfield dispute.

He doesn't strike me as irrational or insane, which is the way he is being portrayed. Everything he has done has been based on maintaining his power...Iran was a threat through the possible expansion of fundamentalism and stirring up the Shiite population...Kuwait had been pinching oil and refusing to stop...in both cases he felt he had the backing of the US (not true in the second, but we all make mistakes). If the US had said "No" I suspect he would have backed down. (and I'm not blaming the US here...Kuwait was a diplomatic ****-up...but it was Saddam that chose to invade).

Once in Kuwait, and realising he'd fubarred he gambled that the coalition would come apart, and in order to facilitate this he tried to coax Israel into joining in the fight...

[Arrian]

*reads article*

*pukes*

People like this are shaping US policy.

-Arrian

[Ned]

Kropotkin, If Israel knew exactly where the bombs or uranium or processing plants were, they would confine themselves to bombs. However, Israel has shown that it will do anything and everything to preserve itself and its people. History has shown us that Israel will not tolerate a hostile Arab country having nuclear weapons. They will act, it is a virtual certainty.

[Kropotkin]

Yes if they knew exacly where but that would hardly be the cause would it? Besides, they wouldn't be able to stop the production of other weapons of mass destruction at all from that distance. Yes, they might bomb but they are not really in the position to get rid of the root of the problem at all. There's alot about their neighbours that Israel doesn't tolerate but it can't do much about a lot of it.

[Sirotnikov]

Not only he's CIA, he's a Jew too.

Thanks axi

Racism is long dead, right?

I mean, it is common knowledge that all jews think alike, right?

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by axi
See how propaganda works? First we depict our enemies as insane maniacs, then comes the "logical conclusion" that they can't be deterred, only exterminated. You boys have done that in two world wars and a few peripheral conflicts already.

Yes, that was a sad day when Hitler committed suicide. All our fault. Such a great man, but portrayed so badly in our history books. The winner writes the history of the war. Too bad the public never knew what an inspiring leader he truly was.

What the **** are you smoking?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Saddam's insane because Bush&Co say he is.

It appears that if you repeat an assertion in a variety of media long enough, and to a wide enough audience, it becomes accepted as truth

[Drake Tungsten]

The article never claimed that Saddam was insane...

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
The article never claimed that Saddam was insane...

True; however, other propaganda releases from the US government have taken that line, and at least 2 posters on this thread indicated they feel that Saddam is insane.

Which goes to my original point - that if the media says he's insane often enough, their audience will accept it as fact.

[Kepler]

The article says Saddam is cut off from reality and that may well be true. But the example -- an account of the Iraqi "miscalculation" re: Iranian response to the Kurds -- doesn't agree with accounts of the situation that I have read. Pollack has an agenda, so I tend not to trust his veracity.

But none of the propoganda the Bushies have manufactured addresses the central reality of the Middle East: you always, always must argue from strength. Reason is equated with weakness and only breeds further aggression. Everybody in the region operates with bullying and bravado.

So, although the Bushies are doing it for all the wrong reasons, they are actually right to try to appear as forceful, pugnacious, and unreasonable as possible. They need to act like they have dicks for brains. Of course, it helps immeasurably that they do have dicks for brains.

[Drake Tungsten]

Pollack has an agenda, so I tend not to trust his veracity.

What's Pollack's agenda? I don't see what sort of agenda a person who works at an independent think tank would have. And as a former CIA analyst, I would assume that he knows what he's talking about.

They need to act like they have dicks for brains. Of course, it helps immeasurably that they do have dicks for brains.

Dubya may be an idiot, but his foreign policy team may be the most intelligent one ever assembled. Only a fool would think that they have **** for brains.

[CyberGnu]

Eh, Drake, most of the 'independent' think tanks have an agenda... Independant just means they are not directly sponsored by a political party, IIUIC.

[Drake Tungsten]

Think tanks hire people who's political views match with theirs. That doesn't mean that the people they hire are somehow tainted with an "agenda". I'm relatively sure that Pollack's views are actually his views, not some sort of propaganda meant to push an unknown agenda.