Before the shooting starts

Christian Century, Oct 9, 2002 by George Hunsinger

AS I HAVE listened to the discussions about Saddam Hussein and Iraq, some disturbing questions have arisen. As an ordinary citizen with no special expertise in foreign policy, I am unable to get to the bottom of them. As a skeptic, however, who remembers how the Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964 was made the pretext for the horrific escalation of military action in Vietnam, I think they are worth posing.

Did Saddam Hussein gas the Kurds? He is regularly accused of doing so, but the story may not be true. A little-known Army War College study, written by Stephen Pelletiere and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Johnson, came to the conclusion that he did not. Throughout the Iran-Iraq war, Pelletiere served as the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq, and Johnson has taught at the U.S. Military Academy. Their study investigated what happened at Halabja, where gas was used by both sides.

Saddam, the authors concluded, did not use poison gas against his people. While hundreds of civilians died in the crossfire, what felled them was the kind of gas used by Iranians. The Iranians, however, insisted that the gas came from the Iraqis. Their story prevailed in the U.S.

Jeffrey Goldberg wrote damningly about Iraq's role at Halabja (New Yorker, March 25), but when asked by the Village Voice why he had ignored the War College study, he explained that he trusted other sources. Why ignore significant evidence to the contrary?

The New York Times has recently disclosed that the Reagan administration, which supported Iraq against Iran, acquiesced in the use of gas (August 17). According to retired Colonel Walter P. Lang, who was senior defense intelligence officer at the time, "The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern."

Dilip Hiro says that while Saddam may have gassed civilians, conclusive proof was lacking at the time. "That is where the matter rested for 14 years--until `gassing his own people' became a catchy slogan to demonize Saddam in the popular American imagination" (Nation, August 28).

Did Saddam attempt to assassinate former President Bush? U.S. intelligence sources allege that Saddam attempted to assassinate the president in April 1993 when he was visiting Kuwait. However, Seymour Hersh concluded that this intelligence was "seriously flawed," and that the administration's "evidence" was "factually incorrect" (New Yorker, November 1, 1993). A homemade bomb had been found miles away in a van, not in the hotel where Bush was staying. Evidence that remote-controlled devices were used was discredited by independent U.S. experts. It was clearly against Saddam's own interests, Hersh observed, to involve himself in such a plot.

Why did the UN arms inspectors leave Iraq? From 1991 to 1998 UNSCOM arms inspectors worked throughout Iraq. Did they leave because they were kicked out by a ruthless tyrant who had something to hide, as we are constantly told, or were there other reasons?

The Washington Post reported that the "United Nations arms inspectors helped collect eavesdropping intelligence used in American efforts to undermine the Iraqi regime" (January 8, 1999). According to Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus, who ran the UNSCOM operation, the inspections were "manipulated." The U.S., he said, had spies posing as inspectors. They were keen, for example, on tracking Saddam's movements, which "could be of interest if one were to target him personally."

The U.S. took punitive measures against alleged Iraqi arms violations. Illegal bombing forays in 1993 and 1996 were followed by a heavy four-day U.S. bombing campaign in December 1998. Since early 1999, unauthorized air strikes have occurred on an almost weekly basis. UNSCOM arms inspectors withdrew, in part, because they did not want to be bombed by U.S. and British aircraft.

Scott Ritter, the former UNSCOM inspector, has stated: "In terms of large-scale weapons of mass destruction programs, these had been fundamentally destroyed or dismantled by the weapons inspectors as early as 1996, so by 1998 we had under control the situation on the ground." In briefing the incoming Bush administration, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen said: "Iraq poses no threat to its neighbors."

The situation would seem to be complex. First, by 1998, as a result of the arms inspections, Iraq was virtually disarmed. Second, Saddam, who seeks weapons of mass destruction, may still have a residual arsenal, though of doubtful reliability. Finally, the arms inspections were tainted by Western intelligence abuses. One need not whitewash Saddam to recognize the complicity of the U.S. If new arms inspections are to be instituted (as seems desirable), credible guarantees must be given to allay legitimate Iraqi fears about spying.

Who is responsible for the devastation wrought in Iraq by the economic sanctions? "History's biggest concentration camp" is what Jim Jennings, president of Conscience International, a relief organization, has called Iraq under the sanctions. The sanctions regime, he pleads, is "punishing the people of Iraq in a way that I think most American people, if they could see and understand what is really going on there, would find totally unacceptable in a moral sense. It's cruel, inhumane, it's unconscionable."