The TV networks' Sunday talk shows -- those closely monitored
barometers of the latest shifts in Washington's political and policy
high-pressure fronts -- suggest that, in the wake of President Bush's
sensational address to the United Nations last week, serious consideration
is now being given to a truly hare-brained idea: Sending international
inspectors back to Iraq accompanied by up to 50,000 heavily armed U.S. and
other troops.
The notion is that these forces would permit so-called "coercive
inspections" to be conducted. According to its proponents, if Saddam tried
to play hide-and-seek with the UN, as he routinely did from 1991 to 1998,
the military units assigned to the inspectors would wack him. Perhaps, we
are told, they would respond by destroying the facility or palace to which
the Iraqis were denying access; perhaps they would "coerce" better behavior
by going after some other target of interest.
It is not an accident that the advocates of coercive inspections
are, by and large, people who have opposed Mr. Bush's declared strategic
objective of effecting regime change in Iraq -- an objective that was
actually first made U.S. policy in 1998 by Congress and then-President
Clinton. Ironically, their proposal has most, if not all, of the down-sides
of a military campaign with regime change as its goal, and none of the
advantages.
For starters, if the United States forcibly inserts armed units into
Iraq for the purpose of liberating the latter's people, it will be able to
tap into considerable support from the Iraqi citizenry. If, on the other
hand, its forces enter under the UN banner, not to end Saddam's tyranny, but
in what will likely be seen by the locals -- and certainly portrayed by the
Iraqi dictator -- as an unwarranted willingness to shoot up the place, the
new inspectorate is likely to face open and perhaps life-threatening
hostility from those we should be helping to free.
It does not take much imagination to see how this situation could
deteriorate into one that would make "Blackhawk Down" look like the Somalis
treated our GIs to a church social. The difference would be that -- instead
of facing AK-47s and anti-tank missile-wielding "technicals" in the hands of
ill-trained ruffians -- if we lack popular support in Iraq, Saddam could
ensure that Baghdad and other targets for inspection bristle with skilled
and disciplined irregulars armed with sufficient firepower to decimate the
inspectors and their "coercive" companions.
Such attacks could, of course, provide the pretext for an
international onslaught that would, at last, bring down Saddam Hussein.
And, it is assumed, such a possibility will deter the Butcher of Baghdad
from interfering with the inspectors -- let alone allowing them to be shot
at. If, however, this calculation turns out to be but the latest in a
series of underestimations of Saddam's capacity for psychopathic behavior,
at the very least, large numbers of UN and other personnel may lose their
lives. Even well-armed units in-country would find it difficult to defend
themselves.
In such an event, the United States would likely be called upon to
lead an invasion of Iraq for the purposes of rescuing American and other
countries' nationals effectively held hostage there. If so, our commanders
would be obliged to conduct operations that will surely prove more
complicated and, in all likelihood, considerably more costly than would be
the case if President Bush were simply now to authorize them to liberate
Iraq and, thereby, to secure the active support of the vast majority of the
Iraqi people.
The inadvisability of "coercive inspections" is only further
underscored by the fact that, even if Saddam does not interfere with their
conduct, the inspectors are unlikely to disarm Iraq. Given the four years
(or more) that Saddam has had to squirrel away his weapons of mass
destruction programs, absent his unimaginable cooperation, inspections will
require impracticably comprehensive access, incredible forensic skill,
breakthroughs made possible by defectors and considerable luck to get at
what are sure to be widely dispersed, deeply buried and/or mobile WMD
facilities.
At best, this will take time. Hans Blix, the current head of the
UN's inspection arm, has said he might be able to provide an idea about what
Saddam Hussein has in the way of weapons of mass destruction within a year.
In the meantime, the Iraqi despot may be able to achieve the nuclear
wannabe's brass ring: a functioning atomic or even thermonuclear device --
thereby dramatically changing the complexion of the strategic threat posed
to us and others by Saddam's regime.
The final problem with the inspections approach -- whether coercive
or otherwise -- is that, even if they could somehow be made completely
effective and actually achieve Iraq's complete disarmament, so long as
Saddam remains in power, he will retain the know-how and trained personnel
needed to reconstitute whatever chemical, biological and/or nuclear weapons
program he desires. This may take no more than six months. But it could
take considerably less time if the international community foolishly
declares Iraq "disarmed," ends sanctions and officially allows the
resumption of unmonitored trade with Iraq.
For many years, the U.S. government has wisely resisted appeals for
the creation of a UN army, or the permanent assignment to the United Nations
of American forces for military operations. President Bush would be
ill-advised to what would amount to a departure from this sensible policy,
especially for a mission as poorly conceived and fraught with peril as
"coercive inspections" in Iraq.
Fortunately, Mr. Bush appears to have appreciated that only after
Saddam and his ruling clique have been removed from power and the Iraqi
people liberated will we be able to ensure that "the world's most dangerous
weapons" are truly kept out of such malevolent hands. He is under
intensifying pressure to accept an alternative that is, despite its clear
defects (or perhaps because of them), satisfactory to the UN and others
opposed to regime change in Iraq. At such a moment the President would do
well to recall what Margaret Thatcher once therapeutically told his father:
"George, this is no time to 'go wobbly!'"
