|
|
|
7 January 99 By Adel Darwish During the Iraqi crisis last February(98), one American commentator wondered why the United States has manoeuvred itself into a situation when it would look bad if it does nothing, and if President Bill Clinton was to launch attacks, it would be worse. Six weeks ago, America and its only ally, Britain re-discovered an old proverb: It is easier to start a fight with Iraq than to end one. Only days after Operation Desert Fox was called off on December 19th, Iraqis began taking repeated pot-shots at American aircraft triggering a row over the 'no-fly zones' that cover half their country. International lawyers, analysts and critics of US policy on Iraq, who had forgotten about the 'no-fly zone' for years, began to question its legality. Unlike Weapons inspections, the fate of Kuwaiti prisoners, compensation or demarcation of borders with Kuwait, the 'no-fly Zones' were imposed by the allies in and not by UN Security Council Resolutions. And the political fallout continues. Russia's President Doris Yeltsin called the strikes 'illegal and senseless' and briefly recalled his ambassadors from America and Britain. France protested by pulling its aircraft out of the force that has been patrolling the 'no-fly zone' over southern Iraq (it had earlier withdrawn from the northern patrol). So, has the latest episode, involving hundreds of aircraft and over Iraq and 325 missiles (these alone cost the Americans $400 million) brought a conclusion any closer? ''As far as the ultimate goal of this whole effort, which is to force political change in Iraq, it's hard to see any progress at all," said one diplomat from a NATO member country in Baghdad. President Saddam Hussein seems to have taken control of the confrontation, forcing the Americans and the British to react to situations he creates. The daily challenges over the 'no-fly Zones' could be seen in a context, where it is in the interest of the Iraqi president to keep Operation Desert Fox going on his terms, gaining political ground in the Arab and Islamic world, through out the Islamic special month of Ramadan, and possibly forever. He is calling the daily agenda, at little cost to himself (there are no credible evidence produced by the Pentagon that any of the expensive air to ground missiles or air to air missiles (about $380,000 to $420,000 a piece) have hit any targets. The only Iraqi interceptor, a MIG-23, that came down, did so because it ran out of fuel. In One 5 minutes confrontation alone on 5 January the cost to American taxpayers estimated at $3.5 - million (Congress take note), and it has become a routine that neutral analysts remind the world media how useless the American policy is. President Hussein also forced America into a propaganda war, the outcome of which is known in advance. While American and British propaganda are designed to address electorate that doesn't exist in the Arab world, Mr Hussein fighting arena is the boiling emotions on the Arab streets, making pro America western government in the region very uncomfortable. Thousands of US flags, distributed by Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat to welcome President Clinton during his visit to Gaza two days before Desert Fox, are now routinely burnt in business as usual daily protest. British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced angry demonstrators during his visit to South Africa in running battles not seen since apartheid days, and President Mandela himself opposed the policy on Iraq. On January 7, President Hussein called upon Arabs and Muslims in countries sided with the US to overthrow their government. Three days later, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa attacked the Iraqi leader suggesting that his people should topple him. Almost at the same time, Saudi Arabian official news agency distributed an unprecedented dispatch calling upon Iraqi people to topple '' the tyrant of Baghdad,'' and accused him of murdering his own people. Another step forward in President Hussein's plan to fight a war on his favourite propaganda ground, an historian observed. The Iraqi leader hopes to drag the region into the kind of antagonism not seen since colonel Nasser's battles over the 'Voice of the Arabs Radio' that polarised the region into a conservative monarchies lead camp, and radicals led by Nasser, the period was littered with assassinations, military coups, civil wars and confrontations with the west. Militarily? David Hussein, experts say, is taunting and teasing Bill Goliath. The Iraqis are trying to lure American aircraft into a trap over the 'no-fly Zones'. They are trying tactics the Serbs used successfully in Bosnia in 1995 to down a high tech US F-18 fighter. Like in Bosnia American pilots are alerted as soon as they are 'painted' by hostile radar signals. They fire anti-radar missile to hit the site. In Bosnia the Serbs didn't switch their radar, until a few seconds before launching a Russian made Sam-6 missile that brought down the F-18. The Iraqis nearly succeeded in January using a Sam-6 missile. '' The Iraqis hope to down an American aircraft, it would be a big propaganda coup for them,'' said a Baghdad based western envoy. This would please the Russians (increasingly moving closer to Baghdad) and show the effectiveness of their air defence equipment. But most important, to display a captured American pilot on Iraqi television telling the world how ashamed he was bombing Iraqi women and Children. Pictures of such victims are plentiful and still in demand by worldwide TV viewers. The Desert Fox bombing, however, achieved one thing: putting an end to the work of Unscom, the United Nations body charged with disposing of Iraq's deadliest weapons. Iraq announced that the arms inspectors, who had fled the country hours before the bombing began, would not be allowed back. Stories leaked, from UN sources, that Secretary General Kofi Annan was infuriated by evidence he saw that America, and possibly other powers, used Unscom as a cover to spy on Iraq, which was confirmed by US officials. It gave further credibility to Iraqi claims that some Unscom inspectors were American spies. With UN inspectors out of Iraq, analysts say Iraq's pursuit of a nuclear bomb was not slowed by the attack. '' The Iraqis are closer now to building a nuclear weapon than they were in January 1991, [when the Gulf war began],'' said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. Mr Albright, who served as a nuclear-weapons inspector in Iraq, is now working with Khidir Hamza, a scientist who defected from Iraq's nuclear-weapons program. They believe Iraq could build a nuclear bomb within two or three years - or two or three months, if Iraqi agents can obtain highly enriched uranium from Russia. With less fear of getting caught, President Hussein has more incentive to pursue a bomb,'' Mr Albright said.'' He knows Russian machine tools, technology, and people can be obtained. Without inspectors, I don't see how we can get warning in time to stop Iraq from building a bomb. It might take a year or two to detect a nuclear program. The clock is ticking.'' American officials assure the world that their bombs had made a huge dent in Mr Hussein's weapons programmes. Assessing the damage caused by Desert Fox, General Henry Shelton, America's top military man, said nine Iraqi missile factories had been put out of operation for at least a year. However, other military experts are not impressed. ''Many of the buildings hit seem to have marginal value,'' said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The Iraqis had plenty of time to hide valuable military assets. He believes the initial assertions of significant damage inflicted on Iraq appeared to be ''an awkward combination of propaganda and complete rubbish.'' The bombardment did nothing to stop Iraq's drive to build biological and chemical weapons, said Scott Ritter, the weapons inspector who resigned to protest what he called weak U.S. support for the mission. Other experts predict that President Hussein would rebuild his biological and chemical arsenal by June or July of this year. So America faces the prospect of bombing Iraq every few months, never dealing a knockout blow and never knowing when the Iraqi leader will use or threaten to use the prohibited weapons that he is said to be secretly developing. One serving Unscom inspector questioned the usefulness of the bombing last December, or at any time in the future; he might also have asked why, if America and Britain knew where to find Mr Hussein's secret weapons for the cruise missiles, they had not let the inspectors know? The situation prompted Senator Sam Brownback, (Republican -Kansas); to say that there still is no coherent U.S. plan to deal with the Iraqi regime. ''I was hoping we were in the process of developing a foreign policy toward Iraq,'' he said. After they called off their bombers, America and Britain drafted a new five-point strategy to '' keep Saddam in the cage,'' as British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. It include continuous presence of force and threat to use it, help Iraqi opposition, try to resume inspections, take tougher measures against smugglers undermining sanctions and launch a diplomatic offensive to get more allies on board. All amounts to almost nothing. Mr Hussein has weathered many bombings, and believes he could survive a few more. The Iraqi opposition is a joke, and the $97m earmarked for it by America even a bigger joke. Senator Brownback, who strongly supports the liberation act, concedes that the present leaders of the Iraqi opposition are flawed. ''Every one of them has warts,'' he said. The only pressure available to Washington to readmit Unscom to Iraq is through sanctions; eight years of which did little to weaken President Hussein's grip on power. Smugglers do get round the sanctions, they do so chiefly through Turkey, where it winks at the infractions, or through Iran and Syria, where America has little influence - Demonstrators stormed the American embassy, near the presidential palace in Damascus, a place where no one could whisper without a prior permission from President Assad, who was on US side during the Gulf war. With departure of UNSCOM - teasing them was the favourite means of the Iraqi leader to attract attention- he is already testing new methods of challenging America's stranglehold. In addition to air challenges, his renewed threat to end the UN's humanitarian programme, could both bring about a new crisis. And lately rekindling the claims to Kuwait which started the whole crisis in 1990. Rather than planning for a post-Hussein period, some diplomats in Baghdad are now considering the prospect that President Hussein may long be a problem for the Americans. ''Saddam's military infrastructure might has or has not been damaged, but not his command and control mechanism,'' said an envoy from a NATO country. '' President Clinton had to attack because if he didn't, American credibility would have been destroyed.'' But ultimately, he said, "nothing has changed, and no one seems to know where we go from here.'' Iraq's large oil reserves, bigger than that of Canada, USA and Mexico put together is a big carrot dangled before every one from Baghdad all the way to Europe, and every one wants a slice of it - Iraq now us imports and sale of oil under UN oil for food programme to reward and punish countries. He enjoys the locality of the power elite of minority Sunni Muslims. Comprising 30 percent of the population, they would side with the regime against a possible Shia take-over. With no one in the west is in the mood to deploy ground troops, all make his grip on Baghdad surprisingly stable. After Operation desert Fox, Saddam emerges stronger and more defiant, could he be toppled? |
|
|
