PREPARED TESTIMONY OF

ELIOT COHEN,
Professor of Strategic Studies,
Johns Hopkins University

House International Relations Committee

February 25 , 1998

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to appear before the House International Relations Committee, and to participate in your deliberations concerning the situation in the Persian Gulf.

Like many Americans, I do not believe that Secretary General Annan's agreement will conclude the long term conflict between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the United States. The Iraqi regime's record of duplicity and deceit, cruelty and ambition, makes me think that any accommodation with the United Nations will prove a temporary one. It is, I think, virtually a certainty that we will, within a year or two, find ourselves confronting the kinds of choices the administration has faced for the last four months, to include the use of military force.

As you know, I directed the Air Forces Gulf War Air Power Survey, an eleven volume study of every aspect of air and space operations in the Persian Gulf, to include those of all the American armed services and our allies. I believe that the lessons of that war - both the real lessons, and the false lessons - have some real utility as we think through the problems of today and tomorrow. Let me begin with some of the real lessons.

1. American military power, and air power in particular, can be enormously effective against a wide range of targets. After the Gulf War there was a tendency to debunk the achievements of American forces, some of which had been exaggerated, or simply misperceived at the time. I know this well, because the Survey I directed said some unwelcome things about, for example, our attacks on Iraqi mobile missiles, or the strength of Iraqi forces in the Kuwait theater before the war began. But the bottom line remains that air power was enormously effective against selected targets, such as the Iraqi air defense system, most of the Iraqi ground forces, the electrical power grid and Iraqi logistics in Kuwait. The seven years since that time have seen dramatic improvements in the quality of our forces: our weapons are better. Where barely 8% of the bombs dropped in the Gulf had precision guidance, I would expect nearly all of them in a new war to be so-called "smart bombs." And even though smart bombs do not always hit their targets, they do so at rates unprecedented in military history. We know more about the enemy, because of the UN inspections, a steady flow of high level defectors from his inner circles, and because of the sustained focus on Iraq by our intelligence agencies for these past seven years. And we understand the geographic and even the meteorological peculiarities of the theater of operations far better than we did before Saddam invaded Kuwait. Air power is a potent weapon against Iraq.

2. Despite these improvements, no operation from the air can eliminate one hundred percent of certain targets; at the same time, sustained air operations are guaranteed to cause substantial civilian losses. The Gulf War taught us a great deal about Iraqi ingenuity and persistence in dispersing, hiding, and moving vital assets; it also taught us how difficult it can be to eliminate, once and for all, targets that can move or be easily hidden. What is worse, the war taught Saddam Hussein that the best way to restrain the United States is by taking his own citizens hostage. On the night of February 13th, 1991, the US Air Force struck a communications facility in Baghdad - the so-called "Al Firdos" bunker. It was a bona fide military target; there is no doubt about that that. What our forces did not know is that it doubled as a shelter for family members of the Iraqi leadership, many of whom were killed or wounded in the attack. This accident of war caused the temporary suspension of bombing in downtown Baghdad. Its resumption, at war's end, was limited to only five relatively large and isolated targets in the city. In any kind of large military clash there can be no doubt that Saddam will deliberately put civilians in harm's way, and that he will exploit the ensuing carnage for his purposes, making use of all the resources that modern international television puts at his disposal.

3. Resolute presidential leadership makes all the difference. We tend to forget, I think, that the mood in December 1990 in this country was very grim; responsible military and political leaders expected thousands of American casualties, and possibly even a stalemate in the Kuwaiti desert. President Bush's determination carried the American people with him - and not the other way around. Similarly, the commitment of the United States government inspired Gulf states to support vigorous American use of military force - and not the other way around. The resolve shown by our government was absolutely critical in all aspects of the crisis. This is true today and will be true in the future. We cannot expect resolution on the part of the American people or America's allies, if the United States government, and above all the President, does not lead the way.

If there are positive lessons to be learned, so too are there false lessons of which we must be wary. Let me conclude by mentioning two of these.

1. It is not possible to undermine or overthrow the Iraqi regime except by costly, large scale invasion. The Gulf War does not prove this; in many respects, just the contrary is true. At the end of the war there is substantial evidence that the regime was shaken to its roots; there were popular uprisings in the north and south of the country, and even on the streets of Baghdad citizens voiced their opposition to the government. Saddam's regime now is even more fragile hated and despised then it was then. It rests on relatively small numbers of military personnel, secret police, and Ba'ath party officials. Above all it rests on Saddam Hussein's ability to maintain constant and effective communication with them. This, it was shown, can be disrupted. Let me add here as well that, contrary to what many think, the attack on so-called leadership targets in the Gulf War was relatively limited and of short duration. It did not benefit from the kind of focused intelligence collection that has been possible over the last seven years, but was, rather, a rushed and ad hoc effort that was not sustained in the course of the war. I would not promise that Saddam could be overthrown by a massive air campaign and subversion; but I would not rule it out as a possibility either.

2. It is untrue that the war ended as it did because our Arab allies were bitterly opposed to further measures against Iraq, or because the American people were horrified by the destruction of defeated Iraqi forces. I have found no evidence that Saudi leaders pleaded with the American government to suspend their offensive; nor is there any evidence that American public opinion was turning against the war when it ended. Indeed, the decision to suspend military operations was taken before and not after pictures of the so-called "Highway of Death" appeared on American television screens. The war ended as it did because of the way military commanders defined their mandate, and because many in the administration believed that the war's objectives had been achieved, and that Saddam Hussein would soon fall of his own weight.

In hindsight, of course, this last prediction, although understandable at the time, proved to be incorrect. Saddam Hussein will not fall from power; he will have to be pushed. The only questions are when that will happen, who will do the pushing, and what the price will be for either precipitating or delaying that event. No one predicted in 1991 that seven years after the Gulf War Saddam Hussein would remain a source of danger to the peace of this vital region What one can predict, however, is that another seven years will yield an even more serious threat to that peace, and to American national interests there and globally.