U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAQ

Hearing of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Subcommittee

March 1, 2001

OPENING STATEMENT OF SAM BROWNBACK,
A Senator from Kansas,
and
Chairman, Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS): The hearing will come to order. In keeping with the new mode of doing things on time, we're going to start this hearing on time. I'm delighted to have the panel that we have here today to testify on the issue of U.S. policy towards Iraq. This subcommittee has held a number of hearings on this topic, but this is a new day. It's a new administration, and I think it's a chance for us to discuss some of the policy options that are presented before the United States today -- this being the third president to confront Saddam Hussein. Hopefully we'll get a chance this time to address the root cause of the problem -- that being Saddam Hussein himself.

Senator Kerrey, welcome back. Delighted to have you here. Congratulations on your wedding and new job. Glad to have you, though, here with your colleagues.

Mr. Perle, delighted to have you here as well.

Mr. Halperin, and Mr. Cordesman, delighted to have both of you gentlemen join us as well. As we all know, this hearing will provide an opportunity to discuss the future of U.S. policy towards Iraq. Allow me to pose a question that I hope you will help us answer and that is -- Is Saddam Hussein better off today than he was 10 years ago at the end of the Gulf War? To my mind, the clear answer is yes. Saddam Hussein is better off today than he was at the end of the Gulf War. The evidence is piling up. Saddam is reconstituting his illegal weapons programs.

Defectors from the regime have told British press that Saddam actually has a small nuclear weapon. I've not been able to independently verify that charge, but the straws are in the wind. Further, there is ample evidence, both public and otherwise, that Saddam is using the cover of a legally allowed missile program to work on longer range missiles that could eventually deliver weapons of mass destruction. And, of course, officials at UNSCOM were never willing to consider Saddam's assertion that he had destroyed his chemical and biological weapons programs.

It certainly is logical to assume that in the absence of inspectors for over two years, he has seized the opportunity to beef up his WMD programs. For our part, according to press reports about Secretary Powell's trip to the Middle East, the administration now supports easing the existing sanctions and instituting so-called "smarter" sanctions. And I look forward to discussing this with the secretary next week.

As I listen to all this talk about smarter sanctions, I have to wonder whether we can put the horse back in the barn at all. The sanction regime and the international coalition against Iraq have come completely unraveled. A steady stream of international flights kicked off by the Russians and the French have headed into Baghdad since August without monitoring or inspections. The Chinese are working illegally in Baghdad without fear of repercussions. And press reports indicate that oil is once again flowing through the Iraqi-Syrian pipeline to the tune of 150,000 barrels per day.

The profits from those illegal transfers of oil go straight into Saddam's pockets. To top it off, U.S.-British strikes on Iraqi air defense targets two weeks ago, intended to protect allied pilots from increased Iraqi threats, drew fire not only from the usual suspects, but also from the Arab states we are ostensibly protecting, and our partners on the Security Council. I think we need to face that Saddam has won a good portion of the propaganda war. He is and remains a ruthless despot, who refuses to spend all he's allowed for his people's well being.

Notwithstanding, the United States seems to be blamed for the suffering of the Iraqi people. Now what do we do? Will we get inspectors back into Iraq? What sacrifices on sanctions will need to be made to get them in, and will any such inspections be worth those sacrifices? I rather doubt it. We're going to have to bite this bullet. After 10 years, sanctions have not achieved their intended goal. Denying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction being the goal that we intended to achieve.

If that remains our goal today, and I certainly hope it does, then we need to ask whether any refinement to these sanction systems will achieve that goal. And I'd certainly like to hear our panelists' opinions on that question. I believe that any tradeoff for weakening sanctions must be a more robust U.S. policy towards Iraq. The Republican platform in 2000 called for the full implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act, and support for the Iraq opposition. I, along with many of my colleagues, have long supported that policy and hope the administration will work towards it.

The threat that Iraq poses to its own people and to the decent nations of this world will remain for as long as Saddam Hussein is in power. To my mind, there's only one answer to solving this problem, and the answer is Saddam Hussein and getting him out of power. What do we do? I want to make several suggestions here, and I look forward to those from our panelists. One, I think we can use the resources at our fingertips in the form of a draw down of economic support to bolster the opposition and to fully implement the Iraq Liberation Act.

We have Dr. Chalabi here with the Iraq National Congress, and I'm delighted to note your attendance in the audience as well. Second, we should stop spending money on conferences for the opposition and begin to train them -- when necessary, even to arm them. We unilaterally should declare the Southern No Fly Zone will be a no drive zone as well. And we should expand our rules of engagement, including to target WMD sites and potentially other targets as well. Those are several policy suggestions that I would put forward as we seek a more expanded and robust policy towards Iraq, and we seek to deal with the root problem, which is Saddam Hussein.

That's a start. I look forward to what our panelists have to say, and there comments about what we should be doing towards a new U.S. policy towards Iraq.

With that, I'll turn to the Ranking Member, Senator Wellstone. Delighted to have you join us here.

OPENING STATEMENT OF PAUL WELLSTONE,
A Senator from Minnesota,
and
Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Near Eastern
and South Asian Affairs Subcommittee

SEN. PAUL WELLSTONE (D-MN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to all of our panelists, and a special hello to Senator Kerrey.

It's good to see you here, Bob. I want to thank all of you for being here. I think this is really an important time to look very closely at our policy in Iraq. The chairman and I have worked together on a variety of different bills. I don't know how much in agreement or disagreement we are. I think this is a time when we go through some important rethinking. Let me just say at the beginning, there's one obvious point of agreement, which is that I think Saddam Hussein is truly one of the most dangerous individuals in the world. There is no question about that in my mind, and therefore, a major, major challenge.

I'm pleased that the administration is going through a reevaluation of our policy. A year ago, and I think Secretary Halperin might remember this, I posed several ideas to the Clinton administration about how we might look at the existing sanctions regime. And my idea was that we would have a stricter monitoring on weapons-related activity, but that maybe what we would do is look at the economic sanctions and think about more flexibility, and I'd like to include that letter in the record if I could.

SEN. BROWNBACK: It will be, without objection.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Powell last week, I think has raised some important questions in his idea, as I understand it, of a stronger international effort to block Iraqi imports of arms and other military items, coupled with an easing of non-military items, and a more flexible approach to items that serve civilian needs, I think could form the basis of a new international consensus on Iraq sanctions.

And I hope, Mr. Chairman, that we will get into a discussion of what I think is a very important question. You know, look, this is -- first of all, I'm not the expert, and second of all, this is far from simple. And you've got a government that has not been willing to comply, at least for two years plus now, with any arms inspection. You've got a government that is involved in widespread and brutal human rights abuses. And there is no question that this is a real challenge.

But, I do think that there are questions that could be raised about the sanctions regime. And I also want to just pose two other questions as we engage in some hopefully hard thinking about Iraq. One of them is we've been doing this -- the policy of over-flying Iraq has been in place now for several years -- for years. It puts our pilots in danger on a daily basis, but I don't think it has changed the government of Iraq's behavior at all. And I know that Senator Kerrey has been outspoken, as you have, Mr. Chairman, in support of the Iraq Liberation Act. But I think we ought to think very carefully about whether or not -- whether we want to provide lethal military weapons to the Iraqi opposition.

I mean, if we do so, we risk over-committing ourselves and leading the opposition to believe that the United States military will intervene if its fledging efforts should falter. And I think a question that we've got to deal with, and Senator Kerrey is always very direct -- he's known for that -- but are we prepared to rescue the Iraqi opposition? I mean, I think we need to deal with that question in this hearing. Or are we prepared to let it die again? Now, if the current government in Iraq should implode, we should be ready to move ahead with a generous assistance package to help Iraq develop a vibrant and democratic society. But by most informed accounts, the opposition appears to be splintered and weak, and may have little realistic chance of removing Saddam Hussein from power.

I welcome, again, Senator Kerrey, Mort Halperin, Richard Perle, and Tony Cordesman to the hearing, and I look forward to your views. And I think this committee -- this is very timely, very important, and I really look forward to the discussion that we're going to have. Thank you.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you, Senator Wellstone.

Senator Thomas, for an opening statement.

SEN. CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to it also. So, therefore, I will pass and let the panelists begin. Thank you.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you.

I think this is your first time back to the Senate, Bob. The first witness up will be the Honorable Bob Kerrey, former Senator from Nebraska -- the great state of Nebraska -- the second best football team in the states, between Kansas and Nebraska -- and current president of the New School University of New York, New York.

Bob, welcome back. Delighted to have you here.

STATEMENT OF

BOB KERREY,
PRESIDENT, NEW SCHOOL UNIVERSITY,
and
FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR

MR. BOB KERREY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Wellstone, Senator Thomas, it's nice to see both of you again.

Danny Pleka (ph) is very persuasive, and it's nice to have a chance to come back, especially to talk on this particular subject. Mr. Chairman, I have a longer statement that's a bit mangled, but I'd like to ask that it be put in the record.

SEN. WELLSTONE: It will be, without objection.

MR. KERREY: And I'll try not to drag this out too long. First, let me observe that on Monday we had the opportunity to watch a very moving ceremony in Kuwait, with General Schwarzkopf, Secretary Powell and former President Bush, celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait. That liberation occurred on 26th February 1991. Two days later, on the 28th -- yesterday -- we celebrated the cease fire of that rather remarkable 208 day occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. And the driving of the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait was celebrated, quite correctly, as a remarkable demonstration of power used for good in a multilateral, multinational way.

My guess is, start that thing from scratch today and people would say it can't be done, shouldn't be done, et cetera. But, it was a rather remarkable accomplishment. Well, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, a lot's happened in the decade since, and I do think it's important to look at the history. I'm not going to go through all the details, but I'd like to describe five important things that have happened in the last 10 years that I think are enormously relevant to the discussion, and help frame the debate for what we're going to do going forward.

First, after that cease fire was declared, Iraq agreed to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to verify that Iraq had destroyed its capacity to manufacture chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Until verification was complete, the United Nations voted to enforce -- the Security Council voted to enforce external sanctions that would permit Iraq to sell oil and food -- or excuse me -- oil for food and medicine that they needed for domestic consumption. The time that was estimated to get this done was in months if Saddam Hussein cooperated. And what's come to be quite common practice, he confounded expectations by interfering, by harassing, and in the end, banning the weapons inspectors from the territory.

With reliable intelligence, I think this committee has confirmed the reason for Iraq's behavior. It's quite simply they want to maintain a robust program to develop weapons of mass destruction. Second thing that needs to be considered over the last 10 years is that Iraq has maintained a policy so hostile to human rights, especially for Kurdish minority in the north and the Shi'ites in the south -- and I would say, Senator Wellstone, I think if we stop those No Fly operations, we would have Kurds dying in the North and Shi'ites dying in the South. And they are alive today as a consequence of those No Fly Zones being maintained. No dissent is possible inside of Iraq. Thousands have been imprisoned, tortured and executed for opposing the current regime.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, with or without sanctions, the 20 million people of Iraq deserve to have the United States of America on the side of their freedom. Third, we have sustained a military effort to contain Iraq, and that military effort has cost us lives. U.S. and British pilots fly almost daily, as Senator Wellstone observed, to enforce the No Fly Zones in the North and in the South.

But, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we also maintain a presence at the Dhahran military installation in Saudi Arabia. And the significance of that is that this installation, part of our containment policy, was the target of a truck bomb attack on 25 June 1996 that killed 19 U.S. airmen. It was cited by Osama bin Laden as a reason for attacking U.S. embassies in West Africa on August 7, 1998, that killed 11 Americans and over 200 others. Our military presence was cited again when the USS Cole was attacked on October 12, 2000 in the Port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.

I point this out, Mr. Chairman, because when the debate occurs as to whether or not military force is needed, do not forget that we already have a very expensive military operation in place today. The question is not should we have a military operation. The question is how should that military operation be deployed. Fourth, when he signed the Iraq Liberation into law on October 31, 1998, President Clinton began the process of shifting away from the failed policy of using military force to contain Iraq, to supporting military force to replace the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein with a democratically elected government. And although our support for opposition forces has been uneven at best, this new policy is still current law.

Fifth, Mr. Chairman, opponents of establishing our policy objection of liberation of the people of Iraq use a number of effective arguments, and I'd like to cite them because I'd like to also refute them. They say we would never get the support for a military operation. They say that democracy won't work in Iraq -- that Arabs aren't capable of governing themselves. They say finally that the opposition forces lack the legitimacy and capability of the most -- in particular, the most visible organization, the Iraq National Congress lacks the coherency and ability to be able to get the job done.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm very much aware that these arguments gather force when they're not answered, so I'd like to answer all three. The first -- and these arguments are little more than excuses, in my view, designed to keep us from doing what we know we should do, and we know what we can do if our will is strong. The argument against military force encourages us to ignore the hundreds of millions that we spend every single year to contain Iraq and the 47 American lives that have already been lost to enforce this containment policy.

The argument that Arabs cannot government themselves is racist, and encourages us to ignore a million Arab-Americans who exercise their rights when those rights are protected by a constitution and law. And the argument against the INC is little more than a parroting of Saddam Hussein's propaganda.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'm very much aware that domestic and international support has been steadily eroding for continuing sanctions against Iraq, let alone a new military strategy to end the nightmare of this dictatorship. I have watched with growing sadness as Iraq has exploited the public's lack of memory, the Clinton administration's silence, and the world's appetite for its production of four million barrels of oil a day. I have read the reports of Secretary Colin Powell's return to Kuwait this week, and the difficulties he is having convincing our allies that we must stay the course in opposing the Iraqi regime.

I have read proposals by informed commentators to try to get the best deal we can at this point, including one by Mr. Tom Freedman (sp) that would offer an end to sanctions and U.S. recognition in exchange for allowing U.S. inspectors to verify that weapons of mass instruction are not being building in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, I urge you not to go along with the flow. This flow of public opinion, in my opinion, will lead us in the wrong direction. The United States should push back hard in the opposite direction. And the reason, Mr. Chairman, is simple. Saddam Hussein's Iraq represents a triple treat to us, to our allies in the region, and to the 20 million people who have the misfortune to live in a country where torture and killing of political opposition has become so routine, it is rarely reported. Iraq is a threat to us because they have the wealth and the will to build weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear.

Since the end of the Gulf War in '91, Saddam Hussein has lied and cheated his way out of the inspection regime, and has succeeded in convincing too many world leaders to overlook the danger he poses to them. Iraq is a threat to allies in the region because they have displayed -- Iraq has displayed no remorse and no regret for their invasion of Kuwait. Instead, they continue to justify their illegal act and condemn the U.S. led effort, which forced them to surrender the territory of their neighbor after inflicting inestimable damage to Kuwait. The Iraqi government is a threat to their own people, especially the Kurds in the northern provinces and the Shi'ites in the South.

Mr. Chairman, without our willingness to maintain No Fly Zones in the North and South, thousands more innocents would have died from Iraqi military assaults. It is by no means clear cut that Iraqi civilians are suffering as a consequence of our sanctions. What is clear cut is that the Iraqi people are suffering as a consequence of Saddam Hussein's policy of diverting United Nation's money away from needed food and medicine, to rebuilding his palaces and his military.

So, Mr. Chairman, I come here today to urge you to stay the course. Join with President Bush and tell him to imagine returning to Baghdad himself 10 years from now to celebrate the liberation of Iraq. In my view, it is possible. In the view of the Iraqi people, the people living in the region, and the people of the United States of America, it is also desirable. So, what specifically can we do? Well, let me just offer modestly, in the spirit of bipartisan foreign policy, in the words of a group of now senior Bush Administration officials who wrote a letter to President Clinton in 1998, there are three things that would be the beginning of the end of Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.

First, we should recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraq National Congress, that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq. Second, Mr. Chairman, we should restore and we should enhance a safe haven in northern Iraq that would allow a provisional government to extend its authority there, and establish a zone in southern Iraq from which Saddam's ground forces would also be excluded. And third, we should lift the sanctions in the liberated areas.

Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, these three moves, in my view, would signal that the United States of America will not yield ground to the world's worse and most dangerous dictator. And we would send a signal to the people of Iraq that we will not be satisfied until they are free to determine their own fate.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you again for the invitation to hear my views.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you very much. Thank you for the powerful statement and the clarity with it too. I look forward to having a good discussion on these points as we go on throughout.

STATEMENT OF

ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN,
SENIOR FELLOW FOR STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT AND CO- DIRECTOR,
MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM,
CSIS

Mr. Cordesman, let's hear from your testimony next, if we could. Thank you for joining us.

MR. ANTHONY CORDESMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank you and the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify this afternoon. I do have formal statements, which I would appreciate it if they could be included in the record. But I'd like to make only a brief oral statement.

SEN. BROWNBACK: It will be included in the record.

MR. CORDESMAN: I think I should preface my remarks with the fact that you cannot have an Iraq policy that works without a new policy, (in?) dealing with the Arab-Israeli peace issue, without rethinking your policy towards Iran, and without broadening our diplomacy, which has focused in the last two years almost exclusively on the peace process, to consider how you build up a stronger basis of support in the Southern Gulf. But if I may address your question -- is Saddam better off today? The answer is yes, in some ways.

There is one area where he is clearly not better off. If you look back at the rate of arms imports that he had until the embargo in mid-1990, by now he would have spent anywhere from $22 to $45 billion on arms imports. He has not had any major imports of arms since mid- 1990, although there has been smuggling and some technology transfer. In spite of demonstrations of prototypes, there has been no serial production of a single major weapons system within Iraq. There has been the assembly of some T-72 kits. I think we have only to think what would happen in the United States if we froze the technology base for 10 years, if we could not have reacted to the lessons of the Gulf War, and if our military establishment consisted of worn equipment that was used in the Iran-Iraq War in large part before it was certainly worn in the Gulf War.

In terms of weapons of mass destruction, it is an unfortunate reality that during the Gulf War, we had only a limited number of successful strikes on these facilities.

Nevertheless, the Gulf War forced UNSCOM into Iraq. And we should not discount what happened. Several billion dollars worth of manufacturing facilities, weapons, and technology was physically destroyed. As you pointed out, however, his technology base remains. It is virtually certain that he has had a decade in which to improve that technology base. Certain key aspects of that base, particularly the production of centrifuges and advanced biological weapons could never be traced by UNSCOM, which raises further questions about UNMOVIC.

He has the stockpiles to probably create a significant breakout capability and rapidly deploy some of these weapons. In economic terms, the benefits to him are clear since 1990. Economic sanctions have eroded to the point where Iraq has at least a billion dollar's worth of uncontrolled income from smuggled petroleum exports. Its legal oil revenues in 2000 are estimated at roughly $22 billion, which is about 90 percent higher than they were the previous year, and 170 percent than the year before that. It is clear even from reports that focus on the hardship of the Iraqi people, that he is succeeding in controlling how these imports of humanitarian goods and medical goods are used. They are going to the elite. They are going to urban areas. They are not going to the Shi'ites. They are not going to the center. And they are not going to Kurdish population that is not in the Kurdish security zone.

It is equally clear that consumer goods -- some of them luxury goods -- are going to the elite around Saddam -- to senior officers and the republican guards, and to the security forces. As a result, I do believe that we should refocus sanctions to concentrate on long- term efforts to ensure Saddam cannot import conventional arms, and the technology and equipment to produce weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, the phrase "smart sanctions" is not by itself a policy, even in dealing with Iraq. And there are seven areas where I believe we are going to have to change that policy.

One, we will never have a consensus that restricts the flow of arms and military technology to Saddam Hussein. There are too many suppliers. There are too many types of dual-use items. There are nations -- North Korea, Russia and China -- which have cheated on every arms control agreement that they have participated in. To make smart sanctions work at all, there are two price tags and they will not ensure any kind of leak-proof regime. One is a massive intelligence effort to trace what is happening on the part of supplier nations and entities. The other is something we have not been good at in the past -- confrontational diplomacy that will really go to countries which violate any controls, and confront them and possibly sanction them under other laws targeted to deal with these specific imports. It is very easy to talk about intentions, but the whole history of proliferation is that broad agreements simply failed.

Second, I think we should come to grips with the fact that at this point in time that even if we could get UNMOVIC back into Iraq -- and Saddam has shown no signs of the willingness to permit this -- it might well do more harm than good. The history of similar regimes, particularly the IAEA, even when we had inspections was that they were willing to basically certify Saddam was in compliance by saying they could not find evidence he was not in compliance. We've not had aggressive inspections since early 1997. And, quite frankly, I don't believe a UN regime would get the political support to have such inspections. Further, I think it is simply too late to find the dispersed cells and operations which have been built up since the mid- 1990s.

Where I do disagree with Senator Kerrey, and I think others on the panel, is I do not believe that focusing on the Iraqi opposition is more than a forlorn hope. It would be nice if it could develop military capabilities. It would be nice if it had the support of the countries in the region. It would be nice if it had resonance inside Iraq. I don't believe it has that support. I think the other panelists here disagree with me. But for many of the people in the region, they are a tool that would divide Iraq. And certainly for the Saudis and the Kuwaitis, this has been an issue raised at some length to me. The Turks fear them as a way of dividing Iraq and creating a Kurdistan.

I wish, again, it was different. And I recognize that at this point in time, the United States has major problems in generating the kind of patient, systematic covert effort to develop internal opposition that might work. But unless we do that, I think we will find ourselves legislating the funding of a forlorn hope. Fourth, as has been previously mentioned, I think we made a massive foreign policy mistake in not confronting Saddam and in not refuting the lies that he told over a 10 year period.

I can think of only two statements from the State Department that ever systematically attempted to explain what was happening under oil for food, and who the true cause of many of Iraq's problems were. One was a glorified publicity release, and the other was a page and a half long. In contrast, every day Saddam has fought for the minds of the Arab world. He has been able to capture the hardship issue. He has been able to find among people who do not understand Iraq, many supporters that blame the United States and sanctions for actions which are more those of Saddam than any impact of the UN Unless we are willing now to try to recover, smart sanctions will simply be a step forward towards no sanctions. And the question really is, can the State Department have that kind of effort.

Fifth, and I say in my testimony, the United States must think now about the future of Iraq's Kurds. I was in the U.S. embassy in Iran in the early 1970s. I watched the United States support the Shah of Iran in using the Kurds as a political tool. I watched them abandoned after the Algiers Accord. I think we must have a clear policy towards autonomy -- clear demands as to what Kurdish rights should be. And to go back to the No Fly Zones, I would absolutely agree that if we withdrew from Turkey, we withdraw from any protection of the Kurds. And whether the result is an immediate occupation and slaughter or the kind of more patient and systematic killing, which Saddam has used on other occasions, those are the only two alternatives.

Sixth, we talk about smart sanctions, but I've not heard anything about energy. In our projections, we say in the Department of Energy we want Iraq's production capacity to increase from roughly 2.8 million barrels a day today to 6.2 million in 2020. And we see Iraq as a critical component of our future energy strategy. It is far from clear that that makes sense, but someone has got to resolve the issue. And, finally, I have to say that we need to revitalize the other aspects of military containment. One key issue is to improve and maintain the forward presence, rapid deployment capabilities, and warfighting capability we have today. The other, quite frankly, is we have got to strop preaching. We have got to stop issuing strong statements and then not following them up with decisive military actions.

The best description I can give of military options under the Clinton administration was that the president spoke stickly and carried a big soft. I wish there was some better or nicer way to put it. But we need a formal doctrine that states our redlines -- that says quite clearly what we demand in terms of Gulf security, that we will remain committed to military containment and close commitment with our Gulf allies as long as there is a threat from Iran and Iraq. We need to define the kind of Iraqi action that would lead us to launch military action. And if Iraq does take such action, we need to strike so hard and so decisively that the military and political cost to Saddam will outweigh the political propaganda gains he makes from small pinprick strikes.

In short, we would be much better off if we stuck once every two years in ways which have a crippling impact on some part of Saddam's military machine, then through endless, pointless missions against air defense targets he can reconstitute. And I have to say, we also have to persist to the point where we are successful. What we did on the 16th was to carry out half a strike with no follow up. And the message here may be we sent a message of decisive action. The message, I suspect, in Iraq and the Gulf is, when you may have hit a third of your targets, that isn't victory. Thank you.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you for the strong statement. I look forward to discussing it further.

STATEMENT OF

MORTON HALPERIN,
SENIOR FELLOW,
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

Dr. Halperin, thank you for joining the committee and we look forward to your testimony.

MR. MORTON HALPERIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a great pleasure for me to be here. I have a written statement that I'd like to ask to be made part of the record.

SEN. BROWNBACK: It will be.

MR. HALPERIN: And I'd like to summarize it and try to particularly talk about points where I either disagree or have additional elements to bring to bear than what we've heard so far.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Or if you agree with some of them, too, you can throw that --

MR. HALPERIN: Yeah, I'll mention that as I go. I thought, I think where I think all of the witnesses here are and where I think all of you are as well, that is to say Iraq is a serious threat. Its leadership is committed to conventional aggression and conventional pressure. Its leadership remains committed to developing weapons of mass destruction. And if we fail to contain that, it poses not only a direct threat, but a threat to our containment of nuclear weapons policy as a whole. We cannot succeed in the nonproliferation policy if we do not succeed in stopping the Iraqi program.

Third, I think our other policies in the Middle East are at risk. There is -- as long as we do not have an Iraqi policy that has the support of the Arab countries, it inevitably interacts with their dislike of our policy in the Middle East peace process and I think undermines our effectiveness in both areas.

And finally, an area that's not been mentioned but, to me, is of great concern is if the Iraqi sanctions are seen to fail, it will undercut one of the most important instruments of American policy in the post-Cold War period, and that has been our ability to persuade the Security Council to impose sanctions in situations where we thought that was in our interest. We were able to do that in Libya, for example, and finally get the trial of the terrorists we believe blew up the airplane. We were able to get it against Serbia and Yugoslavia. And it played an important role in the change of regime there. And we've been able to get it in other situations, as well.

My fear is that, as these sanctions erode, people are coming to understand that there is no legal mechanism to enforce these sanctions and that if other countries choose simply not to obey them, that they can, in fact, get away with it. And my fear is that, not only will we wake up one day and discover that the Iraqi sanctions are gone -- with, I think, very serious implications for Iraq policy -- but that it will become increasingly difficult in the future to persuade countries to honor other sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. These sanctions are often dangerous for the countries in the region. They're always expensive for the countries in the region because they lose trade and they lose income. They've nevertheless felt a legal obligation to do so. And I think the undercutting of that would have very serious repercussions for American policy. And so I think, whatever we do as we move forward, we need to keep in mind the broader implications of what is at stake if we allow these sanctions to fail.

I think that the differences that we have in this panel and in general in the country about Iraq policy is not about how dangerous Saddam Hussein is. It's not about the threat that he poses. It's not about the importance of containing him. But it's about what we should do about that. And I think that turns on different assessments of what is feasible. And those assessments do not turn on any secret information. My sense is that, inside the government and inside the intelligence community, there is as much disagreement about the feasibility, for example, of getting rid of Saddam Hussein by supporting the opposition as there is in the public as a whole. This seems to turn as much on people's temperament, on what they would like to believe, than it does on any concrete facts.

Now, as I detail in my prepared statement and I will not go into here in detail, I think the most dangerous option is one of continuing to drift, of continuing to allow the sanctions to slowly erode while we try to keep them together, of continuing efforts to bring back the inspectors, which I think simply will not lead to the inspectors being brought back in, of continuing military operations, which has already been suggested, does not do very much. It is one thing to maintain the principle firmly of the No Fly Zone, to make it clear that we will not permit military operations. It's another to continue to fly in ways that don't seem to send any clear message, clearly doesn't have any real impact on Iraqi military capability, and yet both undercuts support for the policy in the region and runs the risk that American lives will be taken for no precisely clear purpose.

And so I think we need to look at alternatives. And I think that there are two basic options. One is to try to get agreement, within the Security Council, particularly among the P-5, with the countries in the region, on a new regime that would remain in place until there was a fundamental change in the government in Iraq. And that, I think, would have several elements.

First, I think it would require that we drastically reduce the list of items that Iraq is prohibited from importing only to weapons themselves and to real dual-use items but, in return, seek agreement, which I believe we could get, that the control over Iraqi revenues for what the oil they are permitted to sell, to make sure that these expenditures do not go for the unauthorized items, comes in place and remains in place until there is a fundamental change in policy.

Second, I believe we need to recognize that a return of U.S. inspectors is very unlikely. And as has already been suggested, even if it occurred, it's not clear that it would do very much good, given that they clearly will not have the freedom that we want and also that they have had time to hide their weapons programs someplace else. Instead, I think we need simply to, in effect, say to the Iraqi government that these sanctions will continue until you find a way to persuade the international community that you have abandoned your efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. I do not believe that Iraq could do that absent a fundamental change in the regime and a putting in place of a very different kind of government. So my view is that this set of sanctions needs to remain in place until that is there, that change in government, but that we ought to put the onus on Iraq, rather than continuing these ineffective efforts -- and, I think, ultimately futile efforts -- to bring back inspectors.

In the case of the No Fly Zone, what I think we need to do is maintain clearly our assertion of the right to do it, but also to make clear what our redlines are -- that we will not permit the Iraqis to move north, that we will not permit them to move against the people in the southern part of their country or to mobilize against Kuwait or any other country -- and that, if they do that, we will respond, not with the kind of very limited military action we have done regularly or even the kind of stepped-up military action that we saw a week or so ago, but with serious and decisive military action of a kind that would, in fact, materially affect the capability of the Iraqi military forces. And I think we should try -- and I think we could succeed -- in getting agreement from the countries whose bases we would need for those operations that this change posture would have their support and their agreement that decisive military action would take place if any of these redlines were crossed.

And finally, as part of this, I think we need to try to cut down on the smuggling, which puts in the hands of the Iraqi leadership funds that they can use for their own purposes and which is the most dangerous trend that is now developing. We saw in the press that Secretary Powell has raised this issue with the Syrians and I believe is part of the kind of change in policy that I've suggested here, that we could get agreement from the countries that have been running pipelines outside the embargo to bring those sales within the UN system so that we control what Iraq does with the money.

In order to get the support of key other countries, including the Russians and the French, for this, I think we also want to consider whether some of the funds that Iraq brings in is used to pay off their very large debt to foreign countries, including, in particular, France and Russia. I think it is no accident that the French and the Russians have been pressing for a relaxing, if not elimination, of the embargo and that these countries are very -- countries to which Iraq owes a great deal of money.

I think it is not inconsistent with the embargo to begin to divert some of the funds to pay off those debts, not only to those countries, but to many other countries, as part of the set of things that the UN-impounded money is used for.

As everybody has said, I think there can be no doubt, to anybody who looks at it objectively, that the embargo plays no significant role in the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. Iraq has enough money from the UN Food for Peace Program, it has enough money from the illegal smuggling program to deal with those problems. It is clear that the leadership prefers to spend its money on statues, on palaces and on weapons and that you could give them a lot more money and the problem would not change.

Nevertheless, it is also the case that we have paid a significant price because people believe that somehow we are at fault. I do not believe more clever public diplomacy will solve this problem. I think that a clear willingness to let Iraq spend money on many other things is the key to beginning to turn this problem around.

Now, as we've heard before and I'm certain we'll hear from the last panelist, there is an alternative policy and that is to arm the opposition and to try to get rid of the current regime quickly. I think it is no doubt that it would be in our interest to do so. I think one can raise serious questions about whether we should have done it when we had the chance to do so, when we had an overwhelming army in the field and we had defeated the Iraqi military force. But I do not think we should allow ourselves the luxury of believing that somehow this can be done on the cheap.

If we arm people and put them in the country, if we declare and support the creation of safe zones in the North or in the South, we have to mean it. And that means we have to be prepared to commit as much military force as it will take to hold those zones against an attack. And it means we cannot wait until they're attacked. We do not have forces now in the region that can deal with that. We've -- twice now -- encouraged people to act and then stood there while they were destroyed. And I believe we should not have done it either of those times. And I believe we should not do it again. If we are serious about this, it means a buildup of American military forces, maybe not to the level of the Persian Gulf War, but significantly more than we now have. And it means that we have to decide in advance that an attack on those forces is the equivalent of an attack on the United States and we're ready to go back to war against Iraq.

Now, I do not believe the American people are ready to support that. I do not believe the Congress is ready to support that. But if the administration is persuaded that that is the route to go, I think before we start arming people who are going to need our military support, we need to have that debate. We need to make that decision. Since I continue to believe that the Constitution requires the Congress to authorize us to go to war, I think we need a resolution of the Congress that says that we are prepared to protect these people and to go to war to defend them. I would welcome that debate. I think people would, in the end of the day, say that the American interests are not such that we ought to do that, that the policy of containment that I've outlined is more prudent and more consistent with our interests. But what I think would be a disaster would be to once more encourage people to rise up and then to stand there and watch them be slaughtered.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you, Dr. Halperin for your comments and your testimony.

Secretary Perle, glad to have you at the committee.

STATEMENT OF

RICHARD PERLE,
FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

MR. RICHARD PERLE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to participate. I had prepared a list of issues that I thought, taken together, would help in an orderly discussion of what American policy toward Iraq should be. One of the consequences of speaking last after three intelligent presentations is one is bound to be repetitive or disagreeable. And I intend to be both.

The question has been posed and answered already, "Is Saddam stronger now than he was 10 years ago?" I think everyone agrees that he is. I think he's stronger than he was at this time two years ago. And I'm almost afraid to ask the question whether he is stronger than he was two days ago. But I feel bound to say he probably is stronger than he was two days ago because what has been presented in recent diplomatic efforts is not an indication of American strength, but an indication of American weakness. That is to say, the clear impression has been created that the United States intends to relax the sanctions on Saddam. We can call them "smart sanctions" if we like, but what they will look like to the people of the region -- and, I think, the world -- is a weakening of American resolve in the face of pressure on those sanctions, which is evident to everyone.

Does Saddam now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure, he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons. We have been unable to ferret them out and find them. We couldn't do it when we had inspectors on the ground. We won't be able to do it if the inspectors return. How far he's gone on the nuclear weapons side, I don't think we really know. My guess is it's further than we think. It's always further than we think because we limit ourselves, as we think about this, to what we're able to prove and demonstrate. And unless you believe that we have uncovered everything, you have to assume there is more than we're able to report. And that's the history of these things. I'm sure Tony Cordesman would agree that every time you eventually get behind the lines, you discover there was more there than you had thought.

How can we end his program to deliver weapons of mass destruction and to develop them and the means of delivering them? Well, I don't think we can as long as Saddam is there, as long as he is in control of the territory and has sufficient financial and technical resources, he will continue to work at the development of those weapons. We can't learn much, in my view, in the absence of UN inspectors. I don't think we would learn much if the UN inspectors were there, even if the UN inspectors were there and free to operate in an effective manner. And the history suggests and the arrangements previously agreed to suggest that if inspectors were permitted to return, they would be under such constraints that the likelihood of their finding anything at all is very slim. After all, Saddam has had plenty of time to destroy the database on which we once depended. And without intelligence of the kind that we can get independent of the inspectors, there is really very little that inspectors could do on the ground.

So I don't think we would get any additional confidence if inspectors returned. And I mention that because the suggestion has been made that we would welcome Saddam back into the community of civilized nations if he only agreed to UN resolutions providing for inspections. I think that would be a great mistake. Any agreement to inspections would be tactical and disingenuous. And the ticket to civilization should not be as cheap as that.

Needless to say, the return of inspectors would hardly justify the normalization of relations with a man like Saddam. In fact, I don't believe we ought to even aspire to normal relations with a man who rules the way Saddam Hussein rules. There's nothing wrong with distinguishing between those national leaders with whom we wish to have normal relations and those who are beneath that minimal standard.

Beyond the weapons of mass destruction, which I think we all agree he is proceeding to develop, how should we regard the view that Saddam has been contained all these years, during which we all agree the situation has gotten worse? Well, containment became a slogan rather than a policy some years ago. Contained, maybe in the sense that Tony Cordesman referred to, he's been unable to buy weapons on the scale that he might have been able to buy weapons otherwise. But there was a parade, a military parade in Baghdad just a few days ago and he demonstrated 1,000 tanks, which I think is roughly double the number he had at the end of Desert Storm. So he's managed to double his tank force, despite the constraints. Clearly, he would have done more if he'd been able to do more. So in that rather narrow sense, you could say that his military ambitions, at least for conventional forces, has been contained.

But that's about all you can say.

The sanctions, I think everyone agrees, aren't working in the sense that they have not produced a significant change -- or, indeed, any change -- in Saddam's policy, in his ambition to acquire weapons of mass destruction, in his defiance of UN resolutions and the United Nations itself. They have been portrayed as damaging to the people of Iraq. I think everyone on this panel agrees that the suffering of the Iraqi people is being inflicted directed by Saddam Hussein himself, that food that could be dispersed under the existing program, is not being dispersed. The same thing is true of medicine. Money is piling up in Saddam's bank. He is using the privation of his own people as a means of propaganda.

Now, the point has been made this morning -- and I think the secretary of state has been attempting to argue this on his recent mission abroad -- that we should organize the sanctions differently in order to make them more effectively. And one of the things that he means by that is that smuggling activity should be legalized. We're not doing a very good job of controlling drugs, so let's legalize the drugs. It's rather analogous to that. There is oil moving through a pipeline from Syria. That's smuggling. And Saddam has access to the money, so let's make it legal.

The problem, first of all, isn't money. Saddam has the money that I believe he needs to do what he's doing clandestinely. And since nobody envisions allowing him to spend that money openly on weapons, you've got to ask, "What difference is it going to make to his program if the amount of money available to him is reduced?" It's far from obvious. But the fact is that putting money into the UN program is no guarantee that it is kept from Saddam. Saddam has a variety of means, that I've not heard discussed, by which he siphons money out of the United Nations' programs. And it includes everything from front companies that do business with the United Nations that are, in fact, Iraqi proprietary companies, to the standard techniques that are used all over the world to evade restrictions on capital movements and the like, where imports are approved by the United Nations, invoices paid and significant fractions of the money come back secretly to the regime.

So Saddam, even within the United Nations program, is able to acquire all the money that he can usefully spend, in my view, on his clandestine program to achieve weapons of mass destruction. So, at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, "What is smarter or better about smarter sanctions?" They're weaker sanctions, to be sure. They're intended to reshape opinion in the Arab world, by which I think we should mean the street, because Arab leaders are a good deal more sophisticated than we sometimes give them credit for. And they understand perfectly well what is going on. But we want to reshape the image in the street of the United States as punishing the innocent civilians in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, I come to the conclusion, after all of this, that we don't have an effective policy now. The changes that are being talked about will be no more effective than what we've had in the past, that we will not be safe from the eventual development of the means of delivering weapons of mass destruction -- against us, against our friends and allies in the region, against our troops in the field -- as long as Saddam Hussein is in power. The risk will continue until the day he is removed from office. And therefore, it seems to me worth concentrating our efforts on the one policy that could actually work and that is the removal of Saddam from power.

Now, it isn't easy. I concede it isn't easy. But neither is it reasonable to characterize it as hopeless. For one thing, before characterizing any ambitious program, one ought to look at it carefully. And I've been struck by how much of the comment about the prospects for success is based not on any serious study, not on any serious analysis, not on sitting down with the opposition to Saddam who are prepared to risk their lives by returning to Iraq and be mobilized within Iraq, but on pure assumption, pure speculation. I keep hearing about Iraqi opposition sitting around hotels in Mayfair. Who are we talking about? It isn't true. It's simply false.

I spent the last 15 years getting to know the Iraqi opposition. And when people, in the comfort of their homes and offices in Washington, DC, deride the Iraqi opposition for sitting around hotels in Mayfair when they have been in Iraq, when they are eager to return to Iraq, when they have seen their closest friends and associates and family murdered in Iraq, seems to me unfair to them and an unreasonable conjecture about their motives.

So the question remains of their abilities. What can they do? You know, I suspect if the sort of the derision that is heaped on the opposition today had been around in the early days of our history, we'd still be a British colony. I'm sure there were people who said, "Those Americans are never going to get organized. They're divided. The people in Virginia can't agree with the people in Massachusetts." Now, I don't mean to oversimplify this, but the fact is that when you spend the time to understand the opposition and when you look at plausible opposition strategies, the picture that emerges is very different from the dismissive view that we've heard out of the Clinton administration for the last eight years.

It is an opposition that has pulled itself together, that has a structure within which it meets and takes decisions. It is an opposition that has made clear its intention to abandon weapons of mass destruction and embrace democratic principles. It is an opposition that is eager to return to Iraq. And most of all, it is an opposition that, in the past, was able to organize itself in a major part of the country that was beyond the control of Saddam Hussein. Over a third of the country was, until 1996, outside Saddam's control. Now Mort Halperin has repeated the specter that if we want to do anything at all for the opposition, we have to be prepared to mount a military opposition, I think he said it might be less than Desert Storm, half a million men. And I don't know what strategy he's looking at.

But I can tell you what strategy I think it makes sense, at least, to consider, and that is this, that is to support the Iraqi opposition, to support the Iraqi National Congress in reestablishing its presence in parts of Iraq that are not under Saddam's control. That can be done. And it can be done quickly. It requires some agreements with the two Kurdish groups in the North and it requires some work in the South. But it can be done quickly. It can be done before the next hearing of this subcommittee on this subject. Of that I'm absolutely certain. And if they can't do it, then we will know very quickly that they can't do it. But I believe they can.

That political presence is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of Saddam's rule. And every change, in situations like this, begins with that. It happened to Ceausescu. It happened to Milosevic. And it will happen here, too. The moment people see there is an alternative, the moment that veil of invincibility is pierced, there is a political dynamic that takes place. And anyone who has ever run for office knows how quickly things change the moment it looks as though you can -- you can stand up and oppose the power that dominates.

And so, the establishment of a political presence, coupled with broadcasting and publishing so that Saddam would lose his monopoly over the flow of information, could lead again -- as it did in 1995 and 1996 -- to a situation in which Saddam would be politically challenged, very fundamentally. And at that point, if he wished to take military action, he would have to move his forces in a way that would present us with very attractive targets. I've heard it said today that we ought to go after serious targets. Mort Halperin says we should go after serious targets. I can't imagine a more serious target than a column of tanks attempting to root out dissidents in the South who are clamoring for a change of regime.

Do we always have to abandon our friends? Of course we don't. They were abandoned in his administration. Now he didn't have anything to do with it. I understand that. But there is nothing inevitable about abandoning your friends and allies. And so, to say we won't even try because the last lot didn't have the guts to stick with them, seems to me a recipe for defeatism. It is defeatism.

So I think there is a great deal that can be done with the opposition. I think those of us who have been privileged to know the opposition have come to appreciate and understand that potential. The Congress clearly has recognized it in the action it's taken before. And I hope that you will encourage a new administration to take a new look, to sit down with the opposition and talk about the ways in which, beginning with the establishment of a political presence and leading ultimately to a political challenge to Saddam Hussein, to which, if he makes a military response, we have available assets in the air to protect that opposition.

I hope you'll urge the administration to consider that course because none of the other things that are under consideration, no matter how hard we try to persuade ourselves about improved sanctions or smarter sanctions, none of them are going to end the threat from Saddam Hussein.

SEN. BROWNBACK: That's an excellent discussion. Good starting point. Let's run the clock here at 10 minutes, then we can bounce back and forth here on a couple of rounds. One of my frustrations with the -- with what it seems like has taken place, at least the last five years, in the U.S. policy towards Iraq has been this lack of resolve, this kind of drift, just a, "Well, we'd like to have him out of there, but we're not really sure how we would do that, nor are we willing to really take the steps to get Saddam Hussein out of office."

You each were talking about some different steps. And I think all of you expressed frustration with where we are today in our policy towards Saddam Hussein. And I want to use it as the policy towards Saddam Hussein, rather than Iraq, because I think it's a different issue. All of you appear to support changing somewhat the rules of engagement on our air targets. If I'm hearing you each correctly, you're being critical -- or several of you re being critical -- of the targeting we've done to date. And all of you would support a more robust rules of engagement on air, on our targets for our air -- airplanes, ours and the British airplanes. Is that a correct reading of each of your positions?

Mr. Cordesman?

MR. CORDESMAN: Senator, I think it would not be mine. I think you have to be very careful about saying rules of engagement for aircraft. What you would then mean is that the daily aircraft we fly would presumably do even more, every time they were illuminated or they saw a movement in ground-based radars, to engage individual systems or find some daily proxy to attack. We backed away from that last summer. Let me note that the rules of engagement really have changed. But the problem is that doesn't really do anything. At the end of it, virtually the entire air defense system remains. Saddam can provoke the attack at the place of his choosing. He can often do it in an area which produces collateral damage or serves his own political purposes.

I think the issue has to be if you are going to attack, you want to attack with sufficient force so you do him real damage. And that doesn't mean daily or by rules of engagement. It means you allow a cumulative process to build up. You use the reason. And then you strike to the point where you take out a significant percentage of his air defense assets or you strike at other targets like Republican Guard's headquarters. But I don't think that you can fix any aspect of the No Fly Zone patrols by simply saying, "This is strengthening day-by-day rules of engagement."

SEN. BROWNBACK: Okay. But I don't think I'm quarreling with you on this point. You're saying, though, that we should, when we respond, respond much stronger and on much clearer, bigger targets. Is that correct?

MR. CORDESMAN: And much more selectively and much more warily. Go in hard. Take the political cost, which is roughly the same as if you conducted a minor strike, wait and then hit him again if he does -- reconstitutes. But don't do this with some sort of rigid gain where he can pick the way in which we respond and when we do it.

MR. KERREY: Mr. Chairman, I think it's extremely important -- and maybe that some modification in no fly protocols can be changed -- but I think it's extremely important that we not enter into a process where there basically is the equivalent of a mission creep. And I think what's needed is not only a fundamental reassessment, but hopefully a bipartisan declaration from Congress -- and that's why I very much appreciate, Mr. Chairman, that both you and Senator Wellstone have stayed and listened to us yak on as we've done, because what's needed is a bipartisan force that says that we want to have the same experience that we had when Kim Dae Jung, Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa came to a joint session of Congress and said, "Thank you for liberating us."

SEN. BROWNBACK: That's correct.

MR. KERREY: All four of them came to the American people and said -- and I agree with what Mort is saying and I also agree with what Tony is saying. You know, you can't do this on the cheap. And to just let this thing creep along because we think, well, we want to use more force with our pilots, we may lose a few pilots. And then the American people say, you know, "What's this all about? I didn't realize that the mission had changed." I think it's very important for us to say, "We believe in the liberation of Iraq." And if we believe in the liberation of Iraq, in my view, our will equals feasibility. I completely agree with Mort.

And by the way, it wasn't just in the Clinton administration. The first time we called them up to arms was during the Bush Administration. And we didn't provide them with cover. And they died as a consequence. We call on them to be courageous and then we don't back them up. And it happened in two administrations. That cannot be allowed to happen this time.

And I hope that you can get to a point -- and I believe that if we recognize the provisional government and we protect that provisional government in the North and we lift the sanctions in the area where we're protecting, I have absolutely no doubt that the various factions are going to be able to work together, that they'll see that the will of the United States of America is open, sincere and is going to stay the course. I have no doubt that our will will equal feasibility and will produce a liberation and it will produce a celebration in Baghdad that is comparable to others that we've celebrated in the latter part of the 20th century.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Morton?

MR. HALPERIN: Yeah, let me make two comments. First of all, I think when we look at these comparisons, we need to understand that this a regime that's much more ruthless than the ones that ultimately we helped to liberate. This is a regime that still lives on absolute terror, in which there is no space at all for any kind of not only opposition, but opposition to civil society of any kind in the areas that Saddam Hussein controls. So I think the process of getting rid of this kind of regime is very different than the South African government that ultimately was displaced and the Central European governments that were.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What about Milosevic?

MR. HALPERIN: Well, I think it's simply not true. I mean, Milosevic, I think, was as dangerous to our interests. But life in Belgrade under Milosevic was nothing like life -- I mean, there were independent radio stations. Now, he tried to close them down, then they went on the Internet. You try to operate something --

MR. KERREY: -- it doesn't tell us anything --

MR. HALPERIN: It tells us it's going to be much harder. That's the only point I'm making.

MR. KERREY: Okay, but it doesn't tell us it's not feasible.

MR. HALPERIN: I agree with that.

MR. KERREY: The question is, do we want to get the job done? And if we want to get the job done, it becomes feasible.

MR. HALPERIN: Well, let me come to -- I agree. But I think --

SEN. BROWNBACK: Actually, my point here -- and if I could ask you --

MR. CORDESMAN: Mr. Chairman, would you tell this witness here to please behave himself? I mean, really. (Laughter.)

(Cross talk.)

SEN. BROWNBACK: It never did do any good. It seemed like, towards Milosevic, we decided we don't want this guy in power and that was projected. And that was projected around the world. It seems like towards Saddam Hussein, we're kind of going, "We don't like this man in power." But we're not willing to then go ahead and, okay, here's the steps then that you take to show the will that the United States needs to.

MR. HALPERIN: Yeah. I mean, I think the rhetoric has been the same about both of them. I think the difference was it was a lot easier to get rid of Milosevic than it is Saddam Hussein.

And I think it comes to the question of military force. Now Richard says that if we encourage these areas and the tanks start moving, that's a very tempting military target and one that we can attack. That is true. But I think the history of air power is that you do not completely stop tank operations or other ground operations with military power. We saw that with Milosevic. The destruction in Kosovo continued and was brought to an end only because Milosevic finally was forced to give up, not because our bombing raids stopped him from killing people. And I simply do not think we can count on either the threat of air power or the actual implementation of air power.

So I think we have -- and I'm not suggesting we not do it. I think we ought to have that debate. But the debate, I think, has to accept that if he moves, we bomb. And if the bombing doesn't work, we intervene with ground forces. And that means having the ground forces there before he moves because if we wait to start sending in the ground forces after we discover again that bombing doesn't stop tanks -- you destroy a lot of tanks, but you don't stop them from killing people -- it's going to be too late for the people who are being killed.

SEN. BROWNBACK: I understand. We've been that road before on that.

Richard?

MR. PERLE: Could I just make -- Morton wants smart sanctions. I want smart weapons. And we've both been in the Pentagon, but he was there before we had the really smart weapons. We now have the capability, in situations like the military situation that would exist in Iraq, to do really quite extraordinary things with air power, to hit the targets at which we aim almost all the time and to do so without significant risk to our own pilots, particularly in a situation where we control the air. So there is no comparison between the air operation that we faced in Kosovo, in my view, and the kinds of air operations that would be required in the Iraqi desert, dealing with columns of armor moving over a very thin road network and through narrow defiles and passes in the North.

This is idea territory for air warfare, as we saw during Desert Storm. I mean, you saw the roads and the highways. So the potential for air power is vastly greater. I'm not saying you'll never need any ground force. But we're not talking about a Desert Storm scale of activity.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Very well, sir. Let's continue -- I want to get back to the discussion -- devote the end of my time to sanctions.

Mort, I want to quote from part of your testimony and then bounce this off of everyone, starting with you. You say, quote, "anyone advocating a serious -- this is the issue we're focused on -- a serious and determined effort to change his regime in the short run by covert force bears a very heavy burden of demonstrating that such an effort has a real chance of success without massive American military action," end of quote.

Now, for each of you, starting with you, Mort, do you think that the Iraqi opposition can undertake a major, successful operation without the United States being a part of this or being dragged in, or however you want to put it? And do you think the American people would support such an effort? That's my question initially for each of you.

MR. HALPERIN: I don't believe that they could sustain these safe havens without substantial American military force. And I guess I am less optimistic than Richard is that if they were left in these safe havens, which after all they occupied, as he said, a substantial portion of the country earlier on -- I don't believe it has the same kind of impact as we see in political elections or even as we saw in politics in eastern Europe because of the nature of this regime.

I believe it is a pure totalitarian regime that remains in power based on the worst kinds of terrorism. And, therefore, I think while a miracle can always happen, that if we go into this, we have to go into it with the notion that there's going to have to be a substantial American military involvement, and that air power alone is not likely to be enough. And whether it's a smaller land force, as Richard suggests, or a bigger one, then I suggest that at least some of the people in this administration would want to be sure that it succeeded. I think we have to assume that.

I also have to say that while I think one should never rely entirely on experts, it is not true that the past administration -- and I assume the one before that -- did not look hard at the question of whether you could get rid of Saddam Hussein by supporting the opposition. And the people who get paid to do that in various agencies of the government, reached the conclusion that you could not. Now, they may be wrong. But it is not the case that people just dismissed it without taking a look at it.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Now, the other part of my question for you, each of you, is I asked you whether or not you thought this could be done without major American involvement, both air and ground, and you said you'd need that. And would you advocate such a policy?

MR. HALPERIN: I do not advocate it because I think the cost to the United States and the cost to our relationships with other countries, and the cost to our ability to use the Security Council for other purposes would outweigh the value. I would like to get rid of this man, but I think that cost is not worth it.

MR. KERREY: I would answer unequivocally, yes, it is worth it. It is worth the price. And by the way, the opposition forces are not asking for the kind of American intervention that Mort is advocating. I do think he's quite right that we have to make certain that we're not going to start and then stop again. We have to understand that we've got to go the distance.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Bob, my question was whether or not you think this opposition can undertake this effort without, in fact, some major involvement by us.

MR. KERREY: We have a major -- 19 Americans were killed at Khobar Towers in June of 1996. Why? They were killed because we're in Saudi Arabia. Why are we in Saudi Arabia? To contain Iraq. In 1998, 11 more Americans were killed in the West African embassy. Why? Because Osama bin Laden wants us out of Saudi Arabia. What I'm saying, Senator, is we have a significant military operation in place right now and we're taking casualties.

The question isn't are we going to have a military operation, the question is what's the mission. What's the objective? And I'm saying, with great respect, that I believe the mission should change from containment to replacement to liberate the people of Iraq. And I believe it is entirely feasible for us to do it, and I think the payoff is enormous -- 20 million people of Iraq liberated.

SEN. WELLSTONE: So your position is you go from containment to replacement and it would be Iraqi opposition forces, but it would also necessitate major involvement by us militarily, and that we should do that. I'm just trying to be clear.

MR. KERREY: I think it would take a continuation of military involvement. It's not new military involvement. The point I'm making is we're taking casualties today, Senator. We have at least -- we have several hundred million dollars of expenditures right now on the line to try to contain. So, I'm saying it's a false choice to say that what I'm talking about to liberate Iraq would require a new military operation. It would require a different kind of planning and a different military operation than the one we have right now. But it's not a military operation versus none today.

SEN. WELLSTONE: I don't want to do this. You know how you can do it. The last word that I get, and that's not fair to you and then move on to others. But, just so you respond to this and then I promise to move on. But, really, it certainly -- I mean, if we're talking about air strikes and also ground troops, that seems to me to be rather different. Yes, we have a military presence. This seems to be of a rather different order from where we are right now. Yes?

MR. KERREY: If you say that my current mission is to contain, we've taken 47 casualties and we've spent several billion dollars in order to contain over the last 10 years.

And as Tony said, we've gotten no benefit out of it. And if you want to liberate, it is going to take a different military operations than the one that we have in place right now. But, Senator, if we end up with a bipartisan effort coming out of Congress -- go to the opposition and ask them what's the definition of will -- what's the definition of what they want out of the American people -- they will not say that they need a massive military intervention in order to be able to carry this off.

They're asking for much different. They are asking for the recognition of provisional government. They are asking that we protect that provisional government in the north. They are asking that we lift the sanctions in those liberated areas. And they believe, and in fact they came relatively close in the past -- well, once before -- during the Clinton administration when we pulled back. We didn't provide the follow-on support because of the very reason you're saying.

MR. PERLE: Senator, I don't want to propel us into a quarrel about the quality of the expert advise that led to the policies of the past. Let me just say that one of the documents that purports to be definitive with respect to the quality of the opposition, prepared by an organization I will not identify, is short on facts, but one of the facts it purports to relate to the reader is that the head of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, travels with 26 bodyguards. Now, he happens to be in the room and he's surrounded by no bodyguards at all. That's the quality of the expert advice that we've been getting for years. And if this committee wants a really interesting and challenging assignment, it would be to review the last 30 years of expert advice on the Gulf from the institutions on which we've come to rely.

There's some history here, and the history is important. In 1995, the Iraqi opposition in the north of Iraq planned a military operation, from which United States support was withdrawn at the last minute. They thought it was too late to terminate the operation altogether and it was initiated. It resulted very quickly in the destruction of two Iraqi divisions. This was with very little support from the United States and none at all at the crucial moments. In 1996, when Saddam Hussein moved into the North, only after securing the agreement of one of the Kurdish factions -- and without that agreement, they could not have moved unopposed into the North. When Saddam did that, he did it because the defections from his own military forces were mounting in such numbers that he understood he had to act.

Unhappily, at that moment, we didn't have the will, we didn't have the resolve, and we didn't have the determination to exercise the air power we had, which in modest application would have -- I believe would have ended Saddam's regime then and there. This is not as daunting a prospect as people say it is. And it is true Saddam is brutal beyond imagination. It is also true that men who rule like that earn enemies in the millions. And when things begin to turn, they can and do turn very fast. This war, if it happens -- this liberation of Iraq, if it happens -- will be conducted principally by Iraqis, both from the armed forces joining the political opposition in the north and south, with a little bit of help from American air power.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Thank you very much, Secretary Perle.

Mr. Cordesman?

MR. CORDESMAN: The problem I think we have is we often end up attacking the opposition when we should be noting that Saddam is a strong and competent tyranny with a core of very effective military forces, which are heavy, well-armored, which have fought well against much better organized opponents at the regional level. I think we sometimes forget how much difference we made in the Gulf War relative to what happened inside the Iran-Iraq War.

And because of that, I do not believe that you can create an effective military opposition without really major American participation. And I think you would have to have forces based in Turkey, and defensive forces in terms of their ability to operate really out of Saudi Arabia -- Kuwait doesn't have the basing capability -- that would approach several wings. You would need a massive battle management support. It would not be an extension of what exists today in the No Fly Zones. And you would have to be prepared, frankly, to deal with the consequences of what happens if they lose. And I strongly suspect they would lose, because I have heard many reports of defections and weaknesses, and assassination attempts and coup d' etat attempts, and I've listed quite a number of them in my books.

But the fact is he's still there. And at least some of the coup d' etat attempts never happened. The other thing that we haven't talked about and has to be borne in mind is are we really talking about unilateral war. Are we going to bring Turkey along into this equation? Is Saudi Arabia going to play in spite of its stated fear of division? What is Kuwait really going to do? The last time I was in Kuwait talking to the opposition, and I'm afraid the history of this conference was not a happy one -- it was talking to someone who claimed to be a commander in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

And in listening to his call for American air support -- coming from an Iranian-backed opposition this was interesting -- it was quite clear that he may have been well able to launch small attacks inside southern Iraq -- pinprick attacks on the regime, but he has absolutely no idea whatsoever of what it meant to actually confront a modern force and to deal with air power. And let me note that there has to be an aftermath to this too. We have found out the hard way that unless you have an almost unified opposition arise, you have a massive exercise in nation building.

So, when you begin with the military dimension, you had better be prepared to go on with all of the economic and other aid required -- something we have not done in Bosnia, and something we certainly have not done in Kosovo. And if we are going to set a precedent, so be it, but it will be the first one.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you. It's troubling to me that -- I think we're all sitting here saying, well, I wish we could do this, maybe that, this could work. But if we continue on the current course that we're on right now -- if we go into smart sanctions, which a couple of you have noted you deem as a step towards no sanctions or towards just loosening up what's taken place in the regime, we're further eroding any sort of resolve, and we're probably just a few more years down the road from just saying, oh, what the heck. Let's just kind of dribble out of the region and Saddam stays, which is what I think most of our Arab allies in the region have concluded is actually what's going to take place anyway.

The U.S. resolve loosens, weakens over time. We're here in the neighborhood. We have to take the brunt of any fight. And if you guys aren't going to show resolve with this, then we're certainly not going to poke a stick in Saddam Hussein's eye. That's why I think that right now is really such a key time for us. We've got a new administration and one that has to make this choice. And I think the choice they make now determines where things end up within a couple of years. And we could make choices now on policy towards Iraq -- U.S. policy towards Iraq -- that may take a couple of years in their implementation to be successful, but that could ultimately, I believe, put us in a position where Saddam is out of there. And it isn't a six month strategy. I think it's a multiple year strategy.

But it's one of those forks in the road where, okay, we're going to take a much more aggressive, robust position now, knowing that it's not going to produce the solution we want in six months, but it will, we hope, in three years. Or we could stay on this one that we're on right now, which just kind of dribbles -- dribbles down until we're really -- we get occupied with something else and eventually we start pulling people, aircrafts, out of Saudi Arabia. We start focusing on different areas and we just don't go anywhere further -- forward.

I would hope all of you actually would work with us at this point that we take the more robust approach now, where we have a new administration in, and that we would all conclude together, as we I believe have at the panel, that Saddam Hussein is the problem. The regime that is currently in control is the problem, and now is the time for us to take a different approach. I would welcome your input into our offices -- I'm certain that Paul would as well -- of what that different approach would be. But, more importantly, the input towards the administration of saying, we will need to come together on this as a country if we're going to implement this policy.

And I think, Dr. Halperin, what you note is correct. There are costs associated with this or difficulties associated with this. I think long term, there are far more difficulties associated with the route we're currently on than picking a new one. That we can fill the cavity now or we can pull a tooth later. This is the time to act and it will be much less costly on that. That would be my final comment.

I don't know, Paul, if you had anything further that you'd want to add or that the witnesses would care to state.

Mort?

MR. HALPERIN: I would like to make one. Senator, I agree with you that we can't afford to continue to drift. I think there are two disastrous policies. One is continuing to drift, and the other is to start support to the opposition that we're not prepared to carry forward. But I think there are two real policies. One is the one of deciding we're going to get rid of him and support the opposition to the degree that that's necessary. I don't see how you do that over three years, because I don't think this can be a slow process.

I think Richard is right. You've got to do something decisive and be prepared to back it up. I don't see a sort of gradualism here that does any good. But I do think there's an alternative. I do not believe that moving to a different set of sanctions of the kind that I have outlined inevitably means we're getting out. What I think it means is that we establish something that is permanent, and something that will have the necessary support, both in the region and with the UN Security Council -- not to stop everything, but to put Saddam Hussein in a position where he can't engage in conventional military operations, either in his country or beyond it, and where his ability to expand his weapons of mass destruction program is not eliminated, but contained. And that we then confront them with a classic containment situation, which I think we could sustain as long as we have to.

I think, in other words, we can go to a new form of containment, which is sustainable.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Mort, I gather that this -- and I don't want to take time away from Secretary Perle or Mr. Cordesman -- I gather this -- in some ways what you just said goes back to the distinction that Bob -- or Senator Kerrey was trying to draw between containment. You're talking about a different policy of containment. You don't want to go with drift versus what he called replacement. Am I correct? You're saying as unhappy a prospect as it is, a different kind of containment is a policy that you think is workable and sustainable. And I think Secretary Perle has a different -- I mean, if we could take five more minutes and draw out your perspective.

MR. PERLE: I think the distinctions will be lost on most observers between containment and containment MACH2. It is bound to be viewed --

SEN. WELLSTONE: I knew he would say something like that, Mort. I knew he would say that.

MR. PERLE: No, we may not be as far apart as Mort thinks.

SEN. WELLSTONE: I don't think you are.

MR. PERLE: I think Mort hasn't looked at, and correct me if I'm wrong -- at ways in which a policy of support to the opposition could entail containment of risk, so that one would begin -- I mean, Mort referred to arming the opposition. He didn't hear anything about arming the opposition from me. The usual perception is that we're going to start issuing weapons to the opposition and invite them to march towards Baghdad. That's certainly not my concept. It's not General Downing's (sp) concept, and it's not the concept of the opposition figures that I've consulted with.

Our views differ, but my own view is that you start with a return of the opposition to the North -- to the North and parts of the South that are not under Saddam's control. I don't think there's a lot he can do about that in the near term, and he might not even be motivated to do a lot about it in the near term. As they begin to gather political strength, eventually they become a political challenge of some importance. We could talk then about what you would need in terms of military resources from outside and from with inside, and what you could expect to get from defections from the Iraqi forces. What might even be there latent now - underground -- because there's no external support from any kind, not even financial external support.

But I think you could contain the risk in the sense that if the political operation did not appear to be succeeding, then you wouldn't necessarily take the next step. One of the things that I think has discouraged people from looking at options in this area is the sense that a decision to support an opposition strategy is a decision to launch an attack against Baghdad, and that looks pretty daunting under current circumstances. I certainly wouldn't recommend that. But the opposition themselves are prepared to risk their lives. They have to make judgments every day about how much protection they require and how much risk they're prepared to take. And they believe there are feasible options in which they can engage. And I think we don't have to accept a two or three year scenario to take those first steps.

SEN. WELLSTONE: You know, Mr. Chairman, I want to hear from Mr. Cordesman and we'll finish. But I was thinking about this testimony, in which I think it's been very important. But it isn't important as it should be if it's just a hearing and that's it. One of the things that we might do because we've been apart on this, is we might with staffs get together and see exactly what area of common ground we have -- you know, we should go through the exercise as this discussion. And I tell you, I think we should. And the other thing is, I really believe the subcommittee -- we should put together a whole set of hearings -- this issue, the whole question. Mr. Cordesman started out earlier saying I don't think you can decontextualize this from what's now happening with Israel and the Middle East, and what was once a peace process, and where are we heading.

I think we ought to do a whole set of hearings and just stay with it, and I'm committed to doing that. We'll work together on it and bring other Senators in. It's really important to do. By the way, I'd like to thank all of you. Thank you.

MR. CORDESMAN: Senator, a very few quick points. One, I think one thing we all agree on that people really need to understand is that smart sanctions at best will work if you have strong and decisive military containment. And strong and decisive military containment means military action, and the willingness and demonstrated ability to protect Kuwait, the Kurds, and halt any major deployment of weapons of mass destruction. If we do not have that commitment, smart sanctions are indeed a road to no sanctions. I don't believe the Bush Administration would make that choice, but it's a point to remember.

I do not believe that the opposition today can be made strong or popular enough to overthrow Saddam. I do not necessarily disagree with what Richard has said, but it has to be very well contained, without military adventures, without creating the equivalent of a Bay of Pigs. Because I do not believe you can create a contra movement, which was not universally popular, as I remember it, on a bipartisan basis. But more than that, we have forgotten the fact we cannot act in a vacuum. This isn't some game board. What about Turkey? What about Saudi Arabia? What about Jordan? What about Syria? What kind of structure of alliances does it take to really make this work as distinguished from have Saddam use it to discredit the opposition as tools of America, and use it to gain popularity in the Arab world.

And you'd better answer all of those questions before you start anything that you may not be able to finish.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you. It's all well put. And we will work together and let's see if there are things that we can come together. I don't detect the disagreements I guess I thought I would coming in here. Maybe there is on tactics or thoughtfulness maybe. When you go in, you can't move one piece of this chess board without impacting about four or five other chess games you've got going on at the same time, and those have to all be considered.

It's been an excellent discussion, particularly at an important time for the country and they're looking at a new policy position here. I appreciate very much your attendance. The record will remain open for the requisite number of days to make changes, if you desire, in your testimony. Thank you very much.

The hearing's adjourned.