U.S. Policy Toward Iraq

Hearing of the
House International Relations Committee
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia

October 4, 2001

PREPARED STATEMENT OF

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN
A Representative from New York,
and
Chairman, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia

During the previous Administration, Congress was told that Iraqi dictator Saddam Husayn is "in a strategic box."

We were told that U.S. patrols over northern and southern Iraq were preventing Saddam from threatening his neighbors with conventional forces.

We were told that international sanctions were denying Saddam the revenues with which to rebuild large weapons of mass destruction programs.

And we were also told that Saddam Husayn was isolated in the international community.

The purpose of this hearing is to question these assumptions and to discuss what Saddam Husayn has been up to nearly three years after the last U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq.

Iraq has adamantly refused to allow new inspections, even while making the absurd claim that Iraq is no longer developing mass destruction weapons.

With Americans justifiably concerned about further terrorist attacks since September 11, we want to know the extent to which Saddam has rebuilt his biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons capabilities.

September 11 has taught us how costly it is to be complacent and taught us to pointedly challenge those who assert that aggressive terrorists -- or dictators --are "contained" in "boxes."

In point of fact, we can never be sure that dictators or terrorists are in any "strategic box" as long as they are in power or at large.

Secretary of State Powell’s "targeted sanctions" is intended to concentrate the efforts of the world community on denying Saddam technology and illicit revenue. Unfortunately, however, it seems likely that it will allow Saddam to "pick the lock" of his cage -- or to break down its door altogether.

Thus, I very much doubt that the proposed approach will yield the hoped-for plugging up of leaks in the sanctions regime. Leaks, for example, that permitted a Chinese company to install new fiber optic cable to link Iraq’s air defense network and make it more effective against U.S. aircraft patrolling the skies over Iraq. Leaks that allowed Iraq, six years ago, to import through Jordan Scud missile guidance systems from Russian middleman.

There is no reason to believe that Saddam would shrink from providing his weapons of mass destruction technology to terrorists, although there is not reason to believe he has done so as of yet. We cannot rule out the possibility that a man who would kill five thousand Iraqi Kurds in a poison gas attack at Halabja would contemplate the use of such weapons against American targets.

I am on record, along with the Chairman of the Committee and many of its Members as advocating the overthrow of Saddam Husayn. Indeed, under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, it is officially declared U.S. policy to change Iraq’s regime. There is no other way to fully and finally end the threat Iraq poses to our national security.

This is an important goal, whether or not Saddam is demonstrated to have played a role in the September 11 attacks.

We do not, of course, want to unnecessarily complicate the struggle we are currently undertaking against Osama bin Laden and terrorists of his ilk.

But the United States should be able to "chew gum and walk at the same time." At the earliest possible moment -- which might be very soon, and certainly will have to come before we can declare total victory over terrorism -- we must turn our attention to ending a regime we should have dismantled years ago. Saddam’s regime continues to defy the will of the international community, all norms of acceptable international behavior, and well as all human rights norms. While we’re striking at other terrorists, we ought to end regime of a master terrorist like Saddam.

Today, we’ll here from three distinguished experts on Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction programs, Geoffrey Kemp, Charles Duelfer, and Gary Milhollin. I will introduce them in more detail after Mr. Ackerman makes any opening statement he may wish.

Today’s first witness is Geoffrey Kemp, a very well-known expert on the region who served in the first Reagan administration as Senior Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council. Earlier this year, he co-chaired a prestigious working group on Iraq under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Kemp, your statement will be entered in full in the record and you are invited to summarize it orally.

Next, we’ll hear from Charles Duelfer, who is one of the few experts who can attest from personal experience how difficult it is to obtain information from Iraq on its weapons programs. He visited Iraq many times during his tenure as deputy Executive Chairman of UNSCOM, the special U.N. commission charged with dismantling Iraq’s weapons programs. He is now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Please proceed, sir.

We will also hear from Gary Milhollin, who runs the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, perhaps the most authoritative center for the study of proliferation issues in the country. Mr. Milhollin has put out volumes of work on Iraq’s efforts to obtain weapons-related technology. Mr. Milhollin.