To the Editor:
I would like to respond to Bret Louis Stephens’s review of my book, Endgame [July-August]. The strength of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) rested in the legitimacy of its mandate, i.e., the Security Council resolutions that provided the legal framework for resolving the situation in Iraq. These resolutions do not prohibit Iraq from possessing conventional military capability, nor do they dictate the composition of the Iraqi government, two issues that Mr. Stephens faults me for not considering.
Many of my critics, Mr. Stephens included, have failed to appreciate the logical inconsistency in trying simultaneously to pursue a policy of disarmament in accordance with Security Council resolutions and a policy of regime removal, unilateral in nature and lacking any internationally accepted mandate. The fact is that sooner or later the United States must commit itself to one path or the other. I have chosen to support the path that seeks stability and security through reliance on internationally accepted norms of diplomacy. I invite Mr. Stephens and the others who embrace the policy of regime removal to consider where this policy has gotten us: stalled, isolated, and presiding over a deteriorating situation from which there is no clear exit strategy.
Comparing the moral cost of continuing the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein with the moral cost of containing and eventually removing him from power is something Mr. Stephens apparently thinks too unimportant to consider. But I have trouble justifying a policy of containment that results in the death every month of thousands of innocent children under the age of five. Not even Saddam Hussein has killed off the Iraqi people at such a rate.
Saddam has been so effective in holding on to power that any plan that does not provide for massive U.S. military intervention stands little chance of success. Yet there is no consensus, either at home or abroad, for such action. The inconclusive nature of the current American military campaign in northern and southern Iraq, combined with the unjust nature of the continued campaign of economic sanctions, only serves to undermine efforts to implement Iraq’s disarmament obligations. Today we face a stalemate in Iraq that, given the unabated suffering of the Iraqi people, is as morally unacceptable as it is politically unsustainable.
Iraq must be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction. On this there is a consensus, even in the Security Council. But compliance is currently assessed in terms of quantity, requiring Iraq to be rid of 100 percent of its proscribed capability before economic sanctions can be lifted. The impossibility of assessing Iraqi compliance along these lines is reflected in the current stalemate. I have proposed that Iraq’s disarmament obligations should instead be assessed along qualitative lines—that is, whether or not it continues to possess any effective weapons of mass destruction or the means of producing them. This would not only capitalize on the considerable achievements made by UNSCOM over the last seven-and-a-half years, but also assist the Council in developing a consensus on whether Iraq is in compliance. Without a consensus in the Security Council, any solution is unrealistic.
Mr. Stephens has seen fit to denigrate my abilities as a formulator of policy without any appreciation of the depth of knowledge and understanding of these issues I bring to the table. However, rather than attacking the messenger, Mr. Stephens and others should spend more time evaluating the message. In my book, I push for diplomatic engagement with Iraq and the lifting of economic sanctions in return for the resumption of meaningful, qualitative arms control. While it does not satisfy those who seek the demise of Saddam Hussein, such a policy furthers the long-term interests of the United States, Israel, and the people of the Middle East more than any other option being considered, and in a more realistic and attainable fashion.
Scott Ritter
Hastings, New York
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Bret Louis Stephens writes:
Scott Ritter faults me for not appreciating “the depth of [his] knowledge and understanding” of Iraq and its various programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Alas, his letter brings me no closer to any such appreciation.
The crux of Mr. Ritter’s case for reengaging Saddam diplomatically is that it is a “more realistic” policy option than is removal by force, for which there is “no consensus.” But what consensus is there for the course he proposes? Is there a serious politician or pundit in America today who advocates, as Mr. Ritter does, an “Iraqi Marshall Plan,” including (as he writes in his book) “military-to-military contacts to assist in the modernization and training of the Iraqi military”? Perhaps Kofi Annan and his cohorts entertain such ideas; otherwise, Mr. Ritter stands pretty much alone.
But put plausibility aside. What are the intrinsic merits of his proposal? He writes that it is based on “internationally accepted norms of diplomacy.” I fail to see the virtue in this. Since the end of the Gulf war, Saddam has very effectively bent diplomatic norms to his purpose, which helps explain why he remains in power. Indeed, the basic flaw in our strategy toward Iraq rests in the fact that until quite recently we allowed considerations of “legitimacy”—that is, the approving stamp of the UN Security Council—to trump considerations of efficacy. Hence the UNSCOM team Mr. Ritter led was continually hampered by UN mandarins who, in the interest of “consensus,” agreed to Iraq’s patently illegal demands to put certain “presidential” sites off-limits to inspection. Similarly, opposition at the UN several times dissuaded the Clinton administration from taking timely military action to force Iraq into compliance with its disarmament obligations.
Mr. Ritter is also clearly exercised by the human cost of economic sanctions against Iraq, though why he takes me to task on this point I do not understand, since my review ventures no opinion on the subject. But let me offer one now: a sanctions policy that punishes ordinary Iraqis is indeed a poor substitute for muscular action to remove the source of the problem—the Iraqi regime. Barring such action, however, sanctions make better sense. The West is not to blame for the cruelties inflicted on Iraqi children, and while sanctions may not punish Saddam personally, they do help prevent Iraq from reemerging as a major regional power. Pace Mr. Ritter, the problem with sanctions is not that they are immoral but that they are insufficient.
Finally, there is Mr. Ritter’s arms-control idea: qualitative, not quantitative, assessment. This proposal would hand Iraq a significant public-relations victory by tacitly acknowledging that it may, after all, have been in compliance with its disarmament obligations (and hence that punitive U.S. military action was needless and wrong). It would further embolden Saddam to reembark on his illicit weapons programs while facilitating his means of doing so. And as for capitalizing “on the considerable achievements made by UNSCOM over the last seven-and-a-half years”—well, what achievements? Judging from Mr. Ritter’s own account, UNSCOM inspections rarely seem to have yielded results.
Mr. Ritter complains that I fail to spend enough time evaluating the message of his book. I daresay I read it more carefully than he read my review, else his letter would have addressed my central criticism. Let me repeat it for him here: “Mr. Ritter’s ‘deal’ would enable Saddam to rebuild Iraq’s once-fearsome military machine, rehabilitate him as a legitimate actor in the region, betray Arab allies of ours who have steadfastly opposed him, and send a signal of weakness to other would-be regional hege-mons around the world.”
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