Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1998, Pages 15, 41

Special Report

Congressional Debate on Iraq More Thoughtful After Testimony of Non-Governmental Witnesses

By Shirl McArthur

As the Clinton administration was blindly reeling toward military action against Iraq in late January and early February, Congress all but abdicated its responsibility to act as a check on reckless executive branch behavior. As a Washington Post editor wrote on Feb. 22, "There was more soaring oratory in the House of Commons last week than has been heard in the chambers of Congress."

He went on to point out that the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which sets up several steps that a president must follow before committing troops to combat, is still in force. Yet President Bill Clinton appeared to be fully set to "commit troops to combat" without any indication of congressional approval.

The administration steadfastly proclaimed that, although "we would welcome congressional support" before taking military action, such support was not necessary. Clinton's justification for this position was that he already had sufficient congressional authority for military action, derived from the Persian Gulf war resolution passed in 1991.

Prospects for a congressional debate were complicated by the Jan. 28 introduction—without it being requested by the administration—by Senate Majority and Minority Leaders Trent Lott (R-MS) and Tom Daschle (D-SD), of a concurrent resolution that would, in effect, give the White House a blank check to "take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." However, this resolution set off enough alarm bells among congressmen who recalled the similar Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 that Lott and Daschle agreed to postpone voting on their resolution "to make sure that we have had all the questions asked and answered."

Leadership Vacuum

At this point one reasonably could have expected to see some concerted action by the congressional leadership to make sure that those questions were asked by Congress and answered by the administration before Congress adjourned on Feb. 14 for its "Presidents' Day" recess. It didn't happen.

The administration did send Defense Secretary William Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, and others to Capitol Hill to "brief" selected senators and representatives during the first two weeks of February. There were no calls, however, for a public and searching cross-examination regarding the administration's Iraq policy by the four House and Senate committees primarily responsible for national security and foreign affairs.

Albright was not called to task for her lack of candor.

The only partial exception to this was the appearance by Albright before Sen. Jesse Helms's (R-NC) Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Rep. Benjamin Gilman's (R-NY) House International Relations Committee at previously scheduled hearings on Feb. 10 and 12 regarding the administration's FY-99 foreign policy budget request.

Although the two hearings necessarily covered a wide range of topics, Helms, Gilman, and other committee members did ask Albright some hard questions about Iraq, such as: What would it take to topple Saddam? If Saddam were to fall, what or who would likely replace him? What would be Iran's reaction? What other alternatives are there? Why haven't the Gulf Arab states supported the U.S. as they did during "Desert Storm"? And, what would be the goals and objectives of a military strike?

Albright was not forthcoming in her answers, but neither was she called to task for her lack of candor by the members of the committee. She repeated the smokescreen that the administration saw only three choices in confronting Saddam: do nothing; commit 500,000 ground troops as during "Desert Storm;" or take military measures to "diminish Saddam's capability to re-establish his weapons of mass destruction and threaten his neighbors."

She said it was not necessarily the administration's goal to topple Saddam. Regarding other Arab support, she insisted that there was more support among Arab governments for U.S. action against Saddam than was publicly apparent. She did not directly answer the other questions posed by the committee.

Albright also was asked whether Arab reluctance to support U.S. action was connected to lack of progress in the peace process. With a straight face she said that some people may think so but, "I prefer not to make that linkage." When asked what would be the future of the peace process if the U.S. were to strike Iraq, she did not answer, saying instead that "it is imperative for both the Israelis and the Palestinians to make some difficult decisions so that the peace process can proceed."

Incredibly, nothing further was heard prior to the congressional recess from Helms, the occupant of the chair once held by the likes of Arthur Vandenberg and William Fulbright; nor from Gilman; nor from Senate Near East and South Asia Subcommittee Chairman Sam Brownback (R-KS), although Brownback did issue a Feb. 13 press release urging the administration to "slow down" before embarking on a venture that was likely to result in devastating consequences to the U.S.

Voices in the Wilderness

It was left to two junior Republican senators from the Midwest, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Pat Roberts of Kansas, to provide the only significant floor discussion of the impending military action prior to the recess. On Feb. 9, Hagel raised several questions on the Senate floor and said that the administration seemed "to ricochet from crisis to crisis and call that foreign policy."

The following day, Roberts commended Hagel for his remarks and went on to raise several additional questions that he said should be answered before Congress approves any resolution supporting military action. He said that the proposed strike could be "flawed and counterproductive…At the end of the day, when all is said and done, with civilian and military casualties, Saddam will still be in power, his scientists will still be at work, his military and the Republican Guard still deployed, some of his weapons of mass destruction and their delivery means will still be intact. It strains credibility that there will be any chance of inspections…In the meantime, we will have a continued erosion of faith and confidence with our allies, anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world, and the horrors of war on international television courtesy of Saddam Hussain."

Apparently Hagel's and Roberts' words had some effect. Their speeches were widely quoted in the press, and Congress did recess without taking up the Lott-Daschle resolution of support.

The only other congressional voice to be heard prior to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's return from Baghdad with Sad dam's agreement to allow U.N. inspections under a revised formula was that of Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, who wrote a long op-ed piece for The Washington Post.

It appeared the same day that Annan announced his agreement. Hamilton argued forcefully for better articulation of a long-term strategy toward Iraq, and for a full congressional debate and vote before any military action occurs.

The Beginnings of Debate

During the recess, of course, the administration's Albright-Cohen-Berger team suffered their public relations disasters at Ohio State University and other so-called "town meetings," and Annan negotiated the agreement with Saddam. With the lessening of the crisis, several congressmen and women suddenly felt brave enough to comment on the Iraq situation.

Among the first to do so were Helms and Lott, who were eager to attack the Annan agreement. Helms compared it with Neville Chamberlain's capitulation to Hitler at Munich in 1938. Lott said that the U.S. "cannot afford peace at any price," and said that Annan had harmed the U.N.'s credibility by agreeing to "a special deal with the most flagrant violator of United Nations resolutions, probably in history. Instead of standing on principle, he sat with the unprincipled—and gave him what he wanted."

In contrast, Daschle, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), and Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) praised the agreement and Annan. Lantos went so far as to urge his colleagues to join him in nominating Annan for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Less newsworthy, though perhaps more important, were the comments of Rep. David Skaggs (D-CO), who questioned the administration's argument that the 1991 Persian Gulf war resolution authorized military action in 1998. Skaggs also released a Congressional Research Service memorandum that he had requested. Skaggs said it supported the argument that the 105th Congress cannot rely on something done by the 102nd Congress, and must thoroughly debate the issue before military action is taken.

By early March, a dozen or so additional congressional voices were raised on the floor of the House or the Senate. Most of them urged the administration and their congressional colleagues to use the time afforded by the Annan agreement to develop a clear and credible policy toward Iraq. Notable among this group were the comments of Sens. Rod Grams (R-MN), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Bob Kerry (D-NE), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). There also were Clinton stalwarts, including Sens. Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Daschle, and Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who praised the Annan agreement and urged Congress to give it a chance to succeed.

Finally, Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), John Duncan (R-TN), and Ron Paul (R-TX) spoke of the folly of foreign intervention, and questioned whether the U.S. has the right to impose its will in the absence of a clear threat. Paul and Bartlett promoted the bills they had introduced which would, with variations, prohibit the use of funds for military action against Iraq unless specifically authorized by law. Paul also was the only one to question Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's comments implicitly urging the U.S. to take military action against Iraq, pointing out that it would be American lives that would be at risk. Paul also pointed out the simple truth that for the U.S. to attack Saddam militarily would not necessarily be in Israel's best interest, because of the law of unforeseen consequences.

Two Hearings

Finally, after the Annan agreement, Gilman in the House and Brownback in the Senate held hearings. Gilman's Feb. 25 hearing, titled "U.S. Options in Confronting Iraq," included: Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); Dr. Eliot Cohen, a SAIS professor; Dr. Richard Haas, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institute; and Mr. David Kay, the chief U.N. weapons inspector during 1991 and 1992. Brownback's March 2 hearing, titled "Can Saddam be Overthrown?" included: Mr. Ahmad Chalabi, president of the Iraqi National Congress (INC); former CIA Director James Woolsey; Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, director of the strategy and doctrine program at the Rand Corporation; and Haas again. Although the argument can easily be made that it was a good idea to get the opinions of experts before confronting administration witnesses (especially given the congressional level of ignorance concerning the Middle East), several journalists and observers at the hearings commented privately that they thought it strange that no government witnesses had been called. In fact, the only public congressional questioning of administration officials regarding Iraq has taken place in the context of previously scheduled appropriations hearings.

At the Gilman hearing, which was well attended by other committee members, the most outspoken witness was Kay, who repeated his claim in several press articles and interviews that the Annan agreement is seriously flawed and will not accomplish the objective of removing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. However, he said, the one thing it accomplished was to stop the administration from taking the action it was contemplating. "It would have been a disaster! In fact, Iraq policy has been on vacation for the past six months in this town."

Both Wolfowitz and Haas urged that direct, unilateral military action not be taken, but their prescriptions differed. Haas urged an enhanced policy of containment, one that would involve regenerating Arab support, using sanctions more intelligently to assure that more help gets to the Iraqi people, rebuilding relations with Iran, and adopting a more energetic policy toward Middle East peace—accepting that the linkage is a fact of life.

Finally, Haas said that, if military force is ultimately necessary, it should "be large and sustained," and that Saddam should be clearly informed of this. Wolfowitz said that the goal should be to help the Iraqi people liberate themselves. He said that the U.S. government should recognize and assist in all practicable ways a provisional "free Iraq" government; should appropriate money to that end; and should press for an indictment of Saddam as a war criminal.

At Brownback's hearing in the Senate (the only other committee member attending was ranking minority member Charles Robb of Virginia), Haas essentially repeated the testimony he gave before the House, and both Woolsey and Khalilzad basically supported the Wolfowitz proposition that the U.S. should adopt a long-term strategy to support and help the Iraqi people to liberate themselves. (Wolfowitz's House testimony was supported and entered into the Congressional Record by Senator Kyl during his speech on the Senate floor.)

Chalabi's testimony was by far the most interesting—and the most controversial. He was very persuasive in arguing that the reason the Iraqi opposition has been in such disarray is that the U.S. government has not kept its implied and explicit commitments.

Chalabi maintained that if the U.S. were to give a strong indication of support, including military support in the form of arms and air cover, the Iraqi people and most Iraqi military units would rally behind the INC.

Woolsey, while essentially agreeing with Chalabi, said that developing a viable opposition government would not be nearly as easy nor as quick as Chalabi indicated.

Haas emphasized that the Iraqi opposition groups are both weak and divided, and he agreed with Woolsey that to build a strong, united opposition would take years.

What Next?

Chalabi, like Wolfowitz, also urged that Saddam be indicted as a war criminal, and this cause has already been taken up by congressional Republicans. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced a concurrent resolution saying that the president should call for the establishment of a U.N. commission to establish Saddam's "criminal culpability," and should also call for the U.N. to form an international tribunal to indict, prosecute, and imprison Saddam "and other Iraqi officials." This resolution has already been placed on the Senate calendar, and it is likely that it will have been passed by the time this issue of the Washington Report reaches readers.

Another measure that has broad support and is fairly simple is the establishment of a "Radio Free Iraq," which several witnesses supported. This, too, will probably happen, but there are questions about funding and other details, so it may have to wait for the completion of this year's appropriations process.

Most of the military and financial measures called for by witnesses require action by the executive branch of government, with the support of Congress. Logically, the next step would be for the relevant congressional committees to ask administration officials to appear before the committees to give their views on these measures, and their opinion of Chalabi's INC, but logic does not always dominate this Congress.