Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1998, Pages 43-44

Special Report

With Largely One-Sided Witnesses, Hearings Cover Iraq, Middle East Peace Process, and Sanctions

By Shirl McArthur

Iraq and the peace process were the main Middle East-related subjects interesting enough to energize congressional committees into holding hearings during March and early April. However, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also unexpectedly held a hearing on a potentially very interesting bill that could reform the way the U.S. imposes unilateral economic sanctions.

Iraq

The House International Relations Committee (HIRC), chaired by Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), invited Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Martin Indyk to review developments in the Middle East on March 10. Indyk was the only witness. Coming just two weeks after the cooling down of the crisis over U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq, U.S. policy toward Iraq was of major interest to the committee members.

Gilman opened by asking what the U.S. long-term strategy is for Iraq. Does the administration plan to establish military exclusion zones in Iraq to facilitate opposition activities? Would a provisional government be established? Would frozen Iraqi assets be made available to these opposition groups? Would radio broadcasts be stepped up?

Indyk’s responses and his prepared statement regarding Iraq were guarded and he avoided being pinned down. In responding to questions about Iraqi opposition groups, Indyk never mentioned the Iraqi National Congress or its leader, Ahmad Chalabi, who had made the rounds of Washington and Capital Hill the previous week, including an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (see the Washington Report April 1998 issue).

Indyk said the administration is looking into proposals to step up funding for Iraqi opposition groups and for a “radio free Iraq.” (Also, see below.) He said that there are legal problems involved in providing frozen Iraqi assets to opposition groups, but if a provisional government were constituted, it would reduce those problems. He also said that the U.S. hesitates to lift economic sanctions on areas controlled by the opposition, because goods and money will leak into areas controlled by Saddam. He also noted that if the U.S. were to declare that it was actively seeking Saddam’s overthrow, it would weaken support for economic sanctions within the U.N. Security Council.

Both in his prepared statement and in response to questions from committee members, Indyk took pains to emphasize the amount of international support the U.S. had in the confrontation with Iraq. He said that 23 nations had offered to participate in military operations had they been required, and that Egypt and the countries of the Gulf were “ready to provide the support we needed when we needed it.” Reps. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Sam Gejdenson (D-CT) disagreed with Indyk on this point, especially regarding Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

Organizations likely to give opposing viewpoints were actively rejected.

Iraq was also the primary subject of a hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 25, although the focus was different than in the HIRC. Testifying were Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); Dr. Anthony Cordesman, Georgetown University Center for Strategic and international Studies; and Mr. David Kay, the chief U.N. weapons inspector during 1991 and 1992.

Cordesman’s testimony was more descriptive of the situation in the Gulf than prescriptive. Wolfowitz’s and Kay’s testimonies were similar to what they had been saying in Washington and on Capitol Hill since early February (see our April issue).

Wolfowitz strongly believes that the goal should be to help the Iraqi people liberate themselves, and that the U.S. government should recognize and assist in all practicable ways a provisional “free Iraq” government and should appropriate money to that end.

Kay repeated his criticism of the agreement obtained by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as not likely to lead to the main goal of removing Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. He said the only way to achieve this goal is through political change in Iraq, and he listed several things the U.S. could do to accelerate political change. One of those steps would be to “abandon the myth that there can be a stable Gulf policy apart from a stable Middle East.…As long as Arab-Israeli politics remains characterized by daily violence and deep distrust, stability in the Gulf will never be possible.”

Meanwhile, although policy issues regarding Iraq remain unresolved, both Congress and the Clinton administration are pushing ahead to make de facto policy. The administration requested $1.36 billion for additional military deployment in the Gulf, as part of the $18 billion supplemental appropriations bill (which also includes disaster relief funds, emergency money for the IMF, and money for “peacekeeping” operations in Bosnia) that has passed both houses of Congress, but in different forms.

The Senate version of the bill includes $5 million for economic assistance to the Iraqi opposition, and $5 million to establish a “Radio Free Iraq.” The House version includes a provision prohibiting the use of funds for the conduct of military operations against Iraq “unless such operations are specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of this Act.” However, since the two versions of the bill are very different, they will have to be reconciled in a conference committee, and there is no way of telling which, if any, of these provisions will remain in the final version.

The Peace Process

In his appearance before the HIRC, Indyk was relatively pessimistic regarding the peace process. He said the administration senses that the window of peacemaking is now closing, and said that it is essential that both sides find ways to move forward. He listed four elements—one aimed at the PA, two aimed at Israel, and one aimed at both—necessary for negotiations to proceed:

• enhanced security cooperation and intensified efforts to fight terrorism
  
  
• further redeployments in accordance with existing agreements
  
  
• a time-out regarding unilateral steps
  
  
• acceleration of permanent status negotiations, with a mutually agreed target date.

This display of apparent even-handedness did not sit well with such stalwart supporters of Israel as Lantos, Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Howard Berman (D-CA), whose comments showed unswerving support for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government and criticism for everything Palestinian.

However, the House hearing was tame compared with what happened the next day at Sen. Sam Brownback’s (R-KS) Senate Foreign Relations Middle East subcommittee hearing, supposedly on the same subject (review of Middle East developments).

This hearing was almost exclusively devoted to the peace process, and it was blatantly stacked in favor of the Israeli position. In addition to Indyk, the witnesses were Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT), neither of whom is considered objective on matters concerning Israel, and three “independent” witnesses known for their strong ties to Israel: Robert Satloff, of the AIPAC spin-off think tank, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Daniel Pipes, editor of the Middle East Quarterly; and self-styled “terrorism expert” Steve Emerson.

Not only were organizations likely to give opposing viewpoints not invited, their efforts to participate were actively rejected. The Arab American Institute (AAI) learned of the proposed hearing as early as Jan. 15, and immediately began efforts to be invited to participate. All such efforts by it and other organizations were systematically rebuked.

Finally, in frustration, the AAI and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) jointly held a press conference (an hour before Brownback’s hearing) to denounce the one-sided nature of the hearing. AAI President James Zogby pointed out that the majority of those testifying at the hearing were pursuing their own agenda, which he described as “an agenda that is inimical to U.S. interests in the region.” ADC President Hala Maksoud said that one-sided hearings are becoming a pattern, and “one-sided hearings are bound to lead to a skewed policy.”

Indyk’s presentation to Brownback’s subcommittee was similar to his presentation to the HIRC. In comparison with the other witnesses, and with Brownback’s own statements, Indyk came across as balanced and objective, although his personal sympathies, developed as a paid AIPAC lobbyist for Israel, are well known.

The only other reasonable comments at the hearing came from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who pointed out the obvious fact that Israel cannot survive surrounded by hostile people whose legitimate aspirations are being denied. She also said that unilateral steps are unhelpful, including unilateral steps by the U.S., such as relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. (It should be recalled that Feinstein was instrumental in getting the national security waiver provision inserted into the Jerusalem Embassy Act just prior to passage.)

Brownback’s remarks are a different matter. He is a former Kansas representative who is serving out the term of Bob Dole, who resigned from the Senate to run for president. Brownback was a competent representative, but is out of his depth in the Senate. He is clearly in over his head as chairman of the Middle East subcommittee, having abrogated his responsibility to the Israel lobby.

He has little experience or apparent interest in international policy, let alone Middle East policy, and seems preoccupied with his other position as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee’s District of Columbia Oversight Subcommittee. Over the past year, his comments have become increasingly pro-Israeli, capped by his opening statement at the March 11 hearing, in which he said he believes the peace process will remain stalled “until we see a serious commitment by the Palestinians towards fulfilling their security obligations.” He made no reference to Israel’s obligations or Binyamin Netanyahu’s rejection of the U.S.-backed peace process.

Brownback, who is up for re-election this year, had already received $12,500 in campaign contributions from pro-Israel political action committees by the end of 1997, bringing to $27,000 his career total of such contributions.

Sanctions Reform

In a surprise move, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s International Economic Policy Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), held a hearing on March 25 on the Sanctions Policy Reform Act, which was introduced last November by Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) as S 1413, and in the House by Reps. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) and Philip Crane (R-IL) as HR 2708. The Lugar bill has 10 co-sponsors, and the Hamilton-Crane bill has 36 co-sponsors. The subcommittee heard testimony from Lugar, Hamilton, and several U.S. business representatives, mostly representing agricultural interests, all of whom expressed support for the proposal.

In presenting his bill to the subcommittee (Lugar is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but not of the International Economic Policy subcommittee), Lugar pointed out that numerous studies conducted by think tanks, trade groups, the business community, and others have concluded that unilateral sanctions rarely succeed in achieving the intended foreign policy goals, seldom help those they are intended to assist, and often hurt the U.S. more than the target country. He compared unilateral economic sanctions to carpet bombing in warfare—both are indiscriminate and fail to distinguish between innocent and guilty victims.

However, he said the Lugar-Hamilton-Crane bill is not intended to prevent or oppose the use of unilateral economic sanctions, but to improve the process by which sanctions are considered in both the Congress and the executive branch. He called it a “modest bill” that applies to a limited class of unilateral, foreign policy-motivated sanctions that are intended to accomplish one or more foreign policy objectives. Furthermore, since the legislation is not retro active, it would not affect existing U.S. sanctions.

What the bill would do is establish procedural guidelines and informational requirements before unilateral economic sanctions are considered by the Congress or imposed by the president. Prior to invoking sanctions, the bill requires assessments of the sanctions’ economic costs to the U.S. and its friends and allies, the humanitarian consequences, the amount of international support, the impact on the U.S. as a reliable supplier, whether other options have been explored and tested, and the prospects that the sanctions will accomplish the stated foreign policy goals. In addition, there is a “sunset provision” that would automatically terminate the sanctions unless specifically reauthorized, and the bill includes a presidential waiver provision.

We asked Lugar’s office for its assessment of the likelihood that the legislation can be passed this year. The spokesman said his colleagues were cautiously optimistic. There seems to be a great deal of support within the committee and in the Senate, but the big question will be whether there will be enough time to bring the measure to a vote in the full Senate. Even if it passes the Senate, the bill still must make its way through the House, where it has been referred to three separate committees for comment.

In any event, this bill is among the most thoughtful and important pieces of legislation to be introduced in the 105th Congress, and it bears careful attention. As Lugar’s spokesman said, even if the legislation does not pass this year, it has to happen sooner or later, because current U.S. sanctions policy is a mess.