War on terror: Policy row over phase two


	December 1, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

ANALYSIS
War on terror: Policy row over phase two
By Marc Erikson

The US-led campaign against terror "is still in phase one, which is not yet complete", White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said late last week. But with the war in Afghanistan in its final phase and post-war arrangements under way, speculation is rife in Washington and elsewhere on targets and theaters for "War on Terror, Phase Two". Is Iraqi President Saddam Hussein now in the crosshairs of Pentagon planners, as several US defense officials have been demanding?

Last Monday, US President George W Bush fueled such expectations. He demanded that Iraq allow UN weapons inspection to resume and said Saddam would "find out" the consequences if he refused. And asked in the same press briefing how he viewed Iraq in the context of future steps in the war, Bush told reporters: "My message is that, if you harbor a terrorist, you're a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist, you're a terrorist. If you develop weapons of mass destruction that you want to terrorize the world, you'll be held accountable."

His making an explicit link between development of weapons of mass destruction (or even refusal to submit to inspection of suspicion thereof) and the war on terror may not have overly scared Saddam. But it sure scared the living daylights out of several of Bush's European and Middle Eastern coalition allies - not to speak of dealers in Turkish bonds. Germany and all European nations "view an extension of the conflict to Iraq with extreme skepticism - and that's putting it diplomatically," said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in a Wednesday parliamentary debate. His boss, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, worried that "more might come flying around our ears than any of us are prepared to handle". Even the staunchest of Bush allies, Britain's Tony Blair, was quick to tell parliament that the next phase of the war would be "deliberative and considered". And Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher simply dismissed the possibility of anti-Saddam military action: "It is our understanding that there will be no attack on Iraq." Asked how he could be so sure, he replied, "by my intuition".

But while Maher doesn't listen to Washington and resorts to intuition, Fischer listens but doesn't like what he hears, and Blair tries to put a pre-emptive spin on things, plenty of Pentagon and Foggy Bottom (US State Department) officials are actively engaged in promoting and planning an assault on Saddam. The main protagonists are grouped under the so-called Wolfowitz Cabal, named after Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. They include Under-secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, assistant defense secretaries Peter Rodman and J D Crouch, Under-secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, and Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle. Their argument for going after Saddam is simple: Never mind, they say, that no clear links have been established between the Iraqi leader and September 11 or Al-Qaeda. This is not just a war on Al-Qaeda, but on terrorists and their supporters anywhere and of any stripe. Saddam has been or is making weapons of mass destruction. He could use them or pass them on. He's got to go.

Those who object may take some comfort from the words of Secretary of State Colin Powell who told a small group of reporters on Thursday, "I don't know what people think is about to happen ... This sort of suggestion out of the media right now that something [action against Iraq] is on the verge of happening has no particular underpinning substance to it ... I think it is highly inappropriate, speculative and hypothetical of me to talk about a war that nobody has declared." But even Powell made clear that the Iraqi president could not rest easy, saying, "We are keeping an eye on Saddam Hussein. He develops weapons of mass destruction."

Surprisingly perhaps, the most serious objections in the Bush administration to early action against Iraq are coming from the military and the CIA. An officer at the US Central Command said the military was now fully focused on Afghanistan, plans to take down Saddam Hussein had been in the making for the past 10 years, but with Saudi Arabia not available as a staging ground for large-scale deployment, action against Iraq would be a daunting task. The CIA for its part is equally doubtful. "The next phase of the war must concentrate on intelligence tasks," a ranking official confided off the record. "For those tasks to be accomplished we need all the allied intelligence support and resources we can get ... Sometimes these guys [the Wolfowitz Cabal] seem more than just a little bit nuts."

There is nonetheless a good deal of cogency to the Cabal's arguments. President Bush has made clear from the outset that this was going to be a long war and that it was not limited to action against Al-Qaeda. Failure to find a direct link between September 11 and Saddam's government does not mean that Iraq is not a legitimate war target. As John Bolton has put it, just imagine a major weapons-of-mass-destruction attack on the US or a European nation, with weapons passed on by Iraq or another WMD-capable state. Global security would then be seriously undermined and hugely difficult to restore. Pre-emption is legitimate, even necessary.

So, what WILL happen next? Political and logistical issues would appear to rule out concerted major attacks on Iraq in the near term. Countries like Somalia, the Sudan or Yemen where - in the words of UK Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon - the state is too weak to take effective action against terrorist cells and bases may be in for "invasive military response" in the early portion of phase two. But no one can or should rule out that by next spring the US will have prepared the political and military ground for moves on Iraq. Pre-emption against potential use of weapons of mass destruction has become a key concept in the war on terror.

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