Digital Extras

11.8.2001

Powell: U.N. sanctions have helped keep Saddam in check

BY RANDALL RICHARD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

When it comes to U.S. policy toward Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell likens his first days on the job to stepping into the cockpit of a doomed jet:

"What I found was a plane that was descending, and it was on the way to a crash . . . "

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Powell told Congress on March 8, had convinced much of the world that America, through its sanctions policy, was "denying . . . civilians and children in Iraq . . . the nutrition and the health care they needed."

"That was not true," Powell said, "but we had gotten that burden. And I found that our allies wanted the sanctions to go off."

Powell said that, during his first six weeks as secretary of state, he tried to find a way to keep the sanctions in place and switch the blame for Iraq's shattered economic and health-care systems to where he believed it belonged -- Saddam Hussein.

It was to that end, Powell told Congress, that he took "a hard look . . . at things we are doing within the sanctions regime that might be denying civilian goods to his population."

What he came up with, he said, was a plan to relax and streamline the flow of humanitarian goods to Iraq while tightening the noose on any military goods that might help Hussein's regime restart its weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

But four months after Powell's appearance before Congress, with much of the world yet to be convinced that any amount of tinkering with the sanctions regime would work, the United States and Britain -- facing a Russian veto in the United Nations -- finally withdrew the Powell-inspired proposal in order to buy more lobbying time prior to a definitive U.N. vote.

In the meantime, Powell continues to hammer away at the point he first made to Congress on March 8 -- that the purpose of the sanctions is "to keep [Saddam Hussein] from developing weapons of mass destruction -- not to hurt his civilian population."

What follows are excerpts from Powell's testimony March 8 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- testimony in which the secretary of state applauds the success of the ongoing sanctions but acknowledges the need to revamp them:

"Saddam Hussein has not been able to rebuild his army, notwithstanding claims that he has. He has fewer tanks in his inventory today than he had 10 years ago. Even though we know he is working on weapons of mass destruction, we know he has things squirreled away, at the same time we have not seen that capacity emerge to present a full-fledged threat to us.

"So I think credit has to be given to the United Nations . . . and to the nations in the region for putting in place a regime that has kept him pretty much in check. What I found on the 20th of January, however, was that regime was collapsing. More and more nations were saying let's just get rid of the sanctions, let's not worry about inspectors, let's just forget it . . .

"The first thing we had to do was to change the nature of the debate. We were being accused and we were taking on the burden of hurting Iraqi people, hurting Iraqi children, and we needed to turn that around. The purpose of these sanctions was to go after weapons of mass destruction . . . "So let's start talking about how the Iraqi regime is threatening children, their own children and the children of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Syria and all over the region, how they were in danger [because] of what Saddam Hussein was doing, and take away the argument he was using against us.

"In order to make sure that that carried forward, we then had to take a look at the sanctions themselves. Were they being used to go after weapons of mass destruction and was that the way they were connected to our original goals, or, increasingly, were those sanctions starting to look as if they were hurting the Iraqi people? And it seems to me one approach to this was to go to those sanctions and eliminate those items in the sanctions regime that really were of civilian use and benefited people, and focus them exclusively on weapons of mass destruction and items that could be directed toward the development of weapons of mass destruction . . .

"And so we are continuing down this line that says let's see if there is a better way to use these sanctions to go after weapons of mass destruction and take away the argument we have given him that we are somehow hurting the Iraqi people. He is hurting the Iraqi people, not us. There is more than enough money available to the regime now to take care of the needs they have. No more money comes in as a result of a change to this new kind of sanctions policy, but there is greater flexibility for the regime if they choose to use that flexibility to take care of the needs of its people.

"How do we get out of this [sanctions] regime ultimately? The inspectors have to go back in. If he wants to get out of this, if he wants to regain control of the oil-for-food escrow accounts, the only way that can happen is for the inspectors to go back in. But rather than us begging him to let the inspectors in, the burden is now on him. We control the money; we will continue to restrict weapons of mass destruction; you no longer have an argument, Mr. Iraqi Regime, that we are hurting your people. You let the inspectors in and we can start to get out of this.

"If the inspectors get in, do their job . . ., maybe we can suspend the sanctions. And then at some point way in the future, when we're absolutely satisfied there are no such weapons around, then maybe we can consider lifting. But that is a long way in the future.

"So this wasn't an effort to ease the sanctions; this was an effort to rescue the sanctions policy that was collapsing . . .

"As part of this approach to the problem, we would also make sure that the Iraqi regime understood that we reserve the right to strike militarily any activity out there, any facility we find that is inconsistent with their obligations to get rid of such weapons of mass destruction . . .

"And so to bring the coalition back together, put the burden on the Iraqi regime, keep focused on what is important -- weapons of mass destruction -- and keep him isolated and make sure that he is contained. And hopefully, the day will come when we see a regime change that will be better for the world."

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