By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — This year’s Group of Eight pledge to allocate $20 billion during the next decade to secure former Soviet weapons is beset with political obstacles as participating governments seek to organize the effort, Bush administration officials told Congress Wednesday (see GSN, Sept. 6).
They expressed confidence, though, that much of the money will materialize and projects will be able to get underway as early as the beginning of next year, despite the lack of a dedicated mechanism to coordinate the effort.
The officials said the United States, Russia and six other countries have begun the process of turning total pledges of $20 billion over the next decade — $10 billion from the United States and $10 billion from others — into viable nonproliferation programs in Russia and the former Soviet Union (see GSN, June 27).
Despite some progress, a series of hurdles remains, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a hearing that examined how the United States plans to work with allies in carrying out the G-8 plan.
According to Bolton, a recent meeting of partner nations held in Ottawa highlighted a litany of political, economic and bureaucratic impediments in numerous countries that must be removed before the money can be appropriated and applied to a long list of proliferation threats (see GSN, Sept. 11)
The outstanding issues include the need for new and complex legal agreements between Russia and partner countries to pave the way for new cooperation; continued charges in the United States that Russia is providing weapons and nuclear technology to Syria, Iran and other possible proliferation threats; and the bleak economic outlook facing some nations that have yet to specify their contributions.
New “Umbrella Agreement” Needed to Clear the Way
The most immediate hurdle, Bolton said, is getting a new “umbrella agreement” ironed out between Russia and participating nations that provides for liability protection for the proposed threat reduction projects in Russia, transparency into Russian weapons of mass destruction programs so countries can determine how they want their money spent and audit and access rights.
The United States signed such an agreement with Moscow in the early 1990s when the Cooperative Threat Reduction program began the process of destroying Soviet-era strategic weapons, but that agreement has expired and is in need of renewal. In addition to Washington, however, Russia has agreed to extend similar provisions to the G-8 members. “But as we learned in other fora, President [Vladimir] Putin’s biggest obstacle could be his own government bureaucracy,” said ranking Republican committee member Richard Lugar (Ind.), an original sponsor of the CTR program.
Bolton said reaching this new agreement is critical before moving forward — with the G-8 efforts or, for that matter, U.S. nonproliferation programs with Russia.
“It is something we are committed to working on because we don’t want to come to the Evian [G-8] summit in France next summer and find that we’re in the same position that we were last year; that is to say, with projects stopped, without new money being committed, without the expression of support and progress on the Russian side,” Bolton said.
He expressed confidence, however, that the necessary agreements can be reached and that the Russians pledged as much in recent discussions. “President Putin has committed to provide G-8 member states with the umbrella legal agreements necessary to permit the initiative to go forward,” he assured lawmakers.
A Variety of Potential Impediments
Beyond the legal hurdles, a variety of other factors could delay action. Politically, Bolton accused Moscow of making future cooperation more difficult by continuing to provide missile and nuclear technology and materials to countries that Washington considers potential threats and supporters of international terrorism.
He called on Russia to “reduce the flow of technology and materials to countries like Syria and others in the field of nuclear weapons cooperation, ballistic missile technology” and to cease “being a source for proliferation by these rogue states.”
Simple economics could hamper the G-8 efforts. For one thing, some partners have been unable to commit large amounts of funding to the project. “Many of our international partners will find it difficult to increase nonproliferation funding in a period of stagnating domestic economy,” Lugar said.
Officials said that it is unclear how much of the $20 billion will actually materialize. Japan, for example has yet to make any commitments, saying it must first resolve a stalled program with Russia to help destroy nuclear submarines, which pose an environmental threat to Japan. Bolton said Japanese officials told him that their parliament, the Diet, would not allocate more funds until money dedicated to submarine dismantlement is spent.
Another economic impediment could be countries’ unwillingness to relieve Russian debt to free Moscow to allocate more of its own funds for nonproliferation — a proposal gaining steam in the United States. While Russia owes relatively little to the United States, other G-8 members are owed significant amounts and may be unwilling to go that route. “It is not a subject that carries a lot of favor with some,” Bolton said.
Nevertheless, Bolton said the United States has “been in the forefront … in considering the option of debt-for-programs swaps, whereby official Russian debt could be converted or utilized in ways that provide additional resources inside Russia.”
On other fronts, however, critical funds and diplomatic support are being provided to back up the G-8 pledge, officials said. The United Kingdom has said it would earmark as much as $1.17 billion over the next decade, while French officials said in Ottawa that the global partnership would be a priority for president Jacques Chirac, Bolton said. He singled out Canada for taking a leadership role as president of the G-8, also noting that France will take over the role at the end of this year. Current U.S. plans call for spending about $1 billion annually, matching levels requested for fiscal 2003, Bolton said. Since 1991, the United States has spent $7 billion to secure weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union.
Officials also said that once a clearer program structure is established — including a new umbrella agreement — officials would be able to go back to their parliaments and get more solid financial commitments.
U.S. Leadership
Bolton said the G-8 partners have decided that each country will pursue its own nonproliferation programs in Russia and are opting against creating a separate organization to oversee the G-8-funded projects.
“We made a very basic decision … that each country would essentially run its own program,” Bolton said. “We would not set up a new multilateral organization.”
Some have warned that a lack of an overarching coordinating structure could hamper the joint efforts, but Bolton said the necessary national structures should be in place by the start of the year (see GSN, Sept. 26).
“I am confident that by the time of the Canadian handover to the French at the end of this year, that we will have in place the requisite reporting mechanisms so that countries can lay out in a more common system exactly what programs are involved,” he added.
Bolton and other officials said countries such as Canada have already established internal structures to coordinate their nonproliferation contribution, but acknowledged that the United States will play a unique advisory and leadership role given its decade-long experience of implementing threat reduction programs with Russia.
“For over a decade of CTR experience, success and lessons learned, the department is prepared to work with our G-8 partners to help them address implementation and government-to-government procedural issues,” such as contracting guidelines, testified Lisa Bronson, deputy under secretary of defense for technology, security and nonproliferation.”
“We are confident that a common approach to the challenging implementation issues will strengthen our efforts of each participating party.”
In a technical example, she said, U.S. expertise in destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles under CTR could help countries that have expressed interest in destroying short-range Russian missiles. “We are prepared to share with them what we have learned about the capabilities of a variety of Russian enterprises involved in this area,” she added.
The U.S. Congress has approved a resolution giving President George W. Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq. The Senate voted 77-23 early this morning and the House voted 296-133 yesterday in support of the resolution (see GSN, Oct. 8).
“The gathering threat of Iraq must be confronted fully and finally,” Bush said yesterday after the House passed the resolution. “The days of Iraq acting as an outlaw state are coming to an end” (VandeHei/Eilperin, Washington Post, Oct. 11).
The resolution, entitled “Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq,” supports Bush’s efforts to enforce past U.N. resolutions on Iraq and supports efforts to secure a new, stricter U.N. Security Council resolution. The congressional resolution authorizes Bush to use military action to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and to “enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.”
Bush would now have 48 hours after launching an attack on Iraq to notify Congress that diplomatic efforts alone would not enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions or would not “adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”
If the president uses force, the resolution requires him to submit a report to Congress every 60 days concerning the status of military activities against Iraq (Associated Press/Washington Post, Oct. 10).
Not since the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, which expanded the U.S. military role in Vietnam, has a president received such broad authority to conduct an undefined military operation, according to historians.
The threat that terrorists and the countries that harbor them pose as the newest U.S. enemy has prompted a need for a new way of dealing with them, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.).
“The speed and stealth with which an outlaw state or terrorists could use weapons of mass destruction, and the catastrophic damage they could inflict, require us to consider new ways of acting, not reacting,” he said.
Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress said military action against Iraq should be only used as a last resort, but said the United States would probably use force if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein continued to defy U.N. inspectors, according to the Washington Post.
“The war on terrorism will be fought here at home unless we summon the will to confront evil before it attacks,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). “Only regime change can remove the danger from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Only by taking them out of his hands and destroying them can we be certain that terror weapons won’t wind up in the hands of terrorists.”
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) had previously raised concerns that Bush has gone too far in politicizing the debate on national security, but he voted to support the resolution because, he said, “this resolution is improved, because I believe that Saddam Hussein represents a real threat, and because I believe it is important for America to speak with one voice at this critical moment.”
Opponents of the resolution criticized the White House on several issues, including the lack of evidence that Hussein poses a significant threat to the United States and a lack of plans for a post-Hussein Iraq, according to the Post.
“The power to declare war is the most solemn responsibility given to Congress by the Constitution,” said Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). “We must not delegate that responsibility to the president in advance” (VandeHei/Eilperin, Washington Post).
Russian Support
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair traveled to Moscow yesterday for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to gain Russian support for a new resolution in the United Nations.
After meeting with Blair, however, Putin said, “Russia has no real data about Iraq holding nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction” (see GSN, Sept. 24).
While Putin said he has not been persuaded to support the U.S. draft resolution, he does agree that inspectors needed to return to Iraq.
“Russia’s position has always been that no new resolution is necessary, but we need to take account of the negative experience of the work of U.N. inspectors,” he said. “In this regard, together with our partners, we are ready to seek out acceptable decisions to ensure without any doubt the proper work of inspectors in Iraq” (Reuters, Oct. 11).
Blair said Russia has legitimate concerns about its economic and commercial interests in Iraq (see GSN, Oct. 3). Russia has indicated it wants assurances that Iraq’s current contracts would still be honored by a post-Hussein regime, according to the London Times. During his meeting with Putin, Blair also sought to address Russian concerns that the real goal of U.S. military action against Iraq would be to open Iraqi oil fields to U.S. companies, the Times reported.
“If oil was our concern, then there are a thousand easier ways to do this — we would be doing a deal with Saddam,” Blair said (Tom Baldwin, London Times, Oct. 11).
U.S. Post-Hussein Plans
Regarding a post-Hussein Iraq, the Bush administration is considering plans that would involve a large U.S. military occupation of the country, senior U.S. officials said yesterday.
Under the plan, U.S. troops would take control of Iraq after Hussein is overthrown. An advisory group of Iraqis and a military officer who would report to the U.S. Central Command would be placed in charge of the country, according to the Washington Post. The new officials would be responsible for establishing order in Iraq and preventing its breakup. Humanitarian programs would also be started and the Iraqi oil industry would be developed as a source of income, the Post reported.
The priority of the military government would be to find and destroy Iraq’s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, an official said. In the chaos that could result immediately after the overthrow of Hussein, “these weapons could fall into the wrong hands.”
It would take at least several months, at a minimum, before a civilian regime would begin replacing the U.S. military government, according to the Post. Only after national institutions were established would elections be held and control given completely over to an Iraqi government, officials said.
The White House is “coalescing” around the plan, a U.S. official said. Officials noted, however, that no formal decisions have yet been made.
“I think we’re all heading in the same direction,” a senior U.S. policymaker said. “That does not mean there couldn’t be changes. This is not carved in stone” (Peter Slevin, Washington Post, Oct. 11).
One purpose of a U.S. military government in Iraq would be to avoid a repeat of the instability that has occurred in Afghanistan with the fall of the Taliban regime, officials said. The United States is moving away from the type of model used in Afghanistan — the establishment of a provisional government run by local officials, White House officials said. While some U.S. Defense Department officials supported the idea, the U.S. State Department, CIA, and, in the end, the White House opposed it.
“We’re just not sure what influence groups on the outside would have on the inside,” a Bush administration official said. “There would also be differences among Iraqis, and we don’t want chaos and anarchy in the early process” (Sanger/Schmitt, New York Times, Oct. 11).
Even if Hussein were overthrown before any U.S. military action, U.S. forces might still go in and create a new government, especially if any new regime appeared willing to follow in Hussein’s footsteps, an official said (see GSN, March 20).
“If it is a new regime that is Saddamism without Saddam, that will not change things,” the official said (Slevin, Washington Post).
Possible Intelligence Influences
Elsewhere in Washington, intelligence and congressional sources have said the White House is pressuring CIA analysts to alter assessments of the Iraqi threat to develop a stronger case against Hussein, according to the Los Angeles Times. Many analysts have attempted to resist the administration’s pressure, and they are becoming resentful of apparent attempts to contaminate the intelligence process, sources said.
“Analysts feel more politicized and more pushed than many of them can ever remember,” said one intelligence official. “The guys at the Pentagon shriek on issues such as the link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. There has been a lot of pressure to write on this constantly, and to not let it drop.”
CIA Director George Tenet denied that the agency is being pressured to change its analyses.
“The president of the United States would never tolerate anything other than our most honest judgment,” Tenet said in a statement late yesterday. “Our credibility and integrity are our most precious commodities. We will not let anyone tell us what conclusions to reach.”
Much of the pressure has come from administration officials who support military action against Iraq, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, intelligence sources said. CIA officials who brief Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on Iraq are often given long lists of complaints and demands for new analyses, sources said.
“There is a lot of unhappiness with the analysis,” often because it not seen as sufficiently anti-Iraq, an intelligence official said. CIA briefers “are constantly sent back by the senior people at Defense and other places to get more, get more, get more to make their case,” a U.S. official said.
A senior defense official denied claims that Rumsfeld is attempting to influence intelligence assessments. Instead, analysts might be misinterpreting remarks meant to test the conviction of their assessments, the official said.
“He’s a guy who’s constantly challenging assertions and assumptions,” the senior defense official said.
There have been several instances, however, in which the Bush administration has appeared to inflate information to build a stronger case against Iraq, according to the Times. Wolfowitz and other White House officials have repeatedly made allegations that Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, met with an Iraqi agent in Prague last year (see GSN, May 9). The CIA, however, has been skeptical of the report.
Rumsfeld recently said there is “bulletproof” evidence of connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but many intelligence officials have said this is an exaggeration (see GSN, Sept. 26). In a letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence this week, Tenet said the CIA’s “understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability.”
Tenet sent the letter to committee after members of Congress criticized a CIA report that echoed the administration’s view on Iraq too closely, the Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 9). After the letter was publicized, Tenet released another statement saying there are no contradictions between the administration and the CIA on the Iraqi threat.
Tenet “is in a bad position,” a congressional aide said. “He’s under fire from the (intelligence) committees. Then he’s under fire from the White House” (Miller/Drogin, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11).
Iraq Offers New Invitation
In Iraq, officials yesterday renewed an invitation to the Bush administration to travel to Iraq and see that suspect sites are not involved in the development of weapons of mass destruction, according to Reuters (see GSN, Aug. 19).
“The American administration are invited to inspect these (weapons) sites,” Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Abdul al-Tawab Mullah al-Huwaysh said during a press conference in Baghdad. “As I am responsible for the Iraqi weapons programs, I confirm here that we have no weapons of mass destruction and we have no intention to produce them” (Reuters/Financial Times, Oct. 11).
Western and Iraqi reporters were invited yesterday to visit the Nassr/Taji Steel Fabrication and Military Production Facility, which the United States has suspected might have been used in Iraq’s nuclear weapons program (see GSN, Oct. 9). Iraq has said the site is used to produce civilian items such as bases for toothbrushes.
“This shows that this site has nothing to hide. You can see for yourself,” said Iraqi Gen. Hussan Mohamed Amin.
Western reporters are scheduled to visit a second suspect site, the al-Furat facility, tomorrow, Iraqi officials said. The site conducts electronics research to be applied to civilian uses, al-Huwaysh said. The United States has alleged that Iraq has attempted to smuggle in aluminum tubes that could be used to build a centrifuge at the site as part of its nuclear weapons program.
While Iraq has offered to admit U.N. weapons inspectors, the United States is still negotiating for a new U.N. resolution outlining a new inspections regime and the potential consequences if Iraq fails to comply.
The United States doesn’t “want the inspectors to come ... (because) they will visit the accused sites and see that nothing has taken place,” Amin said. “For Americans, this will create a crisis, a crisis for their credibility” (Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Oct. 10).
For further information, see:
UNMOVIC
U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime)
U.N. Resolution 1409 (“Smart Sanctions”)
U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Iraqi Sanctions Revisions
IAEA Iraq Action Team
By George C. Wilson
National Journal
WASHINGTON — Israel’s firing off a nuclear weapon in retaliation for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s attacking it with a chemical or biological weapon looms as the No. 1 nightmare if the United States goes to war against Iraq, according to a wide spectrum of government and private arms specialists pondering the “what-if” scenarios (see related GSN story, today).
The scenario would unfold this way: Hussein fires chemical and/or biological weapons at Israel. They inflict such heavy casualties that hard-line Israeli leader Ariel Sharon strikes back with a nuclear device as deadly as the one that incinerated Hiroshima during World War II. Arabs and Muslims, in angry response, attack Americans and their cities wherever and whenever they can, including launching suicide attacks similar to the ones being conducted by the Palestinians against Israel.
Four of these worst-case scenarios, including the Israeli one, have been discussed at high levels in the Bush administration, although behind closed doors. But the public is unlikely to hear much about them as U.S. President George W. Bush strives to build support for attacking Iraq should U.N. inspectors fail to disarm Hussein’s regime.
What follows are the views of nongovernment defense analysts on the possible — but not necessarily probable — worst-case consequences of the United States’ invading Iraq. All four scenarios involve the possible use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear bombs. Government officials who declined to be identified were also interviewed for this story, but their privately expressed concerns closely parallel those of the private defense analysts, who can speak more freely.
Any military operation involves risks. Before the first shot is fired, civilian policy leaders, generals, and admirals routinely explore worst-case scenarios. A widely stated criticism of U.S. leaders and the press is that before going to war in Vietnam, they failed to consider adequately the worst things that could go wrong, but at least a few people are thinking about them today.
1. Israel goes nuclear
Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, a defense think tank on the liberal side, says that two documents have made this scenario more plausible. In 1997, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 60, which authorizes the use of nuclear weapons to retaliate for an opponent’s use of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological ones. The classified version of Bush’s new nuclear posture statement is said to permit the use of nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike against a likely attacker who possesses weapons of mass destruction. That reported change — coupled with the development of new “bunker-busting” nuclear bombs, which can hit underground caches of weapons — has made it easier for Israel to justify going nuclear against Iraq, according to Blair, who has analyzed nuclear issues intensively over the years and written several books on the subject.
Bush and his team have “created a doctrine that says it is legitimate to respond to weapons of mass destruction by using nuclear weapons and using them pre-emptively, not just using them second,” Blair said. “Israel could cite our own doctrine, line and verse, as a legitimate justification for unleashing its nuclear arsenal in response to even a threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq — to unleash it pre-emptively. In a way, we’ve even given Saddam that justification, too. Even Saddam could cite potential threats of the use of weapons of mass destruction against him.”
Hussein, Blair added, could cite the new U.S.-developed B-61 Mod 11 nuclear bunker-buster as “part of the arsenal of forces he is arrayed against.” If Iraq should kill “tens of thousands” of Israelis with a weapon of mass destruction, Blair said, “all bets are off” on whether Sharon would unleash his nuclear weapons. “Israel and Sharon are increasingly loose cannons in the Middle Eastern conflict.”
Joseph Cirincione, director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that the Arab world “would go nuts” if Israel dropped a nuclear weapon on Iraq. Such an attack would “expose the complete hypocrisy of the U.S. position: The Arabs can’t have nuclear weapons, but the Israelis can.” An Israeli nuclear attack could kill “tens of thousands of people,” he added, and breed “a whole new generation of terrorists” who would be “intent on striking back at Israel and the United States.” The Carnegie Endowment has urged Bush to use U.N. inspectors backed by a multinational military force instead of attacking Iraq unilaterally.
Jack Spencer, defense policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agreed that a retaliatory response by Israel is the most likely way a war in Iraq could go nuclear, although he doubted this would happen. And he agreed that Bush has changed American policy on the use of nuclear weapons, but he hailed the shift as a good thing.
“I do not think that the Israelis will respond to a chemical or biological attack with a nuclear weapon,” Spencer said. “I don’t know that they won’t. If they got attacked — I’m not talking about a chemical attack where a thousand people die, but a devastating, unbelievable attack — then they might.” An Iraqi attack that would trigger a nuclear response would have to be “so horrendous that people probably would not be able to question Israel’s requirement and right to do so.”
“While it’s not a popular view in the mainstream media today and among many in the left,” Spencer continued, “the fact of the matter is that Israel shows unbelievable restraint given what they face every day with this terrorism. I think any country in the world would react far stronger than Israel has.”
Spencer applauded the development of new nuclear weapons such as the B-61 bunker-buster, because of the changed threat. “If we need new nuclear weapons, I don’t have a problem with it because that’s the way you decrease the likelihood that you have to use nuclear weapons or some other form of massive force.”
Israel and nuclear weapons were also worrisome wild cards during the United States’ first war with Iraq, in 1990-91. Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the U.S. field commander, wrote afterward that his biggest fear during the Gulf War was that Israel would respond to Hussein’s firing of Scud missiles into Israeli cities by attacking Iraq. Israel’s entry into that war, Schwarzkopf and civilian leaders believed, would have broken up the coalition of nations put together so painstakingly by then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush. Many of today’s U.S. leaders share the same worry.
The possibility of using U.S. nuclear weapons to burn up Iraq’s biological weapons was gingerly discussed by Schwarzkopf’s team and by Gen. Colin L. Powell, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now secretary of State, according to an account in journalist Rick Atkinson’s book, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. Atkinson writes, “Some suggested that detonating a small nuclear warhead might be a legitimate employment of one weapon of mass destruction to negate another. Temperatures reaching at least 20,000 degrees Fahrenheit in three seconds were believed necessary to ensure that no spores survived an attack. ‘We both know there’s one sure way to get the temperature hot enough,’ [Air Force Brig. Gen. Buster C.] Glosson remarked to Powell, alluding to thermonuclear explosions. ‘Yeah,’ the chairman replied, ‘but we don’t talk about that.’”
2. Hussein uses weapons of mass destruction against U.S. troops
Second in the lineup of worst-case scenarios is Hussein’s decision to unleash chemical or biological weapons on U.S. troops while they are massing to invade his country. In turn, the United States strikes back with tactical nuclear weapons, perhaps using one of the B-61 earth-penetrating bombs to destroy Hussein’s remaining supply of biological and chemical weapons stored deep underground in Iraq. “How do you stop Saddam Hussein from using his weapons of mass destruction as the United States is assembling an invasion force?” asked Cirincione. “It’s likely Saddam would strike before the United States is capable of mounting an invasion, by using chemical or biological weapons against both U.S. forces and Israel to try to provoke Israel into reacting.”
“My fear is that Saddam has already smuggled out chemical and biological agents” and hidden them in the United States, Cirincione added. These weapons “are someplace else and will be used directly against American targets.” The United States would then probably “feel provoked to use some of the tactical nuclear weapons. You would then have 1) chemical and biological agents used against Americans in America, with perhaps hundreds of thousands dead and 2) the use of U.S. nuclear weapons — however small — on Arab soil, with Arab casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Once again, it would be the United States using nuclear weapons against people of color” — the first instance occurred at the end of World War II, when U.S. forces dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese. Such a scenario would provoke a tremendous Arab backlash, Cirincione said.
3. The Pakistani government falls
In this scenario, Pakistani dissidents protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq by toppling Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf, who has been cooperating with the United States in the war on terrorism. Or the Musharraf government falls after Israeli or U.S. forces use a nuclear weapon in retaliation for Hussein’s use of chemical or biological weapons. The splintered Pakistani army loses control of the country’s nuclear weapons in the resulting chaos, enabling al-Qaeda or other terrorists to get a hold of them. Both Blair and Cirincione raised this scenario as a possibility.
“If Musharraf falls, there isn’t another national institution to take his place,” Cirincione said. “The control of nuclear weapons, nuclear materials and the scientists who know how to build nuclear weapons would be up for grabs.”
Spencer, however, discounted this scenario. “I don’t think that would happen,” he said, “because I’m confident Israel is not going to shoot a nuke out of the blue.” If Israel did suffer such a devastating attack that it felt compelled to retaliate with a nuclear weapon, “I don’t think anything would happen” in the form of a damaging backlash in the Arab world. He noted that terrorists are already “stimulated to the ultimate extent to use violence.”
4. Hussein strands U.S. forces
Under this “what-if,” Hussein waits for U.S. invaders to get deep inside his country and then cuts their supply and escape routes, possibly by blowing up the entry port in Kuwait with perhaps a small nuclear weapon that the Iraqi dictator has secretly obtained and kept hidden.
William S. Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism and a military reformist who was a defense adviser to former Senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.), said the risks of invading Iraq outweigh the possible gains and therefore should not be attempted. “My worst-case scenario is that we go in through Kuwait so we have a single port of entry and a single line of communication and supply as we go down the Persian Gulf. We get well into Iraq with a small army, our line of communication is cut, and our Army is essentially stranded.”
All of this helps explain why Powell has indicated he would settle for Hussein’s disarming himself and staying in power, rather than invading Iraq to topple him.
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