Iraq:  Al-Qaeda Link Could Justify U.S. Attack, Experts Say

White House lawyers have decided that a demonstrated link between Iraq and al-Qaeda would provide the legal justification needed for a U.S. attack against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, USA Today reported today (see GSN, July 11).

Bush administration and Defense Department legal experts believe that a link between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks would allow the administration to bypass debates in the U.S. Congress and the United Nations over what some critics would call an unprovoked attack, USA Today reported.  White House experts are considering using U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373 and Senate Joint Resolution 23 as the legal foundation for an attack on Iraq.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said senior Bush administration officials have often asked him what congressional authorization, if any, would be required for U.S. military action against Iraq.  Biden, who is expected to hold hearings on Iraq this week, has said President George W. Bush must come before Congress on the issue, but if a link can be established between Iraq and al-Qaeda, then “he has the authority” to attack (see GSN, June 11).

Bush nonetheless will not be able to avoid a debate in Congress over whether to attack Iraq, said Senator John Warner (R-Va.).

“He’ll have to come to Congress,” Warner said.  “No existing resolutions of a general nature would suffice to meet that political — not legal — requirement” (John Diamond, USA Today, July 29).

Possible Options

Some White House and Pentagon officials are advocating a military campaign against Iraq that would target Baghdad and one or two other command centers to cut off the Iraqi leadership and cause a quick collapse of Hussein’s regime, the New York Times reported today.

The “inside-out” strategy, as some have labeled the Baghdad-first plan, would utilize the U.S. military’s ability to conduct long-distance strikes, according to the Times.  The main focus of the strategy would be to kill or isolate Hussein and prevent Iraq from using its suspected WMD arsenal.  It might be possible to cripple the Iraqi military’s command-and-control system since it its highly centralized and authoritarian, officials said.

Any military action against Iraq would probably require 70,000-250,000 troops, according to the Times.  Strategists could conduct the inside-out plan with troops at the low end of the estimate, the Times reported.  If the military could carry out a strike with less than the earlier-estimated 250,000 troops, support for the plan might increase among U.S. allies in the Middle East, according to the Times (Sanger/Shanker, New York Times, July 29).

On the Other Hand …

Other senior U.S. military officials, however, have said that Hussein does not pose a threat to the United States, according to the Washington Post.  They advocate the current containment strategy rather than a military campaign, the Post reported.

According to some Pentagon officials, the earliest that the United States would attack Hussein would be next spring.  The Bush administration might achieve its goal of removing Hussein from power by waiting for Hussein to fall ill or conducting covert CIA operations, they said (see GSN, June 17).  The U.S. military shares support for containment with senior State Department and CIA officials, according to people familiar with interagency discussions.

Senior U.S. military officers believe containment policy has been more effective against Iraq than is widely known, officials said.  One sign of its effectiveness is that Hussein has been deterred from threatening his neighbors or from supporting terrorist groups, senior officers said.

While there is no doubt that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, it lacks long-range missiles to use them against Israel or other U.S. allies in the Middle East, defense officials said.  Senior officers believe the containment approach is a better plan that invading an Iraq armed with biological and chemical weapons, officials said.

Some military officers have questioned Bush’s reasoning for his repeated calls for the removal of Hussein, according to the Post.

“I’m not aware of any linkage to al-Qaeda or terrorism, so I have to wonder if this has something to do with his father being targeted by Saddam,” said a U.S. general involved in the war in Afghanistan.

Retired U.S. officers have been more forthcoming about their support for the current containment policy, the Post reported.

“I’d argue that containment is certainly a better approach than either marching on Baghdad or destabilizing the Iraqi government by killing Saddam,” said retired Col. Richard Dunn, a former Army strategist.  “It only has to work until something happens to him — he’s either killed or dies.”

Senior White House and Pentagon civilian officials, however, disagree with the containment approach, according to the Post.  They have said that Hussein is still attempting to intimidate other countries and is still attempting to obtain weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, July 25).

“The whole question is, how long do you wait with Saddam Hussein in possession of the capabilities he has and would like to have?” said Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory group.

Supporters of U.S. military action against Iraq have said Iraq is more able to obtain long-range ballistic missiles than supporters of the containment policy have indicated.  For example, he might be able to obtain missiles from Islamic extremists based in Pakistan, said retired Air Force Lt.-Gen. Thomas McInerney.

Other military action supporters have said Iraq could conduct a biological or chemical weapons attack without missiles.

“You don’t have to have a long-range missile necessarily to deliver a deadly weapons, especially if it’s powdered anthrax,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said recently.

It would be wrong to think that Hussein would only use the conventional methods he has used in the past to carry out an attack with biological or chemical weapons, Perle said.

“Saddam could decide at any time to hand anthrax to terrorists,” he said (Thomas Ricks, Washington Post, July 28).

United States Invites Iraqi Opposition Leaders

The United States has invited six top Iraqi opposition leaders to Washington to discuss a post-Hussein Iraq, a State spokesman said Saturday (see GSN, March 20).

“Some opposition leaders have been invited to Washington for a meeting on either Aug. 9 or 16, co-hosted by Undersecretary of State (Marc) Grossman and Undersecretary of Defense (Douglas) Feith,” State spokesman Frederick Jones said, adding that the talks will probably last three to four days.

The six invited opposition leaders are:

*         Al-Sharif Ali Ben Hussein of the Constitutional Monarchy Movement;

*         Iyad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord;

*         Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq;

*         Massoud Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party;

*         Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress;

*         and Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

“The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the next steps in coordinating our work with the Iraqi opposition,” Jones said (Jordan Times, July 28).

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

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