Iraq Since the Gulf War
The United States is poised
to launch its third major military strike against Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War.
This latest tussle is over Iraq's refusal to admit American members of a U.N.
inspection team into its military facilities. Iraq has scoffed at new U.N.
sanctions that punish its intransigence and has threatened to shoot down U.S.
surveillance planes. Bill Clinton calls this a "nightmare scenario." What has
happened to Iraq since the war? How strong is its economy? Dictator Saddam
Hussein? Its military?
In the
final days of the Gulf War, most American strategists anticipated that a
decisive Iraqi defeat would lead to a coup against a weakened Saddam Hussein.
These strategists overestimated the damage--both physical and
psychological--inflicted by the war. Saddam remains powerful, and Iraq
repaired major infrastructural damage --to roads, industry, and
communications--within four years of the war.
Economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations have been
more injurious to Iraq than the war was. The sanctions 1) prevent Iraq from
accessing billions held in foreign banks and 2) embargo all trade. Since 1990,
Iraq's gross domestic product has shrunk an average of 35 percent each year.
Inflation is rampant: In 1993, a U.S. dollar fetched 54 Iraqi dinar; today, it
buys approximately 2,500. The Iraqi standard of living has suffered :
More than 20 percent of Iraqis live in poverty, up from 5 percent at the
beginning of the war. And the United Nations estimates that 5,000 children die
each month from malnutrition and disease. The middle class has been hit
especially hard. Crime, prostitution, and black-market trading are also said to
have become endemic.
U.N.
resolutions require that sanctions remain in place until Iraq destroys its
capacity for creating chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons . Last
December, the United Nations eased up on the sanctions, allowing Iraq to sell
$2-billion worth of oil every six months on the condition that the profits go
toward food for Iraq's people and war reparations to Kuwait.
The economic decline has not destabilized
Saddam's regime. This is due largely to its repressive state security
apparatus , which Saddam modeled on the Soviet KGB and East German Stasi in
the '70s. Three major domestic intelligence agencies report directly to him,
and each reports on the other two as well as on civilians. Assassination,
torture, and a network of informers keep the masses in line. Families left
behind by defectors are routinely shot.
Saddam's perpetual war with the United States plays well domestically as
Iraqis continue to stew over the damage left behind by the Gulf War defeat.
Also, Saddam has bolstered Iraqi nationalism by linking his regime with the
ancient Babylonian empire, constructing massive monuments that celebrate the
parallels.
How does Saddam fund these projects?
Speculation: 1) through the covert shipment of oil to Iran; 2) from the
approximately $300-million worth of oil the United Nations lets him sell to
Jordan each year; 3) by skimming funds from the sanctioned sale of $2 billion
in oil that is supposed to buy food for his people; 4) from a secret Swiss bank
account; 5) by playing the oil futures market, which he manipulates by creating
the impression that the United Nations is about to lift the sanctions in reward
for his changed conduct.
Saddam
has no viable opponents. Iraq is dominated by a Sunni Muslim minority,
which crushed a spontaneous 1991 rebellion by the Shiite majority. Since then,
the Shiites have been passive. Saddam's family and tribe, who hold significant
power, could also challenge him. There are rumors that a cousin attempted to
kill him last year. But Saddam has kept the family in line. Following a recent
spat with his son Uday--who heads the state-run TV station and
newspaper--Saddam burned Uday's $16-million antique car collection. When a
son-in-law defected to Jordan in 1995, Saddam enticed him back to Iraq with
promises of forgiveness, but then had him assassinated.
Saddam's other potential adversary --the
Kurdish minority in the north--has been hobbled by infighting and direct
repression. This non-Arab ethnic group makes up 15 percent of Iraq's
population. But the Kurds are too busy fighting one another to threaten Saddam.
Last year, Saddam allied with the Kurdish Democratic Party--which he bombarded
with cyanide and mustard gas in 1988--to seize Irbil, the most important
Kurdish city. This campaign dislodged Western aid workers, several thousand
U.S. troops stationed there, and a CIA outpost . It also provided an
opportunity for Saddam's intelligence groups to infiltrate Kurdish ranks.
Iraq's attack violated the 1991 cease-fire limitations, so the United States
punished it by bombing military targets in the south.
A
30,000-man unit called Saddam's Commandos , led by one of his sons, also
snuffs out unrest. Last summer the unit, which watches for signs of a military
coup, executed 120 soldiers suspected of planning a rebellion.
Since the 1991 cease-fire, U.N. inspectors have largely
disarmed Saddam's nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenal, using random
inspections and surveillance cameras to do their work. During the recent
standoff, Iraq tampered with monitoring equipment, and the fear is that the
Iraqis will use this window to create a cache of chemical weapons. This is not
the first prolonged interruption of inspections. On dozens of occasions, Iraqis
have refused to admit inspectors to facilities. In January 1993, the Bush
administration launched cruise missiles at Baghdad to force compliance.
What
has inspired Saddam's most recent flexing? Having fractured the
international coalition, Saddam no longer fears the prospect of invasion from
the coalition: Nations like France, Russia, and China have sworn to veto any
U.N. military action because they want to protect the post-sanctions oil
deals they've penned with Iraq. These countries only reluctantly agreed to this
week's new U.N. sanctions that bar international travel by Iraqi officials
linked to the inspection dispute. Also, Saddam is taking advantage of the
current Arab backlash against the United States , sparked by the latter's
failure to broker a peace settlement with Israel. Even moderate Egypt has
expressed sympathy for Saddam.
The United States is ready for war ,
having amassed more than 20,000 troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. There are
currently 11 U.S. Navy warships in the Persian Gulf carrying cruise missiles
capable of hitting Baghdad. Iraq has backed down before on its demands that the
U.N. teams leave. The U.S. has never backed down.
Iraq is weak, but it could
still wage a fierce ground war. Its 300,000-strong army is one-third the size
of the one that went into the Gulf War, but it is better trained. Since the
cease-fire, Saddam has continued to build conventional arms for these forces
under the watchful eye of the U.N. inspectors. The inspectors report that Iraq
has a handful of missiles, including SCUDS, capable of traveling 370 miles; and
at least a small stockpile of VX gas , one of the deadliest chemical
weapons. VX gas is banned under the terms of the cease-fire.
