The Weekly Standard
05/24/2002
Going Wobbly?
Is the president backing away from regime change in Iraq?
by William Kristol & Robert Kagan
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/278elset.asp
IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION going wobbly? Is the president preparing to back off the bold pledges he made to the American people four months ago in his State of the Union address? The president warned us then that the clock was ticking in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was working hard to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Bin Laden, al Qaeda, and other terrorists were eager to get their hands on such weapons. And it was only a matter of time before the ultimate horror of terrorists armed with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons confronted us all. Bush proclaimed that he was determined to confront and eliminate this threat, and he called on Americans to gird themselves for the difficult struggle that lay ahead. And he told us time was not on our side. In the weeks and months that followed, Bush repeatedly let it be known, publicly and privately, that he was committed to removing Saddam Hussein from power, and by military force if necessary, which he presumed it would be.
Was it all hot air? On Friday, the Washington Post published a credible report by the respected journalist Tom Ricks that the administration has put off the idea of an invasion of Iraq. Indeed, a military attack on Saddam may never happen at all. It seems that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended against a military operation to remove Saddam, on the grounds that it would be difficult and would require some 200,000 troops. They have also recommended against an operation that combined airstrikes with special operations forces on the ground. In fact, they apparently have argued that the continued "containment" of Saddam--the continuation of the Clinton policy, that is--is sufficient.
There are signs that President Bush and his team may be inclined to accept this recommendation. On Thursday, in Berlin, the president said, "I have no war plans on my desk" and "we've got to use all means at our disposal to deal with Saddam Hussein." An official "familiar with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's thinking" told Ricks that "there are many ways in which [regime change] could come about, only one of which is a military campaign in Iraq."
In other words, the administration may be returning to the idea of containment plus covert operations against Saddam--attempted coups, hoped-for assassination by people close to Saddam, hoped-for spontaneous combustion of his dictatorship, hoped-for serious U.N. inspections. In short, dreamland.
This is the policy of the Clinton administration, the one Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a host of Republicans criticized so vociferously during the 2000 campaign: Keep Saddam "in his box" and pray for a miracle. That is what Clinton did for eight years. The CIA tried to foment coups, to support plots against Saddam, and they all failed. Plotters were caught and executed. American agents were rounded up and executed. And at the end of Clinton's term, Saddam was alive and kicking.