MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY
WINTER 2002
How to Free Iraq
By:  Michael Rubin

On September 11, the world changed—or at least some of it did. Iraq did not. While the rest
of the world mourned, or at least nominally condemned the terrorist attack, Iraqi president
Saddam Husayn gloated. It is no surprise that Saddam would revel in the suffering of
Americans. In doing so, he reminded the United States that Iraq remains a potential haven
for terrorist networks, and a potential source of terrorism itself. Moreover, Saddam has assets
the Taliban do not: he can leak sophisticated chemical and biological weapons to terrorist
clients, or at some point deploy them himself. As the U.S. government debates how far to
take the “war against terror,” it should not lose sight of Saddam, a man whose rage runs as
deep as Usama bin Ladin’s. His removed is not only desirable; it may be more feasible than
ever. True, more than a decade after the United Nations imposed sanctions on the Iraqi
regime, Saddam still rules. But Iraqis who are beyond the grasp of Saddam—particularly
those residing in the north of the country in areas protected by the U.S.- and British-enforced
no-fly zone—are not without hope. Indeed, they believe that removing Saddam from power
may not be as difficult as many media commentators and State Department bureaucrats
seem to think. 

That sentiment is based on growing evidence for the demoralization of the Iraqi military. In
December 2000, Iraqi troops invaded the northern safe haven, surrounding the town of
Baadre, halfway between Dahuk and Irbil. According to residents of Baadre, when U.S. or
British warplanes flew low over the Iraqi lines, 138 Iraqi troops threw down their weapons
and surrendered. 

The Baadre incident was not the first, nor will it likely be the last, to expose poor Iraqi
military morale. In April 1995, Saddam dismissed Iraq’s army chief of staff after a mass
defection of Iraqi soldiers to the opposition.  According to recent reports out of Iraq, when
Saddam ordered compulsory military training camps for children on summer vacation from
school, many families tried to hide their sons. Such problems are usually cloaked by
Saddam’s complete control over Iraqi media, and it is not easy to pinpoint sources of
discontent. But many more Iraqi soldiers would be prepared to defect or lay down their
arms—if they had a guarantee of safety. They certainly will not defect if it means facing a
firing squad because the United States either refuses to support an opposition or fails to
provide a strong guarantee of protection for the safe-haven in northern Iraq.

Many Iraqi soldiers would be prepared to defect or lay down their arms—if they had a
guarantee of safety.

In short, the emergence of cracks in the Iraqi army will depend to a large extent on U.S.
willingness to show Iraqis the kind of resolve they have come not to expect from
Washington. Restoring American credibility will not be an easy task. But in my own
conversations with Iraqis, especially during nine months spent in northern Iraq, my
interlocutors may have expressed disillusionment with U.S. policy, but few had despaired.
Winning their confidence is still possible, but it will require concrete steps against the regime
in Baghdad. Any and all of the following measures could effectively lay the groundwork for
a policy that has become an imperative: the removal of Saddam, before it is too late.

I. Impose a No-Drive Zone

Perhaps the clearest and most visible red line that the United States could impose upon Iraq
would be a “no-drive zone” to supplement the existing no-fly zones. In theory, a no-drive
zone has existed in southern Iraq since 1994; it was announced after a deployment of Iraqi
ground forces to the Kuwait border. In practice, however, the United States does not enforce
such a zone. The result is that while Washington insists there are clearly defined red lines,
Iraqis I interviewed simply do not see them. 

The no-fly zones themselves are actually quite limited. The northern no-fly zone
encompasses the region north of the 36th parallel, or only approximately half of the area
under Kurdish control. Even there, the no-fly provisions technically only apply to fixed-wing
aircraft. In theory, Saddam would be free to use helicopters and tanks against his own people
in the region, just as he did in 1988, 1991, and 1996  The creation of no-drive zones simply
would state that the Iraqi government may not use tanks, armored personnel carriers, or
other vehicles of war in both northern and southern Iraq, where the Baghdad regime has used
them previously to murder civilians. While analysts debate the accuracy of air strikes against
armor, there is no doubt that air strikes can degrade it. While estimates vary, during the air
campaign over Kosovo, approximately 9,700 air sorties dropped bombs that destroyed
between 30 and 40 percent of Serb tanks. The success rate would be considerably higher in
southern Iraq, where it is more difficult to conceal tanks than in Kosovo.   While some will
argue that Saddam could simply hide his tanks, hidden tanks cannot be used to massacre
civilians. Ideally, the coalition could expand the no-fly and no-drive zones into military
exclusion zones in which Iraqi soldiers could not operate. 

If Saddam’s control is removed from the borders of Iraq, not only will he pose less of a threat
to his neighbors, he will also have considerably less access to income derived from
smuggling. In turn, his ability to buy the loyalty of key officials will decline. At the very
least, even if Saddam retains control of Baghdad, the scale of the humanitarian tragedy he
could precipitate will be greatly reduced. No-drive or military exclusion zones would also
provide a safe haven for humanitarian groups and the United Nations (U.N.) to distribute
food and medical aid directly in the predominantly Shi‘ite cities like Basra and Nasiriyah,
which are suffering because of Saddam’s refusal to distribute food or invest in water
purifiers. 

Of course, enforcement of effective no-drive zones would require additional commitments of
U.S. assets in the region. The United States currently stations aircraft at Incirlik airbase in
Turkey and in Saudi Arabia. Washington would have to get the approval of Turkey and
Saudi Arabia for further expansion (though the latter is less crucial because U.S. planes
could operate from the Persian Gulf). President Bush’s war against terrorism could provide
an opportunity to secure this expansion, provided the United States demonstrates its firm
resolve.

II. Back an Insurrection 

There is no quick fix for Iraq. While a coup might at first blush seem an easy way to get rid
of Saddam, few Iraqis interviewed in the safe-haven felt that it would have any chance of
success. Senior officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), as well as
commanders in the peshmurga (Kurdish militia, literally, “those who face death”) repeatedly
indicated that Iraqi command control makes a coup d’état impossible. To move any Iraqi
division requires approvals not only from the military commander, but also from the Ba‘th
party political commissar and the intelligence chief. Even if the division receives permission
to move, ammunition is transferred separately.  Iraqis indicate that an insurrection would be
successful, so long as real safe-havens existed into which defecting Iraqi soldiers and
civilians could flee. The Kurds have a strong history of resistance. One senior Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) leader explained, “We can fight against soldiers, tanks, and even
helicopters, but we can’t fight poison gas.”  While some opponents of U.S. policy on Iraq
insist that sanctions actually strengthen Saddam by allowing him to buy support with
smuggling income, the reverse is equally true. Both the PUK and KDP are able to buy assets
in the intelligence services and Ba‘th party apparatuses in Saddam-controlled cities like
Kirkuk, Mosul, and Baghdad. 

If the U.S. government decided to arm the opposition with tanks and heavy weaponry (and
perhaps provide air support), Iraqi opposition forces could likely sweep through most of the
country. The chief obstacle would be Saddam’s elite, well-fed and well-equipped Republican
Guard. However, the Republican Guard is deployed backwards to protect Baghdad and can
be neutralized with precision bombing, just as in 1991. While coalition forces flew 40,000
strike sorties in thirty days during the Kuwait war, action required against the Republican
Guard would be considerably more limited, as the objective of neutralizing the elite units is
much narrower in scope than the war aims of one decade ago. With tanks and heavy
weaponry, Iraqi opposition forces could likely sweep through most of the country.

Washington must also not shy away from providing lethal assistance. If opponents of U.S.
air action complain that airpower alone is not able to defend Iraq’s civilian population
against Iraqi government tanks, then the U.S. government should supply and train Iraqi
opposition forces in anti-tank weaponry. In any insurgency, Iraqi lives will be on
the line, and so Iraqis should have the means to defend themselves.  There is also a precedent
for providing lethal assistance. In the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks,
the United States has made public its assistance to Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance. Like the
Northern Alliance, the Iraqi opposition is fighting against a dangerous and unpopular regime
with a demonstrated capability to wreak havoc. As with the Iraqi Kurds, the Northern
Alliance has a sorry history of internal division. But in view of the more important objective,
the United States has decided to make life difficult for the Taliban. Washington should do no
less for Saddam, through support of the Kurds. 

III. Support Unity

If the United States decides to commit itself to freeing the Iraqi people from the yoke of an
oppressive dictatorship, then it should support a united Iraqi opposition. 

Surprisingly, this has long been a bone of contention in policy circles. There is great division
over who should lead such an opposition. Ahmad Chalabi is the head of the Iraqi National
Congress, an umbrella organization of diverse opposition groups. Some State Department
and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials treat Chalabi with disdain. They argue that
he has no popular legitimacy and allege past financial impropriety. It is true that in Iraqi
Kurdistan, few persons expressed support for Chalabi, but when asked why, the response
was often “because the U.S. does not support him.” In an interview I conducted with Jalal
Talabani (see page 19), he indicated that the opposition read the CIA’s failure to back
Chalabi as lack of faith in the opposition itself.  

Allegations against Chalabi and other opposition figures should not disqualify them in
Washington’s eyes. Simply put, a perfect ready-made opposition does not exist, nor is it wise
to wait for one to appear. Saddam has used chemical weapons against his own people, and
killed 182,000 civilians in an orgy of violence in 1988 alone. He has started two wars.
Compared to that record, should the State Department in effect maintain Saddam’s regime
because of quibbling concerns over propriety? Likewise, some argue that no real, mature
opposition exists which could absorb and leverage U.S. support. The skepticism is
unwarranted. Before the United States, Britain, and Turkey created the northern safe-haven
in 1991, neither the PUK nor the KDP had ever demonstrated an ability to govern. Once
given the chance, however, they blossomed, and the areas under their control enjoy a
standard of living far above that of Saddam’s own parts of Iraq.

Another pointless U.S. policy debate has revolved around whether the United States should
support a single opposition group or several. In a nutshell, it would be dangerous to support
several uncoordinated opposition groups. Each group must have a stake in a future Iraqi
government. But support for anything but a single united opposition could lay the
groundwork for a future civil war. Support for anything but a single united opposition could
lay the groundwork for a future civil war.

IV. Indict Saddam

Saddam must not only be countered militarily. He must be exposed for what he is:  perhaps
the worst at-large war criminal. Now that the U.N. has pursued war crimes trials against the
perpetrators of ethnic cleansing or genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, it is time
to consider bringing Saddam up on similar charges.

Inexcusably, the United Nations has initiated no similar investigation of the crimes of
Saddam and his government in Iraq. And the evidence against Saddam is greater. Many sites
of Saddam’s 1988 chemical weapons attacks are within the northern Iraqi safe-haven and
accessible to investigators. According to officials in the safe-haven, since 1991 Saddam’s
forces have expelled almost 200,000 Iraqis from their homes solely for reasons of ethnicity,
transferring their property to members of the Ba‘th party. If those evicted and abused prior to
1991 are counted, more than 800,000 of the approximately 3.5 million residents of northern
Iraq are internal refugees. Each and every one of these persons is a potential witness in a war
crimes tribunal, as are the dozens more who stream into the safe haven every week. In
addition, Kuwait and the United States acquired large numbers of incriminating documents
when they liberated Kuwait, and the Kurds found still more when they seized Ba‘th party
buildings during the 1991 revolt. (Many of these documents are openly available to
researchers in the United States.)

The war crimes issue is Saddam’s Achilles’ heel and a potentially valuable tool in a
campaign against him. At present, the Qatar-based pan-Arab al-Jazira television broadcasts
stories of alleged Iraqi suffering under the sanctions. Were a war crimes tribunal convened to
try Saddam in absentia, the media would be forced to carry testimony of Iranians, Kurds,
and Arabs describing their mistreatment at the hands of the Iraqi regime. The tales are true,
and they are harrowing.

Ending Saddam

The four measures outlined above constitute the skeleton of a program for removing Saddam
from power. It is impossible to prescribe precise modalities. Some steps will be harder to
take than others. Implementation will pose unexpected problems. But in a general way, the
program is eminently feasible. And in any case, it is an American imperative.

The United States and the Iraqi people no longer have the luxury of maintaining the status
quo. Time is running out. Each day that Saddam remains in power is a day during which he
can solidify the chance for his son, Qusayy, to succeed him. And as soon as Saddam tests a
nuclear weapon in the Iraqi desert, he will have established a deterrent that will enable him
to repeat his Kuwait adventure with near impunity. Now is the time to build a head of steam
for a campaign to remove Saddam. September 11 has helped to persuade the region that the
United States isn’t going to take it anymore. Even onerous regimes are eager or willing to be
part of the U.S. coalition against Usama bin Ladin’s terrorism. Under resolute U.S.
leadership, some of this spirit could be mobilized against Iraq.
 
But in Ankara, Amman, Kuwait City, and Riyadh, they are waiting to hear whether a new
resolve will replace the old mantra of containment. From their point of view, Saddam’s Iraq
is like a hornet’s nest—they want to get rid of it, but they would rather leave it undisturbed
than strike it once or twice, only provoking the ire of its wasps. They want to see a plan that
is focused, determined, and close-ended. If the United States can produce one, its regional
allies will fall into line. History rarely gives nations a second chance to undo mistakes. But
this time it has, and the United States should be determined not to miss it.

Michael Rubin is a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has
recently return from nine months in northern Iraq, where he was a fellow of the Carnegie
Council on Ethics and International Affairs, teaching in the region’s three universities.
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