Confronting Saddam: "Best" and "Worst" Case Scenarios
by
Geoffrey Kemp
From the
March 3, 2002, edition of Al-Ittihad
Washington’s on-going review of Iraq policy remains contentious. While the Bush White House believes Saddam Hussein must be removed from power before the end of the President’s first term in 2005, how and when to topple the regime has not been decided. Likewise whether an American effort will be part of an international coalition or a more unilateral confrontation is unclear.
Three basic plans on Saddam’s ouster are believed to be circulating throughout the administration. The first plan, drawing upon lessons from the recent war in Afghanistan, calls for a short, intense military campaign using overwhelming air power, limited U.S. ground forces, and indigenous and exile Iraqi forces who would provide the spearhead for replacing the regime as it begins to collapse. A second military plan is more conservative and posits a major buildup of U.S. military forces in the region to include upwards of 200,000 U.S. ground forces. Preparation for this level of effort might take a year and is based on the assumption that American forces will have to do most of the fighting on the land as well as in the air to ensure a decisive outcome to the campaign. Whether this operation would include the occupation of Baghdad and what role would be assigned to Iraqi opposition forces are details that have yet to be worked out. This plan would require U.S. access to a number of important military facilities in the Arab world.
The third plan, promoted by the CIA, is to work more intensely to exploit internal dissent in Iraq and promote a coup d’etat within the military that would remove Saddam and his entourage from within. This would avoid the need to use U.S. forces and could be presented to the world as a primarily Iraqi operation.
The most vocal advocates for the early use of force display great optimism as to the ease with which Saddam can be removed and the strategic benefits that would follow. Victory in Iraq would bring a better, more humane government for the Iraqi people and put pressure on Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran, to change their ways especially with respect to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and human rights. Iraq would be a stable, unified country. Over time, a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would be more achievable. An economic boom could follow as billions of dollars of foreign investment flow into Iraq to rebuild the country.
More pessimistic scenarios suggest that unless the U.S.-led operation has international legitimacy, preferably bestowed by the UN Security Council, it will not be supported by the majority of countries currently in the coalition against terrorism. This may not matter if the war is won easily. But what if the operation goes wrong? One concern is that since U.S. policy is to remove the regime, Saddam and his immediate cohorts would have no option but to fight. In these circumstances, they will not be deterred from using whatever weapons of mass destruction are still in their possession. They would probably fire chemical and biological weapons at U.S. forces, Israel, the Kurds, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. If any WMD lands on Israel and causes significant casualties, Israel will likely respond massively, possibly triggering a wider regional war with serious consequences for the stability of key Arab regimes. Second, it might be more difficult to remove the regime in Iraq than the optimists suggest, even if massive force was used. Sustained bombing would surely destroy most of the Iraqi infrastructure, but there is no guarantee it will either destroy the leadership or get rid of all the weapons of mass destruction. A bombing campaign would likely kill many Iraqi civilians, and would create a humanitarian crisis. Occupation of Baghdad could prove to be a costly operation. If, despite the military campaign, Saddam Hussein were to emerge alive and uncaptured the operation would be considered a failure with politically disastrous consequences for Bush.
The economic costs of a major war could be high. In 1991 the United States garnered billions of dollars of financial support for Desert Storm from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Japan and others. This time the U.S. taxpayer would have to pay the bill. A protracted war could cause volatility in the oil market. It could lead to a disruption of supply causing short-term price spikes at a time when the Asian economies are in trouble and the U.S. is just emerging from a recession.
These, then, are two extreme scenarios. Probably any military operation against Iraq will be neither as easy nor as horrendous as the scenarios outlined. Nevertheless there is utility in thinking about "best" cases and "worst" cases. These cases will be discussed in many forums in the coming weeks and months. It is important to have a public and open discussion on the options.
Geoffrey
Kemp is Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center. He
writes a regular column for Al-Ittihad.
