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House Hearing on Iraq
(March 31, 2000)

The US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations held a hearing entitled, "US Policy Toward Iraq" on Thursday, March 23, 2000. Witnesses were:

• David Welch, Asst. Secretary, Bureau of International Organizational Affairs, US Department of State

• Beth Jones, Principal Deputy Asst. Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, US Department of State

• Alina Romanowski, Deputy Asst. Secretary, Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, US Department of Defense

Rep. Gilman chaired the hearing and Representatives Gejdenson, Ackerman, Sanford, Lantos, Rohrabacher, Lee and Cooksey attended. Below are excerpts from the question and answer period.

In his testimony, Rep. Conyors urged the committee to lift the sanctions on Iraq because the humanitarian toll on Iraqi citizens is too great. Conyers said the current policy makes Iraqis feel alone and alienated on the world stage, and is not conducive to promoting regime change and democracy in the country. "We can't achieve democracy by undemocratic means. We can't foster human rights by undermining them. Our sanctions policy is unacceptable," he said.

Conyors suggested an alternative policy that would lift economic sanctions entirely but that would retain, and possibly tighten military ones. The US would continue to scrutinize dual-use items, and would closely monitor Iraq's borders to prevent the entrance of illegal weapons.

He acknowledged that Saddam would get the better end of the deal, and that he was to blame for the suffering of Iraqis, but that this does not abrogate the US responsibility to develop another policy.

In general, members of the committee agreed with Conyors that oil-for-food was a failure, but questioned his alternative policy.

Representative Ackerman expressed concern that once sanctions are lifted Saddam would divert oil revenues directly into the military. But Conyers reiterated that it was possible to delink military and economic sanctions. "If anything, I want to increase military sanctions," he said.

Rep. Sanford was concerned that increasing military sanctions would increase wear and tear on US armed forces that are already strained. But Conyers said military sanctions could be restructured to be more effective.

The three witnesses for the administration followed Conyers and defended the current policy. In his testimony David Welch stressed that he disagreed with Conyer's premise that oil-for-food has failed to address humanitarian problems in Iraq, and urged the committee to continue the current policy. "Oil-for-food is the solution, not the problem," he said.

Welch said that the media and various sources have greatly distorted public perception of oil-for-food, and that the administration's policy is in fact a success. "Containment remains a cost-effective and successful policy, despite what the media says," he said.

He explained that although the Iraqi government has stalled and hampered implementation of oil-for-food at every turn, its beneficial impact is now becoming measurable. He cited an increase in Iraqis' daily caloric intake from 1300 to 2000, and noted that food imports are now at prewar levels.

Welch also touched on progress toward Iraqi disarmament. He was optimistic that the new arms monitoring body, UNMOVIC, could effectively deal with Iraq. He also said Hans Blix was fully qualified to lead the new body. By mid-April, Welch said, Blix would submit a plan for weapons inspections, and if approved by the UN Security Council UNMMOVIC would be set to do its work.

Welch noted that Iraq rejected UN resolution 1284, which created UNMOVIC and called for renewed inspections. But he said the US would continue to work for inspections and will provide all support necessary to do so.

In order to conserve time for questions and answers, neither Beth Jones nor Alina Romanovsky read their testimonies.

In their questions, committee members did not dispute the importance of the oil-for-food program, although they questioned some of the facts associated with it. On the whole, committee members focused on their dissatisfaction with US efforts to disarm Iraq and change its regime.

When asked if US monitoring of the no-fly zones was accomplishing anything, Ms. Romanowsky said they were. "Because Iraq is challenging us we're degrading Iraq's capabilities over time."

In a statement earlier in the hearing Rep. Gilman noted that the administration claims US air power is "degrading" Saddam's capabilities. If so, Gilman said Saddam doesn't seem to care.

Rep. Gejdenson said it was impossible to sustain current US policy without UN Security Council support. He said regardless of whether oil-for-food is viable, the public in the US and abroad sees it as a failure. Therefore it is imperative for the US to develop a new policy.

Gejdenson expressed dismay over the administration's timeframe for regime change, and asked whether it would occur "this millenium or the next." He asked Asst. Secretary Jones if there is "a groundswell of support for the opposition."

Jones said it is difficult to accurately determine support for opposition inside the country because repression in Iraq is so severe.

One member said he felt that supporting the opposition hadn't worked and that "this administration has dropped the ball." But he said Congress could take steps to make US policy be taken more seriously, such as ending the prohibition on assassinating foreign leaders.

The member also commented that in forging any alternative policy, Iraq's holding of over 600 Kuwaiti prisoners should not be forgotten. He said this underscores the brutal nature of Saddam's regime, which refuses to release any information to families of the disappeared.

Below is Rep. Gilman's statement:

Rep. Benjamin Gilman, Chairman of House Committee on International Relations
March 23, 2000

Iraq has been a festering foreign policy problem for our nation for a long time. What most distresses me is that our nation stopped making headway on the problem years ago. Now it seems that, pretty much across the board, we are losing ground to Saddam Hussein.

There have been no international weapons inspections in Iraq for 15 months. There is every reason to believe that Saddam has used this time to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction programs. Three months ago, the U.N. decided to set up a new inspections program, but we all know that threatened vetoes in the U.N. Security Council are likely to prevent this new organization from beginning work in Iraq for many, many months.

Our nation has a policy of containing Saddam militarily. This policy has cost us at least $8 billion since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. It cost over $1.2 billion last year alone.

In December of 1998, we launched Operation Desert Fox to punish Saddam for not cooperating with international weapons inspections. The Administration told us at the time that we had "degraded" Saddam's capabilities, and so the operation was declared a success.

Since then, Saddam has routinely challenged our aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones, and we have retaliated each time with air strikes. Again we are told that this policy is a success because it is "degrading" Saddam's capabilities. Maybe we are degrading his capabilities. But he doesn't seem to mind too much, because he keeps provoking us to degrade him some more.

A year and a half ago, a number of us here in Congress decided to help the President end this problem once and for all by passing the Iraq Liberation Act. This legislation authorized the President to provide $97 million in U.S. military assistance to the democratic opposition to Saddam Hussein. President Clinton welcomed this authority, and in November, 1998, he declared that he was going to use it remove Saddam from power.

Since then, there has been precious little follow-through on the President's commitment. Of the $97 million we authorized in military assistance to the opposition, the only assistance that has actually been provided is training for four men in civil affairs. Of the $18 million we have appropriated on three separate occasions for political assistance to the opposition, not one dime has actually been provided to the opposition, and less than $4 million has been expended on their behalf.

It is no wonder that our allies in the region, to say nothing of members of the opposition itself, question whether the Administration is really serious about its declared policy of removing Saddam from power. If the Administration really is serious about supporting the opposition, there are two things it should do right away.

First, it should immediately deliver to the opposition the assistance that currently is being withheld. The funds we have appropriated for the opposition should immediately be transferred to the opposition, and the military drawdown authority should be invoked to begin providing things like radio transmitters, uniforms, boots, and communications gear.

Second, the Administration should immediately establish a cross-border humanitarian aid program into Iraq, run by the Iraqi opposition.

Such a program could do a lot to ameliorate the plight of the Iraqi people who continue to suffer under Saddam's rule. It could also address the concern that some Members have expressed about the effect of U.N. sanctions on the Iraqi people.

I want to urge the Administration today to take these two steps in order to demonstrate that it stands by President Clinton's November, 1998 pledge to remove Saddam from power.