Confronting Saddam Hussein by Melvyn P. Leffler

Author:Melvyn P. Leffler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

Resolve

In his brief radio address to the nation on Saturday morning, November 9, 2002, President George W. Bush praised the UN Security Council for the passage of Resolution 1411. It meant, Bush declared, that “the Iraqi regime had to declare and destroy all weapons of mass destruction or face the consequences.” The resolution, he explained, “presents the Iraqi regime with a test, a final test. Iraq must now, without delay or negotiations, give up its weapons of mass destruction, welcome full inspections, and fundamentally change the approach it has taken for more than a decade. The regime must allow immediate and unrestricted access to every site, every document, and every person identified by inspectors.” The old game of “cheat-and-retreat” was over. The president would no longer tolerate acts of defiance. “If Iraq fails to fully comply with the UN resolution, the United States, in coalition with other nations, will disarm Saddam Hussein.”1

The Iraqi regime remained opaque and conflicted. In a speech sent to the Iraqi National Assembly, Saddam Hussein’s powerful son, Uday, denounced UN Security Council Resolution 1441. On November 12, the members of the National Assembly voted unanimously to reject it and sent their recommendation to the governing Revolutionary Command Council over which his father presided. Sadoun Sammadi, the speaker for the National Assembly, said the resolution was simply a pretext for US aggression. Foreign Minister Naji Sabri called on the Arab League to help his country thwart colonial aggression. But on November 13, in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Sabri reversed himself. Iraq would welcome the inspectors and cooperate with them. Once they affirmed that no weapons of mass destruction existed, the Iraqi regime assumed sanctions would be lifted. The lies and manipulations of the British and American governments—their history of “injustice and destruction”—would be exposed to all humanity.2

The Iraqi dictator himself was cagey, secretive, opportunistic, and manipulative. He thought he could outsmart and defy the Americans. He did not think the Bush administration would use force to remove his regime. Believing that Washington had no good reason to invade Iraq—the United States, in his view, already had a position of preponderance in the region and he was sure they knew he had no weapons of mass destruction—he calculated that the Americans were playing a game of bluff with him. They wanted to intimidate and force him to flee, but he was confident they would not invade and risk casualties. Americans were cowardly, he believed; they did not have the stomach for bloody battles, mutilated warriors, and body bags. Hussein ruminated with his lieutenants about how the United States had pulled out of Somalia after only a few soldiers had been killed and how they waged war in the Balkans with air power. In 1991, they did not march to Baghdad because they were afraid he would use chemical weapons, and in 1993, even after he tried to assassinate Bush’s father during a post-presidential visit to Kuwait, President Bill Clinton simply blew up his intelligence headquarters. To the Iraqi dictator, this act did not seem bold, but cowardly.

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