A Little History on Iraq and the Balkans

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A Little History on Iraq and the Balkans

 

 

 

 

Thursday, February 27, 2003; Page A26

 

 

Richard C. Holbrooke was right last summer when he argued that the United States should seek a U.N. resolution on Iraq. And he was right last Sunday ["It Didn't Have to Be This Way," op-ed, Feb. 23] when he said (in effect) that the United States should be prepared to use military force against Iraq, even without a new resolution from the Security Council.

 

But he was wrong when he suggested that the first Bush administration bears responsibility for the "failure to finish [saddam Hussein] off in 1991, [which] was one of the most significant errors in modern American history, no matter what the rationale offered for limiting Desert Storm to the liberation of Kuwait."

 

The reality of February 1991 is that the United States had authority and support from the United Nations, Congress and an unprecedented international coalition -- including the former Soviet Union and most Arab nations -- to eject Iraq from Kuwait, but not to occupy Iraq or overthrow Saddam Hussein. One reason we didn't have -- and could not have won -- support for a broader mission is that a majority of congressional Democrats (Ambassador Holbrooke's party) opposed military action, as many of them do even today.

 

On another occasion, Ambassador Holbrooke said, "The first Bush administration understood [the need to seek U.N. support] perfectly in 1991, perhaps because George Herbert Walker Bush had once served as the American ambassador to the United Nations. Secretary of State James Baker and the American ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Pickering, skillfully built international support through votes in the Security Council before Operation Desert Storm" ["Take It to the Security Council," op-ed, Aug. 27].

 

Which was it then? An error of historic proportions? Or the natural consequence of "skillfully built international support"?

 

There are just two choices here. Either we should have sought clear authority from the United Nations and Congress to occupy Iraq, the only way to finish off Saddam Hussein (in which case there would have been no U.N. support and probably no congressional support, leaving us with a very small coalition and a great deal of domestic and international opposition), or we should have ignored the United Nations and Congress and gone ahead anyway and occupied Iraq (again -- the only way to get Saddam Hussein), which seems to be Ambassador Holbrooke's suggestion and which is a curious position, to say the least, for a former U.N. ambassador.

 

What we need today is bipartisan consensus on the use of force against Iraq. We can leave it to historians to sort out the ultimate responsibilities between the Bush administration, which fought the Gulf War, and the Clinton administration, which had the obligation to make containment work and to implement its own declared policy of regime change.

 

JAMES A. BAKER III

 

Houston

 

The writer was secretary of state from 1989 to 1992.

 

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Former ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke suggests that the Clinton administration's handling of the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo should be a model for President Bush as he seeks to bring Iraq into compliance with U.N. resolutions demanding disarmament.

 

For those of us who were involved in Balkans policy from the early 1990s and who worked to influence the Clinton administration, I shudder to think what the consequences would be if we repeated the mistakes that were made then.

 

The 1995 NATO airstrikes that Ambassador Holbrooke favorably recalls were the administration's reaction to overwhelming congressional pressure to lift the arms embargo so the Bosnians could defend themselves against Serbian attack. In July, the Senate voted by a two-thirds majority to reverse President Clinton's policy of adhering to the U.N. prohibition on arms sales and transfers to the beleaguered Bosnians. Only after the Senate's action did the administration finally urge our NATO allies to initiate the air campaign against Serbian forces.

 

The airstrikes came three years after the Bosnians were first attacked by the war machine of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic. By then, more than 250,000 Bosnians had been killed, and more than 2 million others -- out of a total population of 4 million -- had been driven from their homes.

 

If NATO's military action had in fact been "powerful," as Ambassador Holbrooke characterizes it, the United States might have been able to craft a more durable and workable peace in Bosnia. While I agree that failing to finish off Saddam Hussein in 1991 was a mistake, I also recall that the Dayton agreement not only failed to finish off Slobodan Milosevic but also made him an essential "partner" in the peace process.

 

The charge that President Bush has been unable to maintain America's historical leadership in NATO is false. Fifteen of the alliance's 18 other member countries support the United States. Many others outside NATO have also offered their support. The opposition of France and Germany (not to mention, if you will forgive me, Belgium) to military action reflects their ambitions to lead Europe more than a genuine calculation of strategic interests and considerations.

 

As for its continuing efforts at the United Nations, this administration has tried to convince the Security Council of the realities of Saddam Hussein's defiance precisely because it is the council that has passed 17 resolutions calling for Iraq's disarmament. The credibility of the United Nations is on the line -- not that of the United States.

 

BOB DOLE

 

Washington

 

The writer is a former Senate majority leader and was the 1996 Republican nominee for president.