Prevention, Not Intervention:
Curbing the Nuclear Threat In Iraq and Beyond
By
William D. Hartung
NEW
YORK -- Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent dramatic presentation
at the United Nations Security Council may signal the final
phase of the Bush administration's drive toward war with Iraq,
which could begin as early as next month. The administration
seems intent on going to war regardless of opposition from key
allies and international public opinion.
But
before we launch a war that could cost tens of billions of dollars
and thousands of American and Iraqi lives, we should take one
last, hard look at whether U.S. security interests can be better
protected by preventive diplomacy than by "preemptive" military
strikes.
Secretary
Powell's presentation was instructive in this regard, as
much for what he failed to say as for what he actually said.
He provided documentation of Iraqi efforts to evade United Nations
weapons inspectors. But, as a new report
from the Fourth Freedom Forum demonstrates in convincing
detail, the Secretary of State provided no credible new evidence
to suggest that Iraq has made significant progress towards developing
nuclear weapons, or that it currently possesses a significant,
workable arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.
Because
nuclear weapons are so much more devastating than chemical or
biological weapons, Iraq's lack of a nuclear capability - or
the means to develop one any time soon - is central to the question
of whether it poses an immediate threat to the security of his
neighbors or the world.
The
"Points Not Proven"
Upon
careful inspection, Powell's briefing also made no claim that
Iraq has operational links
with Al Qaeda that would lead Saddam Hussein to share nuclear,
chemical, or biological weapons technology with Osama Bin Laden's
terrorist network.
These
"points not proven" are critical for the simple reason that
allegations regarding Iraq's nuclear capabilities and its willingness
to share nuclear weapons with terrorists have, until recently,
formed the core of the Bush administration's case for going
to war with Iraq. As President Bush put it in his October
2002 speech in Cincinnati, the United States cannot wait
for diplomacy to work in Iraq because "terror cells and outlaw
regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction are different faces
of the same evil." Therefore, Bush argued, "we cannot wait for
. . . the smoking gun . . . that could come in the form of a
mushroom cloud."
The
trigger for war shouldn't be whether Saddam Hussein is a bad
man - he clearly is. It should be whether he poses an imminent
threat to the United States. It is here that the Pentagon's
newfound enthusiasm for launching "wars
of counterproliferation" shows its inherent flaws.
Attacking
Iraq Won't Stop Terrorist Groups
Overthrowing
Saddam Hussein will have virtually no impact on the future ability
of Al Qaeda or some other terrorist group to get its hands on
a nuclear weapon. Just as Willie Sutton robbed banks because
"that's where the money is," a terror network intent on gaining
access to nuclear weapons or the ingredients thereof is likely
to go
where the bombs are.
Bribing
an underpaid Russian security guard or infiltrating the Pakistani
nuclear program are far more promising avenues for terrorists
seeking a nuclear weapon than cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein's
regime. Yet even as the Bush administration prepares for a costly
conflict in Iraq, it has failed to intensify efforts to shut
off these other more dangerous paths of potential nuclear proliferation.
The
Best Way to Prevent of Weapons of Mass Destruction
In
January 2001, a bipartisan task force chaired by former Senate
majority leader Howard Baker and former White House counsel
Lloyd Cutler reported that "the most urgent national security
threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons
of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could
be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and
used against American troops abroad or American citizens at
home." The
Baker-Cutler Task Force recommended a $3 billion-per-year,
ten year program to accelerate the safeguarding, destruction,
or neutralization of Russia's vast nuclear stockpile, which
is estimated to include up to 40,000 strategic and tactical
nuclear weapons plus enough bomb-grade uranium and plutonium
to build tens of thousands more.
The
Bush administration has dragged its feet in implementing task
force recommendations. We spend about $1
billion per year on non-proliferation programs, less than
one-third of the recommended levels. For just $3 billion - the
cost of roughly two to three weeks of the Bush administration's
proposed war in Iraq - non-proliferation funding could be tripled.
We could initiate a new global non-proliferation fund designed
to secure nuclear materials in all nations of proliferation
concern could be initiated.
Diplomacy
as a More Effective "Weapon" Against Proliferation
Keeping
nuclear weapons out of the hands of aggressive regimes and terrorist
groups will require the use of a powerful foreign policy tool
that the Bush administration has never been entirely comfortable
with - concerted, consistent international diplomacy. It will
involve strengthening, rather than rejecting, the existing networks
of treaties and bilateral agreements - notably the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty - that have kept nuclear weapons
from becoming a far more pervasive problem. And it will require
the systematic reduction of global stores of nuclear weapons
and nuclear materials to the lowest possible levels.
Going
to war in Iraq - particularly if it is done over the objections
of key members of the United Nations Security Council - will
make it much more difficult to pursue these essential non-proliferation
objectives.
Proven
Alternative Ways to Deal with Iraq
Thankfully,
there is an alternative in Iraq. The United Nations inspection
process has achieved far more than is popularly understood,
despite determined resistance from Saddam Hussein. A 1999
report by a United Nations experts panel concluded that
as of that point, "the bulk of Iraq's proscribed weapons programs
[had] been eliminated." And as former UN chief inspector Rolf
Ekeus noted earlier this month, it is more likely that Saddam
Hussein is engaged in trying to hide the "pathetic remnants"
of his once robust chemical and biological weapons programs
than that he has made any significant strides on those fronts
in recent years.
Stepped
up inspections and monitoring, combined with active cooperation
between the United States and UN inspectors, should be more
than adequate to ensure that what remains of Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction capabilities is eliminated. That will free
up resources and diplomatic energy to focus on the much more
serious threats of global nuclear proliferation and stateless
terrorism, both of which have taken a back seat to the Bush
administration's obsession with overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
William
D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the World Policy
Institute. This essay is adapted from a longer in the Winter
2002/2003 edition of the World Policy Journal.
©
2002 New York University. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat
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Peace, and the News Media, provides editors with commentary
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