The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
737.
All No-Fly
Zone patrols were suspended during Operation Desert Fox and
France
withdrew
from operations stating that the aim was no longer humanitarian. US
and UK
patrols
resumed in the southern zone on 22 December 1998 and in the
northern zone
on 28 December.
738.
In a speech on
Iraq on 23 December, Mr Berger dismissed the proposition
that the
threat from
Saddam Hussein could be downgraded, stating that his “external
aggression
and
internal repression” still posed a “genuine threat to his
neighbours and the world”.289
Saddam
Hussein had proved he sought WMD “not for some abstract concept
of
deterrence,
but for the very real purpose of using them”. His “history of
aggression” left
“little
doubt that he would resume his drive for regional domination and
his quest for
weapons of
mass destruction if he had the chance”.
739.
The US had
“met that threat with a consistent policy of containment”. In the
face of
“periodic
challenges”, this strategy had “essentially held Saddam Hussein in
check”. But
“over the
past year in particular”, he had “tried to cripple the UN
inspection system” and:
“If Saddam
could eviscerate UNSCOM without a firm response, not only would
there
be no
effective UNSCOM; there would be no deterrence against future
aggression
because the
threat of force would no longer be credible. And there would be
no
prospect
for keeping his program of weapons of mass destruction in
check.”
740.
Mr Berger
admitted that Iraq could not be disarmed from the air “as precisely
as we
can from
the ground”, but inspections had been “thwarted” by Saddam: for
“much of the
last year”,
Iraq had only allowed UNSCOM to look where it knew there was
nothing to
be found.
741.
Mr Berger
stated that the purpose of Operation Desert Fox had not been
to
“dislodge
Saddam from power”, and ruled out the idea of deploying American
ground
troops:
“The only
sure way for us to effect his [Saddam Hussein’s] departure now
would
be to
commit hundreds of thousands of American troops to fight on the
ground
inside
Iraq. I do not believe that the costs of such a campaign would be
sustainable
at home or
abroad. And the reward of success would be an American
military
occupation
of Iraq that could last years.”
742.
Addressing the
policy for the future, Mr Berger stated that the strategy the
US
could and
would pursue was, therefore, to:
“… contain
Saddam in the short and medium term, by force if necessary,
and
to work
toward a new government over the long term.”
289
Speech to
the National Press Club by Samuel (Sandy) Berger, National Security
Advisor to the
President,
23 December 1998.
162