Louis Proyect quoting the New Yorker article: > The idea of overthrowing Saddam is not an idle fantasy-or, if it is, > it's one that has lately occupied the minds of many American officials, > including people close to George W. Bush. In 1998, during the period > when Saddam was resisting the international inspection team that was > trying to make sure he wasn't manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, > Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Iraq Liberation Act, > which made available ninety-seven million dollars in government aid to > organizations dedicated to the overthrow of Saddam. Two of the act's > co-sponsors were Senators Trent Lott and Joseph Lieberman-not peripheral > figures on Capitol Hill. Clinton was unenthusiastic about the Iraq > Liberation Act and has spent almost none of the money it provides, but > Al Gore, during the Presidential campaign, put some distance between > himself and Clinton on the issue of removing Saddam. In the second > Presidential debate, after defending his Administration's Iraq record, > he said, "I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the > groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein." --------------------------- But this -- the Iraq Liberation Act -- is old news. It's well established that it was under the Clinton admin that the Iraq policy shifted from containment to the overthrow of Saddam. But this was to be accomplished via an internal military coup using Iraqi exile groups as a conduit, with the conditions for such to be created by economic sanctions, acting in conjunction with the UN and the Europeans. It was also, as the article notes, a back burner issue for the Democrats.
As we know, the Republicans made overthrowing the Baathist regime a foreign policy priority. They decided to invade and occupy Iraq with US forces, forcefully breaking with the US foreign policy establishment, the UN, and the Europeans over this matter. Gore, again as the article notes, continued with the Clinton line of "support to groups" inside Iraq. Whether you think invasion/occupation versus sanctions/subversion represents only a nuance of difference or is more significant than that is a matter of judgment, of course. Certainly, you can make a case that the sanctions cost many lives -- perhaps as many or more than the invasion and subsequent occupation. But I think, if forced to choose, the Iraqis would still have preferred to continue contesting and evading the sanctions rather than face occupation by an invading American army. To be sure, I haven't seen any evidence of Iraqis shrugging their shoulders and dismissing the US invasion as being "really no different" than the UN sanctions. I've only seen this view expressed by a minority of the US left which appears to dismiss that there are any differences within the American ruling class and between states which can and should be exploited in the interest of the world's peoples. Marv Gandall
